It’s been an extremely interesting few days for Microsoft as a company for very different reasons on very different parts of the business. It was only yesterday that the company announced that Satya Nadella’s first big acquisition as CEO would be a $26.2 billion purchase of professional networking site LinkedIn. And now, as part of the E3 Conference in Los Angeles, the company has announced that a new addition will be born into the Xbox family as part of the company’s long-rumored Project Scorpio.
This will be the biggest update to Xbox since the original which was released around fourteen years ago back in the year 2001.
The initial announcement of the brand-new Xbox One S, which will be a lot slimmer and thinner than the existing Xbox One and will retail from just $299, has now been followed on by the announcement that Project Scorpio is indeed coming to the public, and that it will be much more than just a simple device refresh.
According to Xbox chief Phil Spencer when speaking to The Verge:
The important thing for Scorpio is that it’s a dramatic step up for us in terms of hardware capability. Because as we saw 4K gaming and really high-end VR taking off in the PC space, we wanted to be able to bring that to console. Project Scorpio is actually an Xbox One that can natively run games in 4K and is built with the hardware capabilities to support the high-end VR that you see happening in the PC space today… when it ships it will be the most powerful console ever built.
The most powerful console ever built. Allow those words to sink in. That power will include the ability to run games natively in 4K, as well as offering impressive support for virtual reality-based experiences that should be on par with what the PC market is able to achieve with high-end custom built rigs specifically tailored for VR usage.
One of the important things to note is that all of the Xbox One models that make up the range will be able to consume and take advantage of the same library of games. The original Xbox One, the recently-announced Xbox One S, and Project Scorpio – what it may ultimately end up being called – will also have the same library, but of course, performance will differ depending on the hardware.
Xbox’s chief also conceded that it’s a little “crazy to announce something this early”, but at least the company is trying to keep customers informed with knowledge about what to expect in the future to allow them to make informed choices.
(Via: The Verge)
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