It appears that Microsoft are planning to release a new version of the Xbox One to compete with the PS4K Neo. Sources suggest that an Xbox One Slim will be out this year and it may include 4K support, and then late next year Microsoft will ship the new super powered Xbox One, codenamed Scorpio.
The rumour is that the new console will have performance of approximately 6 teraflops, thrashing the pants off the PS4 Neo which is rumoured to be around 4.4 teraflops. Like Neo, Scorpio will run current gen Xbox One games and may even support Oculus Rift.
The two new consoles are said to be part of Microsoft’s strategy codenamed “Project Helix”, which will converge Xbox with Windows 10. This strategy includes a move to more regular hardware updates in the same vein as Apple who release new version of their products every year or two.
Xbox top dog Phil Spencer hinted at this move back in March, “I look at the ecosystem that a console sits in and I think that it should have the capability of more iteration on hardware capability,” he said. “What I’m saying is as hardware innovations happen we want to be able to embrace those in the console space, and make those available and maybe not have to wait seven or eight years for things to happen.”
We’re almost certain to see the PS4K Neo announced at E3, will Microsoft announce the Scorpio as well? If it’s not out till late 2017 then revealing the console too early will damage sales of the current Xbox One, so perhaps not.
For me this is all starting to get a bit silly, the reason I have a console is so I don’t have to upgrade it every year or two, if that starts being the case we might as well just buy PCs and be done with it, what do you think?
Kennykazey
This was always going to be a short generation. What with the low power, affordable cost of the current systems.
Now, I don’t want to upgrade every two years. But four years isn’t too outrageous at this point. Especially if the older systems will still be supported for a couple years.
What sucks is that this generation is just starting to get good, and we’re already hearing rumblings of successors within months.
If the rumors are right, then I’m more welcoming towards the significantly improved Xbox in a years time, than the Neo which sticks with the poor CPU and is out in just a few months.
MrYd
This generation is a bit of a weird one. Did anyone really expect Sony to shift 40m PS4s in 2.5 years?? Especially when they really should have waited another year to release it? Surely that’s going to mess up any plans for a short generation?
So now we’ve got a new PS4, which could extend the life of this generation further than anyone might have expected. And MS doing the same, which might work for them and let them sell more. In which case, extra long generation.
But what happens if it doesn’t work for MS? What if the new version doesn’t save the XBone? Will they abandon the whole idea of making XBox hardware? Or will they rush out the next XBox. XBox Two? Forcing Sony into launching a PS5 earlier than expected. Or are we going to just get updated hardware every couple of years?
Updates to the hardware every 2 or 3 years might work. You can skip one and still have the games running in a perfectly acceptable way. If you’ve got a PS4 or an XBone, there’s really no reason to jump on the next one. Maybe the update after that. But at what point do games stop supporting the older versions? If a 3rd PS4 is released, should the games work on the 2nd one? The original one? What about the 3rd hardware update? (The 4th PS4, which would presumably just be called a Playstation by that point)
Some people would say you might as well just buy a PC in that case. But that’s not going to work out any cheaper.
Kennykazey
I think generations as we know them are gone, and it’s now about just updates to the same platforms.
The question of when support for older hardware is dropped, is a good one. It’ll certainly be tied to how the userbase is doing. As long as there’s a large customerbase on the base platforms, they’ll be supported. But I think we’ll still see exclusives show up on more powerful hardware. Sony has a clause that says all games must have a “base ps4 mode”, but I think that’ll change when we get another update. The PS5 or whatever it’ll be called.
The Von Braun
Even if Neo only does 4.5 Terraflops compared to the MS offering of 6 Terraflops, it will i guess be pretty much mute, as IF email my mate just sent over is correct, existing PC hardware already offers better performance, if you’ve the moey to burn:
‘Nvidia newly announced/released GeForce 1080 card for PC claims 9 “teraflops” of performance! Lol Apparently offer as good performance in ONE card as two previous gen GeForce 980s paired together in SLI mode. Outperforms Titan as well for price of about £450. So this card, will do 4K very nicely for £450`
The techno-talk is lost on myself, but by time Neo etc hit, i guess price of said card would of dropped/be something even more powerful waiting in wings for PC owners?.
So it’s an arms race niether Sony nor MS can win, console wise, so seems pointless trying to use on-paper claims as selling points, not that it’s stopped either before in this regard.
MrJimmy
Occurs to me that plan from Microsoft was anticipated by Sony, hence the Neo. We are all coming from different points in the purchase cycle, my PS4 eject problem is the biggest factor in plans to buy a new console, never gone Xbox and still won’t.