E3 is right around the corner, which gives us an opportunity to look into the rumours of Microsoft’s Project Scorpio. Word has been around in regards to an upgraded Xbox for a while now. It’s only on the cusp of E3 we’re starting to get something a little more substantial.
If the rumour mill has been cranking out accurate information in regards to the device then it’s likely to be a hefty thing, at least as far as power is concerned and not size. The predominant specs being bounded about involve it being half the size of the current Xbox. Whether this’ll be branded as a “slim” model or something new entirely is up for speculation.
The other major rumours involve power, and this thing is designed to have it in spades. A major issue with the current generation and the sudden upswing in VR development is that the current consoles, both the PS4 and the Xbox One, aren’t powerful enough to run them. However. With Playstation 4 Neo and the fabled Project Scorpio both having more powerful GPUs and Processors in order to compensate for this, not to mention a possible 2TB HDD.
In fact, to further corroborate the Project Scorpio being not only a new Xbox but, being boxed with innate VR support, if one were to look at some of the E3 exhibitors and what they intend to display there are some VR specialist companies definitely bringing Xbox One products to the show. Since the current Xbox isn’t capable of VR support this would definitely point us towards a new Xbox.
Another piece of the puzzle giving us this picture is the already clear relationship between Microsoft and Oculus, the rifts are already being boxed with Xbox controllers, whilst a minor glimpse into their plan, it would be a curious choice of Microsoft to not pursue this further, especially with Sony chasing native VR support for their own console upgrade.
A lot of what we are hearing falls into what we already know in regards to Microsoft’s own “Project Helix” a plan to converge both of Microsoft’s major franchises, Xbox and Windows.
There is already evidence of this coming to the fore as Microsoft has already announced a number of its big exclusives to be cross compatible with Windows; Halo Wars 2, Sea of Thieves, and the sadly cancelled Fable Legends to name a few. We’ve also seen Rocket League gain cross platform compatibility between the two, another major step towards realising the goals of Project Helix.
This isn’t the only goal of the Project however. The man in charge of Xbox Phil Spencer has already made comments about how he’d like to see consoles take a more “PC like evolution” this works with the idea of the Xbox turning to a more incremental model, or at least the hardware within it becoming incremental, whether this means a new Xbox every two years or a the ability to swap out some of the internals like a PC remains to be seen.
Whilst all this speculation is fun, we’re guaranteed to see a little confirmation or denial on the specs and the features when E3 launches this weekend. Especially if the 2017 release date is correct.