Ex-Microsoft and Blizzard Exec Says New Xbox Is Basically a PC — And That Could Explain World of Warcraft's Addon Crackdown
Casual WoW Inc. wants epic worlds without the all-nighters, betting that bite-size play can deliver big-world thrills without the grind.
Microsoft might be blurring the lines between console and PC with its next Xbox, and one former exec is already calling it what it looks like: a computer in console clothing. There is also a spicy World of Warcraft angle in here, because of course there is.
What kicked this off
Windows Central posted a rundown on what the next Xbox might be, and the pitch sure sounds PC-ish. The report describes an 'Xbox Full Screen Experience' that resembles SteamOS and Big Picture Mode, plus the ability to pop out of that shell and drop into standard Windows like you would on a laptop or desktop. The piece also claims the box would run Battle.net and World of Warcraft natively — something current consoles do not do, because, well, they are not Windows PCs.
- A full-screen Xbox interface akin to SteamOS/Big Picture
- An option to exit that UI and access regular Windows
- Support for Battle.net and World of Warcraft out of the box
- A console that increasingly behaves like a Windows PC
Mike Ybarra says the quiet part out loud
Mike Ybarra — former Blizzard Entertainment president and, before that, an Xbox corporate VP — reacted to the Windows Central report with a straight shot. He posted this on Oct 27, 2025:
'First off, the next "Xbox consoles" are just PCs. Which is fine. But maybe this is why they are killing addons. Casual WoW inc.'
Translation: if the next Xbox is basically a Windows machine that can run WoW, maybe that is part of why Blizzard is clamping down on the mod scene.
About those WoW addons
If you have not been following the WoW side of things: Blizzard has already said it plans to remove combat mods and start phasing them out when Midnight, the next expansion, launches. These are the long-standing addons that handle stuff like meters and boss timers. Blizzard framed the move as leveling the playing field. Ybarra clearly is not buying the 'leveling' part, at least not as the whole reason — hence the 'Casual WoW' jab.
The pushback
Not everyone agrees with Ybarra. The top reply under his post made the case that PC players will still be able to run addons anyway, and that Blizzard upgrading the base UI to cover the most-used features — damage meters, boss timers, upgraded nameplates, better cooldown and buff tracking — is healthier for the game overall. Others argued that even if the next Xbox is a PC at heart, it would still be unique because it could play your Xbox console library. In their words: no standard PC can do that today.
Where this lands
Plenty of industry folks are looking at the same tea leaves and seeing a PC-like Xbox, but it is all still unofficial. If Windows Central is right, the hardware sounds less like a traditional console and more like a Windows box with an Xbox coat of paint. That could be great for flexibility, weird for identity, and very convenient for WoW players — assuming all of this pans out. We will not really know what Microsoft is building until they actually show it off.