Xbox Scorpio hardware reveal: ‘You pay for what you get’

The Xbox One’s late 2017 revision, currently referred to as Project Scorpio, appears to offer more of everything in comparison to direct rival, the PlayStation 4 Pro, Richard Leadbetter of technical analysis firm Digital Foundry said in a first look at the console’s capabilities, including its price.

Price

“To be clear, it’s going to be more expensive [than the PS4 Pro] because it’s putting more technology into the box,” said Digital Foundry’s video games technical performance analyst Richard Leadbetter in a video interview with Eurogamer.

For reference, the PlayStation 4 launched in November 2016 at $399, €399, £349 and AUD$560. “Microsoft uses the word ‘premium,’ and you know what that means,” Leadbetter predicted.

Power

As for what’s inside, and especially compared with the PlayStation 4 Pro, the Scorpio’s got a faster custom CPU core that runs at 2.3GHz (versus the PS4 Pro’s 2.1GHz,) a graphics core that runs at 6 teraflops vs. 4.2 tflops, 326Gb/sec of memory bandwidth vs. 218Gb/sec, 12GB of GDDR5 memory vs. 8GB, and a 4k UHD Blu-ray drive vs. standard Blu-ray on the Pro.

“The PS4 Pro has actually done a really good job in terms of scaling up 1080p games to work on a 4k screen using various techniques.”

“What Microsoft is wanting to sell to us is that [Scorpio] is the concept that this is a true native 4K box, 8 million pixels displayed each frame.”

Size

Leadbetter said that he’d seen what the Scorpio console looks like, but Microsoft was saving that reveal for its Electronic Entertainment Expo presentation from 5 p.m. ET on June 11.

Is it going to be bigger than the Xbox One, the Xbox One S, just as the Pro was bigger than the standard PS4? That’s open to interpretation. Leadbetter answered, “I can’t really comment on it, but I think people are going to be quite impressed when they see it.”

Games

In line with an earlier marketing materials leak, Turn 10’s “Forza Motorsport” franchise is being used to highlight the advantages of the Scorpio, and its ability to get the best out of existing Xbox One titles.

“ForzaTech” is a prototype version of racing game “Forza Motorsport 6” transferred from Xbox One to Scorpio (the game was also developed for 4k-capable Windows PCs). It was up and running in two days with plenty of room to spare for extra bells and whistles, Leadbetter had been told.

Just as “Forza” games pride themselves on the precision detail with which each vehicle is recreated, there’s already an emphasis being placed on the way each Scorpio motherboard is custom-tuned for maximum efficiency with the CPU chip it accommodates.

Console king?

Is it game over for Sony’s popular PlayStation 4?

“You’ve got to remember that hardware is just one part of the equation. When you look at the people who are working for Sony—Naughty Dog [of “Uncharted,” “The Last of Us,”] Guerilla Games [“Horizon Zero Dawn”]—they are achieving some phenomenal results.”

“Having the hardware advantage is always great… but it’s not going to change the situation that there’s a ton of great exclusives on PS4 Pro that just look incredible.” JB

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