Microsoft has promised that their next console, Scorpio, will be “the most powerful console ever,” and today the company delivered on that promise, revealing a set of beefy specs that, in terms of raw power, surpass any video game console on the market today.
In a PR reveal with Eurogamer’s Digital Foundry, Microsoft unveiled that Scorpio will include a custom CPU, 12GB of GDDR5 RAM, and, well, I’ll let their chart explain:
Digital Foundry’s hype is breathless—“Nor can the number of compute units and teraflops represent the passion the Xbox team has injected into this project”—but in short, their technical wizards say it’s more powerful than any video game box we’ve seen, capable of running a Forza tech demo at 60 frames-per-second and 4K resolution. Whereas the PS4 Pro was an iteration, Scorpio appears more like a new console generation, although Microsoft promises that it will play Xbox 360 and Xbox One games.
Microsoft also says that Scorpio can offer improvements to those older Xbox games including more consistent framerates, better textures, and faster load times. There’s a caveat, there, however: This may not apply to all games, depending on compatibility issues. UPDATE (12:56pm): Microsoft sends us this statement:
All existing Xbox games (including Xbox One Backward Compatible titles) will run smoother, look better and load faster without requiring an update or any work from developers. All games running on Project Scorpio will achievemore consistent framerates, faster load times, improved anisotropic filtering, and will run at their peak resolution if the title implemented dynamic scaling. In addition, developers will also have the option to update existing titles to further take full advantage of Project Scorpio’s advanced capabilities including full 4K assets and 4K resolution.
This will no doubt impress gamers who obsess over CPU speeds and graphical fidelity, although Microsoft has a tough task ahead of them when it comes to regaining their footing in the console market. Since this generation started, Sony’s PlayStation 4 has dominated Microsoft’s Xbox One both in sales and software. Microsoft has struggled to compete with Sony’s first-party offerings and Japan-developed games, many of which are exclusive to PlayStation. Microsoft has also canceled several of their highest-profile titles, like Scalebound and Fable Legends, which came as a disappointment to Xbox faithful.
For Scorpio to truly compete, Microsoft will need to ensure that it has a lineup of games as impressive as the PlayStation 4’s. Microsoft has said that Scorpio will be out this fall. There’s no word on a price yet.