Report: Microsoft shelve plans for second, cheaper, next gen console

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Last year industry insiders revealed that Microsoft were working on two consoles for next gen, a powerful beast under the codename Anaconda, and a less powerful version that would be sold at a much lower price, codenamed Lockhart.

It appears that this plan has now been shelved and there will be only one console, Anaconda, or as it is now known, Project Scarlett. Both Digital Foundry and technology journalist Paul Thurrot have reported the second console has been binned. “Microsoft’s current plan for its next-generation Xbox is to focus on Scarlett and all mentions of Lockhart, which was previously documented in several places, has now been scrubbed clean,” reports Thurrot.

It seems the decision to make to consoles, one significantly less powerful that the other, caused problems for developers. As we have seen with the PlayStation Pro and Xbox One X, it’s much easier for developers to create the game on the lower-end device first and then add extras for the more powerful console, rather than go all guns on the larger console and scale things back.
It is reported that as developers were creating games based on the specs for Lockhart all the next gen games for Xbox “would be at performance and visual disadvantage” when compared to PlayStation 5.

It is also suggested that as Microsoft are progressing with their streaming service there is no need for a lower end console in next gen.

Although we are still at least a year away from any new consoles landing on the shelves the battle for next gen is already heating up with both Sony and Microsoft revealing some of the specs for their new machines. You can read our analysis of both machines, including a breakdown of the technical details, here.

Microsoft also recently revealed that current Xbox One accessories will work on the new console.

Source: Twitter / Thurrot

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2 Comments

  1. It makes sense to just have one next-gen console. Not just for the quality of the games but a second one could cause a bit of confusion.

    At the time of the reveal of scarlet I thought it a bit strange for MS to announce a holiday 2020 release as it could give Sony the chance to release the PS5 well before then but it seems that won’t be possible as there are rumours that the hardware for ray-tracing (& other bits) won’t be available until next year. None of AMD’s new navi graphics cards will have ray-tracing capability for a while I read somewhere last week.
    The PS5 may still B3 released before scarlet but not by much.

  2. Just don’t bundle that stupid camera with it this time. And don’t go copying the VR crap either, it’s over.

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