Phil Spencer declares that the costs of including this feature would imply raising the sale price of the console, scheduled for Christmas 2020.
Phil Spencer, Microsoft vice president and head of the Xbox division, explained in a meeting with IGN the reason why the Xbox Series X will not include an optical audio port. The absence of the feature, which is present in the Xbox One family of consoles, is due to a very simple reason: costs.
The price of the powerful new Redmond machine is unknown, a figure that will be attractive and that will keep Microsoft "agile" when it comes to making a decisive decision in the commercial area. But before closing that price it is necessary to know how much it costs to manufacture as a whole each unit of the console, including all the components.
One that they have dispensed with is the optical audio port, which is frequently used in Home Cinema sound systems to watch movies at home with the best sound quality; although it is no longer a standard as widespread as that of the HDMI port, which transfers both audio and video in high quality. The quality debate between both types of entries is still there, but Microsoft has preferred to opt only for the second and have it all unified.
Phil Spencer during the Xbox Series X presentation at The Game Awards 2019
Xbox Series X will bet on HDMI 2.1 and Dolby Atmos sound
"If you look at a single part of a console that costs maybe a dollar or two, you say, 'OK, but how important is this to the console?' But that (the console) costs hundreds of dollars, "he begins by saying. When you have in mind that tens of millions of units are sold, the cost skyrockets. Take the example of selling about 100 million units of a given product; If each unit includes that component that hardly costs a couple of dollars, in total we would be talking about a cost for the company of 200 million dollars.
Since it is not a port that many people are going to use, but a small group of consumers, they have preferred to ignore it in the machine's chassis to "find a better place to invest that money," says Spencer.
All in all, it's confirmed that Xbox Series X will include an HDMI 2.1 port that supports Dolby Atmos, an exclusive console feature that will rival 3D Sound also confirmed by Sony for PS5.
You can find here the final technical specifications of Xbox Series X, which will go on sale at Christmas 2020 at an unknown price. In this report we cover everything we know about the machine.
