Xbox Scorpio: Final specs revealed

Of course this announcement only reveals the date but I'll update this thread once the details are revealed.

Is anyone excited/looking forward to the Scorpio if it lines up with the leaks or do Microsoft simply have a games problem that can't be solved just by simply having a more powerful box?

UPDATE:

If you don't want to watch a 15 minute breakdown, here are the specs and how they compare:

• CPU: Eight-core 2.3GHz processor
• GPU: 40 compute units at 1172MHz
• RAM: 12GB GDDR5 (shared between system and GPU)
• Bandwidth: 326GB/s
• Storage: 1TB hard disk
• Disc: UHD Blu-ray player

Compared to the original Xbox One, the leap is huge which has just 12 Compute Units running at 853MHz and has a further 43% compute advantage over the PS4 Pro. DirectX12 is also implemented on a hardware level. What this means is that Drawcall instructions on the CPU which would typically require thousands of instructions are now reduced to just 11 and state changes that are also heavy on the CPU are reduced to 9. These hardware alterations should reduce CPU rendering workloads by half built on DX12 renderers.

Microsoft claims that the mid-generation upgrade was actually an advantage here as it allowed them to look at previous games and see where the bottlenecks were on existing hardware and then use hardware emulation to see how the game could would perform then balance from there.

Most impressively, Turn 10 ported their Forza engine over to Scorpio in just 2 days and with no optimisation for Scorpio at all had Forza 6 running in 4K at 60fps with the GPU between 50 - 70% usage. This means that with further optimisation that they could even make the game look better.

While many people are wondering, are games going to suddenly go from 1080p 60fps? The answer seems no. If the game didn't already run at 60, it would seem that the extra horsepower of the Scorpio isn't going to make that jump unless developers do extra work to make it so but 1080p games should render at a native 4K and Microsoft even claim that 900p games should also be able to reach 4K based on their profiling.

I am both somewhat excited about Scorpio (though I expect to be underwhelmed) and I think Microsoft has a games problem. It's not that they don't have ANYTHING (I think Forza Horizon 3 was one of the best games of last year, even though it feels like it came out 3 years ago with the pace of recent releases, Crackdown 3 sounds great from the little we've seen, and Halo 5/Gears 4 were very good games even if they weren't exciting and new.)

I just hope the Scorpio is something a little more exciting than a console that delivers the performance of a mid-price PC. If it could boot to Windows and run games from Steam, for example, that would be pretty exciting. If it's modular and upgradeable or something else. But that doesn't seem like what's going to happen. It's just going to be a $600 console that runs like a $900 PC (at best) and while I am somewhat interested in that, it won't turn things around for Microsoft. Microsoft seems to know that too, since they've made everything available on PC and are clearly planning for a future where Xbox is just an app on a Windows PC, but this is their stopgap until they're ready to actually do that.

I have a gaming laptop but prefer playing on console, so a high-powered console is enticing, but this thing is a stopgap prior to real change. The Switch is, in some ways, more exciting because at least it's kind of a new idea, if not totally revolutionary (it's not the first handheld to output to a TV.)

I guess I'm a little surprised we're getting our first look at Scorpio through a third party like this, instead of an unveiling 'event' or something. I guess the Digital Foundry name behind this is supposed to drum up Scorpio's numbers game?

I'm always generally excited for powerful games consoles. I also don't see an actual games problem at ms, since most games (and most of my favorite games) in the last two generations of consoles have been third party multiplatform titles. The scorpio will certainly get those just like the current xbox.

That said, I don't see myself buying it anytime soon though. I've only had my one s for less than half a year, and I just bought a reasonbly powerful laptop, so I don't feel the immediate urge to spend more money for something that - even if it does have significantly more power - will probably not be a generational jump.

@bigsocrates: Wait, how would they sell a $900 PC-equivalent for $600? That a huge loss to swallow per-console.

@nnickers: Consoles have two major advantages. One is mass production, which brings down the cost of each unit. Graphic card SKUs and the like don't sell anywhere near the number that consoles tend to (The Xbox One has already sold 25 million units with only two significant SKUs) so they don't benefit as much from volume advantages (which allow you to negotiate lower prices with suppliers and reap certain other efficiencies.) The other advantage is being a closed system, which lets consoles run games at much better performance than an equivalently powerful PC. The Scorpio won't have the raw power of a $900 PC but if it's well designed it can hope to perform like one.

This is also why a $300 PS4 can drive a VR set. Sure there's SOME processing offloaded to the breakout box that comes with the headset and the PSVR is less powerful than the Vive or the Rift, but it would be pretty tough to build a PC that could run it at anywhere near the price point.

I just hope it's not another PS4 Pro.

That would actually be the greatest possible turn of events. If they wheel the thing out and it is literally just a PS4 Pro but reflashed to run Xbox software. Considering that the systems are quite similar in architecture it might be possible. If the Xbox Scorpio was just a reflashed PS4 Pro, maybe with the PS4 logo covered by a sticker that says "Xbox Scorpio" on it, written in Sharpie.

This must be why there is a Bayonetta countdown.

They still have no games...thats an issue.

I just hope this is new tech and not merely an overclock that we saw with the PS4 Pro. MS have boasted about 4K since it was announced but I want them to boost the CPU so we can see more games at 60fps on consoles.

Curious to see what this is going to be. I've been openly against this whole consoles-1.5 thing this generation is doing, and already original PS4 owners are starting to feel like second class citizens with certain games running worse than on the Pro - but if this is a true leap forward then I might be on board. Although who am I kidding, I just spent a ton of money upgrading my PC so even if the Scorpio is significantly more powerful than the PS4 it will still be kind of pointless for me to get it.

I am interested in seeing what this thing is

I'm interested in this.

No interest from me, with Microsoft's Play Anywhere (lots of Xbox games on PC) they have shot themselves in the foot, now I have no reason to care about their consoles!

@bigsocrates: Well, I didn't mean it that literally. That would be weird, however. Yes.

Microsoft aren't going to push it out at a huge loss, so really there are 2 only possible and both disappointing outcomes:

a) It's not as powerful as people want it to be - no native 4K, no near 1070+ levels of power - and it's a reasonable price.

b) It's the shit and can play games at native 4K and is on par with top end PCs - and it will be ridiculously expensive.

I don't think either does them any good at this stage.

Now watch them show off how the Scorpio handles existing games like Mass Effect Adromeda.

I'm always interested in new hardware.

Microsoft is competing with themselves, though. I can see myself playing more games on PC as long as two things happen: developers support Xbox Play Anywhere on a regular basis, and there's cross-platform multiplayer so I can still play with my Xbox friends. If that happens I don't need their console anymore.

Is AMD still the hardware partner? If so, we could see a new Ryzen CPU + RX500 series refresh? Hard to imagine this thing being more powerful than a RX480 because they would need a Vega card otherwise

@wynnduffy: They make their money off of the software. Why does everyone say they shot themselves in the foot? The used an existing market that they already control and got Xbox in on it. Now that we have third party titles adding Play Anywhere stuff, it will hopefully take off and actually be really good for MS.

I hear what you're saying, but they sold the original Xbox at a substantial loss, so it stands to reason that they might do it again. I think Spencer is a bright enough guy to get that he's neither going to get away with pricing this thing at $1k, nor with having it not meet the metrics they've been touting. I'm pretty much expecting the Scorpio to be a machine that costs them ~$600 and sells for ~$450. That sounds unsustainable in theory, but this just isn't going to be the kind of high-volume product that would financially damage the behemoth that is Microsoft by selling at a loss.

Everything Spencer has done (including the Play Anywhere functionality) has been big-picture focused on trying to expand the Xbox brand. I fully believe MS is willing and able to eat $150ish per person (which is a drop in the bucket for them) if it gets more people gaming in their ecosystem long-term to where they make that back and then some. At Microsoft's enormous scale, they have more to gain/lose in terms of overall reputation (read: stock price) than console sales loss/revenue anyway. In other words, the Xbox division could be a giant red line on Microsoft's books, but if it simultaneously draws in more users and engenders excitement or positive press to offset that, no one at MS will complain a bit.

Pricing will be key on the Scorpio, though. That they're apparently giving Digital Foundry the scoop tells me that they're pretty confident in the hardware delivering on performance. Hell, maybe they'll be able to get away with revealing a high price at E3 if they can first demonstrate that it's all it's cracked up to be. I'm watching with interest.

I'm sure they'd prefer I own an Xbox with a subscription for the online, I have no reasons to now.

I feel like Microsoft have been eating a loss for an awful long time on the boxes already on shelves. I don't think they can do that with this, if it's a heavy piece of tech.

The PS4 is outselling it 2:1. The PS3 is outselling the 360, albeit by the smallest of margins. That's surprised me.

I'm hyped. I use my Xbox way more than my PC and PS4 so upgraded hardware would be very welcome.

They sold the original Xbox at a substantial loss because you couldn't buy their Xbox games (which they make money on) unless you bought an Xbox.

But that's no longer the case. You can buy their first party games on Windows 10 now. Why lose money getting you into their ecosystem?

@dafdiego777: I'd be disappointed if it wasn't. It's out at the end of the year so there's a possibility as they have to work with AMD directly rather than when they make their Surface products that are usually a year behind technology.

@opusofthemagnum: Someone who has spent thousands on their PC is simply not going to spend $400 - $500 dollars on a console that offers an inferior experience so I'm glad they went with the Play Anywhere route. While some of those games have had rather wonky ports, I think it speaks better to the future and I feel that Scorpio is for those that want a high end PC experience but don't want to go through the hassle of building a PC and want to just sit in front of their TV to play games. While many people argue that building a PC is super easy these days (and it is), it's still not as easy as walking into a store, plonking down your cash, taking your new box home and plugging it in. A PC still requires a ton of research. Is this the right motherboard? Is this memory compatible? What sort of case do I need? Wait, I need to pay for Windows 10 now? There's still a lot of decisions to be made whereas a console is what it is and that can be both a good and a bad thing.

If you buy games through the Xbox ecosystem they get 30% (whether hard copy or online) while if you buy them on Steam that money goes to Valve. It's a big difference.

But I have long thought that Xbox is more about popularity for MS than actual profit. What was Microsoft in the 90s generally associated with? boring productivity software. MS Office, maybe Windows. That's still a huge part of their business, but it is something people generally don't like, especially kids. They have a negative association with it. Xbox is the part of Microsoft that is about fun and gaming. It gives the brand an element that people actually enjoy and think positively about, and makes them possibly more likely to buy or at least be willing to engage with other Microsoft products (like at work.)

the Xbox division is a tiny part of the Microsoft behemoth, but it's the part that's fun and exciting, where people will actually watch their live E3 presentations and get hype. I think as long as it comes close to breaking even, that gives MS value.

Microsoft isn't losing anything other than console sales if you buy their games on Windows 10 instead of Xbox. Spencer made it fairly clear that MS cares about user numbers first and foremost back when the "play anywhere" deal was announced. It's funny to me how some PC-only people who don't own an Xbox and weren't going to get one got all smarmy with the play anywhere stuff and said things like "haha, now I never have to buy your console to play your games" as if they were somehow outsmarting Microsoft, then proceeded to buy games they never otherwise would have like Halo, a couple Forzas, Gears, Sunset Overdrive, et al. to hand MS a couple hundred bucks they never otherwise would have spent. And if the Scorpio sells at a net loss as it probably will, but pulls off the same scenario, MS will be even better off if people try to "stick it to them" by not buying the Scorpio and instead buying Scorpio games on PC. That's just gravy territory in not having to eat a loss on the hardware and still managing to have another user out there buying their games.

Why would MS take a loss selling you a Scorpio when you can already buy their first party games on Windows 10? If you buy Windows 10 and buy games they make money on both transactions. Why would they subsidize Xbox to get you in to buy games when they would make less money than if you just bought Windows 10?

@saispag: I'm guessing it's option c - a rebranded 480 that plays native 4k but at medium settings.

Well, the console market isn't going away anytime soon, so it would be extremely short-sighted to abandon it. Often lost in all the stories about how the Xbox One isn't selling as well as the PS4 is that the Xbox One has outsold the Xbox 360 at every point in their respective life cycles, meaning that the market is growing, even for Microsoft. Thus, Microsoft clearly needs to stay in the console space for now. The Scorpio is their effort to occupy a previously untapped area there in making a beefy console to potentially appeal to people who aren't really interested in PC gaming, but might enjoy a little more performance. Will it catch on? Time will tell, but it doesn't necessarily have to even sell well to be a success. If it wows in performance, finds even a small niche, and gets some excitement and positive press around MS that they lost in the lead-up to the Xbox One, that might be good enough already. Scorpio's purpose is to try and make the Xbox (and by extension, Microsoft) brand more appealing and to try to bring more people under the Xbox gaming umbrella. They're trying to bridge the gap between PC/console gaming (which both Scorpio and "Play Anywhere" are efforts towards). The long-term plan is to eventually unify the Xbox console userbase with PCs, because if they can pull that off, Microsoft's clout/reach in the gaming world would be considerable, to say the least. There's a reason Windows 10 PCs have an Xbox app. They want the Xbox brand to be synonymous with gaming, beyond just the console. Scorpio is a step in that direction.

A console with equivalent performance would be cheaper (MS get better part prices, lower manufacturing cost etc.), so I'd guesstimate matching a $900 PC would cost MS somewhere in the region of $800 (probably less). It's still a big loss to swallow (not unheard of - the PS3 was was initially at a $2-300 loss), but conceivable for two reasons IMO:

• If MS want to stay in the console business, they need to keep Sony in check. Launching a console with a clear performance advantage without a significantly higher price would go a long way to doing so).
• An Xbox isn't a one-and-done sale. They earn revenue of the games sold (less important now that first-party games are also on Windows 10), and more importantly, they have two avenues for recurring monthly revenue - Xbox Live Gold and the Xbox Game Pass. That initial loss will probably shrink fairly quickly (especially as the manufacturing cost lowers over time).

Xbox One S keeps them in the console space right now. And I'm not sure I see how a $500 console expands their business in a way a $300 one doesn't. Does doesn't who buys a $500 Xbox not already know of consoles and Xbox? Chances are this is not their first rodeo. This device mainly appeals to the hardcore and they don't need anything to connect Xbox with gaming in their minds.

Growing markets are good to be in, but if you're already in one, why lose money just to expand your sales a bit more?

I really can't see the argument for selling Scorpio at a loss. Not in MS' case when they already have PCs to be "super Xboxes" and they don't lose money getting you into one of those. If they can break even then that's different and makes more sense to me.

They don't get you into the Ecosystem to sell you first party games. They get you into the ecosystem to take a cut of every game you buy in that ecosystem. Nobody sells a console JUST to sell first party games. Not even Nintendo. So your question isn't really applicable. The reason to sell Scorpio at a loss is to get people to buy Scorpio and then buy both first and third party games for Scorpio, all of which give Microsoft a cut.

Microsoft needs to win back some people. They need to be able to definitively say "we have the best/most powerful console", and the Scorpio does that where the Xbox One S does not. The PR of that is damn near priceless, and Microsoft sure as shit isn't going to go under from selling a niche console at a loss. Moreover, even if they do lose money on the initial sale of every Scorpio, they can still easily recoup that loss and then some in games, accessories, et al. throughout the life of the console.

As for the hardcore market of console users, yeah, they should already be familiar with the Xbox brand, but perhaps they get a Scorpio, fall in love with 4K gaming and the improved performance, and then decide they want the next best thing and build a high-end PC gaming rig. Now they're both invested in the Xbox ecosystem and their new PC, which has a nice little Windows 10 Xbox app already there waiting for them. For MS in this scenario, they've brought someone in.

For Microsoft to actually face significant financial impact from selling the Scorpio at a loss, it would require them selling so damn many of them that it would inherently then make the console extremely viable because there would be that many of them out there in the world bringing revenue back in through game sales and the like. It's just not the financial risk you're making it out to be, in any scenario. Still, let's do the math just for fun to illustrate how little even a nightmare scenario with Scorpio would affect Microsoft's bottom line.

Let's say they sell 20 million Scorpios, basically the number of Xbox Ones they've sold to date, which is highly unrealistic for a premium product. Let's say they lose $150 on each one. And let's assume an extremely unrealistic reality in which everyone who buys one of these consoles never buys a game for it or any Xbox product ever again and these Scorpios all sit unused to bring absolutely nothing back in. That's a loss of $3 billion dollars, which sounds like a lot.....until you consider that Microsoft brought in 26.1 billion in revenue last quarter.

That's the kind of money MS has to play with. A complete tire fire of miserable failure with Scorpio would amount to roughly a 2.9% hit against their annual revenue, and that's rounding up on an impossible scenario. In reality, there's a better than good chance they break even or make money on Scorpio based on game/accessory sales over the console's life cycle more than offsetting a one-time loss on the sale of the console itself, and it's virtually certain that it can't even be a negative blip on Microsoft's overall financials in any case.

Microsoft operates on such a macro scale that it's understandably difficult to fathom. Scorpio is just one portion of just one small division there. It will serve as a showcase for MS, with a hope of being a gateway for more users into their ecosystem. Moreover, there are potential ancillary benefits. Maybe people will buy a now-cheaper Xbox One S or Xbox One as a result of its existence. Maybe it gives Microsoft some positive PR as a company on the "cutting-edge" of technology, which benefits their PC products and increases interest in whatever their next console is.

The biggest risk Microsoft runs with Scorpio has nothing to do with what it could cost them financially in the short-term. They need to nail the Scorpio's presentation with "wow" moments (and technical benchmarks to match), generate some buzz, and price it at a point the increasingly cheap public won't balk at. Not because Microsoft (or even Xbox) needs Scorpio itself to ensure a bright future, but because they have much to gain if Scorpio is merely perceived to be evident of their bright future. Will it excite people? We'll see shortly.

Business is not about every customer being the optimal customer for the company. If you can find a way to make money off of people who wouldn't have otherwise paid into your ecosystem, that's a good thing for the business.

No, it's not the most money they can make. But Xbox already makes money. People already play on Steam. I bet they make up the difference once the program takes off a bit more and they are getting more people buying their games than previously because now PC only gamers that never had any intention of buying a console can now buy the games. Software is still the main source of revenue they have. Why sell you an Xbox and lose a bit of money when they can let you play on PC, where you pay them for Windows and you might buy into things like Office 365 AND get that sweet software revenue?

I'm very curious about what it's going to be. I'm expecting a small form factor PC but I hope they have done something more interesting.

If it comes with realistic built in storage and the UI isn't still a burning pile of rubbish I'd be tempted to upgrade from my vanilla Xbox One.

Super excited for Scorpio.

@jtb123: Why would it be different. I think the new reworked Menu/UI is fantastic. It used to be really bad but not anymore. Have you used your Xbox recently?

Excited!

I'm curious to see what it is, and I think its smart of Microsoft to sell this at a loss if necessary, but its also almost certainly going to be smart of me to not buy it. Not with my PC just sitting there hooked up to my TV already. It would take either a bunch of true exclusives again (which seems unlikely given the whole "play anywhere" thing) or the PC ports for too many games being basically unplayable (which does seem sadly plausible).

I am hoping though that Microsoft has a bunch of games in their back pocket that'll be announced at E3 though. They need more of those. Because right now, I'm looking at the true exclusives that the PS4 has and am thinking to myself that maybe I should get one of those; though there are so many great games on PC that its easy to talk myself out of it.

I really like Microsoft and the direction they are heading, too bad I have zero need for an Xbox anymore when I have functional gaming pc.

Huh well I'm curious to see what we'll see tomorrow.

MS selling the Scorpio at a loss would be beyond stupid its an enthusiast box aimed at a very small audience, 4 years into the console cycle the only customers left are very price sensitive unless Scorpio can match the PS4 Slim it'll have little impact on numbers the Pro will be cheaper anyway, eat the cost for what reason?

Scorpio is nice PR ahead of XB2 the price doesn't matter nor the amount of units sold.

@rinnowaru: has there been an update in the last month or so? I think that's the last time I used my Xbox. If that has been made faster and more responsive then that's good.

Yes, there has been. The short version is that they made the home button pull up a guide overlay on the left side of the page that allows for quick access to the things you use most and the ability to quickly choose the length of Game DVR recordings from here on the fly, in addition to adding some achievement stuff, Beam streaming, and more controller options. The latest UI seems to be pretty snappy and the guide obviates some of the previous issues with menu layers. There was a time when the UI was shitty (especially for those without Kinect), but they've continued to improve it, and it's now at a point where I'm happy with it. Here's the video of the update if you want to see it in action:

@notnert427: Does the Xbox still auto-record clips? I remember that feature being touted early on in its life but these things obviously change over time. I remember there being overlays on recordings and a video editor for your recordings too but I assume that was dropped.

The RX 5xx series of GPUs will just be rebranded RX 4xx cards. Scorpio will need a Vega chip in order to run games at native 4K.

I have very high doubts on them using a Zen chip, but we'll see. (Ryzen is out of the question, TDP is too high.)