Microsoft had a pretty packed E3 event this year and one of the new things that the company talked about was the upcoming Xbox Scarlett console. Phil Spencer showed a video that gave us some details about the next Xbox. We learned that the console will have a very fast SSD. It will have frame rates up to 120 Hz and that it will support 8K and ray tracing.
Xbox Scarlett is going to release in the Fall of 2020 and you must be wondering why Microsoft would announce the console so early on, it does not even have a name right now. Xbox boss Phil Spencer talked about why this was done and the following is what he had to say regarding the matter:
I definitely think doing the announcement of Project Scorpio 18 months-ish before we launched X was good learning and background for us this year. I think that’s definitely true. I think that gave us some confidence that we could keep buzz. We also know that we’re going to have dev kits out, developers building games, and I’d rather not have to pretend that something is not happening when everybody knows it is happening.
Spencer did confirm that the team was developing the next Xbox at E3 2018 so we did know that it was in development. Plus we got some leaks and rumors regarding the hardware that could power the Xbox Scarlett and what it could be capable of. Sony officially confirmed some of the specifications of the PS5, so I guess Microsoft needed to officially announce an update for the Xbox Scarlett. Spencer went on to mention the following:
So it puts you in this position of people asking you, ‘What’s the name?’ and I say, ‘We don’t have the name yet.’ They ask me about price points and everything else, so you’re in this position of talking about the things that you set. Most importantly, you’re going to talk about what your goals are for the platform. Give people something to look to, so when they hear there’s a game in development that’s launching at a certain date, is it going to support X? And I think our experience with Scorpio gave us the confidence to talk about Scarlett on Sunday.
Sony might have won the console war with the PS4 this time but it seems that Microsoft is making some big moves to make a comeback. Let us know what you think about Xbox Scarlett and whether or not this is something that you are interested in checking out.
