Xbox Project Scorpio Will Reportedly Cost $499

If you were expecting Microsoft’s take on 4K gaming to be cheap, then you should probably think again. Geoff Keighley, who is heading up YouTube Live at E3 this year and has deep connections with the games industry as a whole after a long career in games journalism, has taken to Twitter today to reveal that, unless something changes compared to his sources’ information, Xbox Project Scorpio will cost $499.

This puts its RRP a full $100 higher than the PlayStation 4 Pro, which sells for £349.99 in the UK. It means that the Scorpio will cost as much at launch in the US as the Xbox One did when it launched with the Kinect camera bundled in. At that point in time, that equated to £429.99, but GBP is much weaker now compared to the Dollar than it was in 2013, so it will be interesting to see how Microsoft caters to the shift in currencies.

While a lot more expensive, it’s worth remembering that the specs of Project Scorpio are greatly in excess of the PS4 Pro. It has a similar eight core CPU, but it’s clocked higher, its GPU shares common architectural ground, but it has more computer units and is also clocked higher, and it features 12GB of GDDR5 RAM, compared to the Pro’s 8GB. It will also include a 4K UHD Blu-ray drive.

We’re just a few hours away from Microsoft’s press conference at 10PM UK time, where this will be revealed as true or false, alongside other details of the console’s launch and this year’s exclusive games. With all that in mind, does $499 and a potential £450 price point for Scorpio sound like a good deal to you, or is it too rich for your blood?

Source: Geoff Keighley

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25 Comments

  1. It might be super powerful but without a arse load of good games to play on it whats the point?

    • Good point, I think support is the key now. £450 is very expensive but doable these days, especially if you’re adamant on having the mutts nuts. It think it’ll be niche though, can’t imagine many parents forking out for that when a regular XBox One is under £200.

      • You can say the exact same thing about the PS4 Pro, though. You can grab a slim for £200 a lot of the time and it’s outselling the Pro around 4:1. The point for MS is that it can drive interest again, especially if they can come along with a bunch of exclusives for the next 12 months.

      • PS4 Pro’s problem is that Sony doesn’t properly support it, like any of their other hardware except for the “base” console. They should be enforcing more strict rules on the developers to actually take power of the Pro into consideration instead of doing half-assed patches that sometimes don’t actually enable any Pro features…

    • So £500 then. I wonder if PS4 Pro will get a £50 price cut, so it’s £200 cheaper…

      Without games and a price tag that puts it out of reach of most, does it really stand any chance? 4k checkboard is within a whisker of native 4k that it’s barely measurable, and 4k disc based movies are a dead format from the outset, do what really is your £200 buying?? A console that doesn’t have the games, isn’t the console your mates play, supports a movie format nobody wants, and does the same res as a 4k PS4 Pro, just without neat tricks…

  2. They could be trying to disappoint us with this figure so when they announce the actual price during the press conference (same as PS4 Pro) everyone will loose their minds. Temporarily.

  3. It’s definitely more than I’d like but they must be confident with what they have on offer to price it like that. Also this isn’t a console that is aimed at the casual console gamer, it’s aimed at the gamer who wants console simplicity with PC performance.

    • In this instance, that would be me. I have a 4K setup, and I want to take advantage of it. PC build would cost too much, PS4 Pro is half arsed. This is the perfect solution, and I don’t mind paying for good specs.

      • Same here. It’s the best of both.

    • Or PC price with none of the advantages….

      • Knew you’d crawl out of your hole for e3, Blighty.

  4. $499 should be £469 here.

    Which would be a great price if they’d just launched the normal version at the same time for £349. Buy our new console, or pay £120 more and get an even better version.

    Or if it was a new generation with new games just for that console, and not just “no new games, just makes the old ones look a bit nicer”. For £200+ more?

    It’s not going to work out too well for them, is it? And that’s assuming the $499 isn’t just some number he’s just guessed at. It could be wrong. And it’s not going to be wrong in a good way, is it? It could turn out to be higher.

    • You had like a whole discussion with yourself there!

      • Probably more useful than your contribution there though ;)

      • Well at least you won an argument for once!

  5. It’s affordable in my eyes! But not justifiable for a system that is heavily relying on BC rather than produce games

  6. Thats a lot less than I was expecting. Maybe I read it wrong, but I thought they were aiming for specs in the ballpark of a high-end gaming PC.. Either they scaled that back a bit, or this is a great deal.

    Still, as others have said, without some awesome exclusives (a policy I hate, btw) what’s the point?

    • Yeah, but you can get a lot more out of a console than a PC. This is a big step beyond the PS4 Pro, partly through more computer units in the GPU and more RAM, but also through simply being clocked a good bit higher than the Pro. It’s not on the level of a £1500 PC, but it’s been geared towards the sweet spot of power to hit 4K.

  7. I’d pay it for the next generation but for a .5 system, no. Same reason I haven’t forked for a Pro.

    Makes it even more unfeasible if you don’t have an appropriate telly.

    • On second thought it seems way out there because I can’t even bring myself to lay down $300 on a Switch and I’m a longtime fan of both Nintendo and Zelda. Not exactly apples to apples but you get my point.

  8. I’m a bit shocked. We’re entering the latter part of the current generation and they are introducing an option at a pricepoint that fans would wince at at the beginning of a new generation of hardware.

  9. ZOINKS!

  10. So, it’s confirmed ow that Scorpio will remain irrelevant. One topic less to discuss from here on.

    Unless they really come up with something more interesting, Steam access, or whatever, to get themselves back into the game they left early on.

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