If by some chance you missed everything that happened at E3, you’ll be unaware that Microsoft announced not one, but two shiny new Xbox One consoles are on the way.
The sleeker and less costly Xbox One S will launch in August, while the more powerful Project Scorpio comes to us sometime during the 2017 Holiday period.
Naturally, some might wonder why the company decided to announce Scorpio now, especially considering it’s still a fair ways off.
Well, Microsoft’s gaming boss Phil Spencer revealed on Giant Bomb’s E3 livestream that he wanted to be as up front as possible with consumers and developers alike, so that they can make the best decision in terms of which console to buy.
He explained:
The reason we announced when we did–one is I wanted to give customers a view into what we were doing. If they say I have an Xbox One now, I’m thinking about an Xbox One S, I want to be as transparent as I can be so they know they’re buying with as much information as I can give them. I can’t always give them all the information, but I want to give them this information.
It’s a decent move on the part of Microsoft. After all, I imagine it would have pissed a fair few people off if they shelled out for the Xbox One S only to be told that yet another, more powerful console was then on the way.
This way, gamers can decide if they want to save up and go straight for the super powerful Scorpio, which offers 8 CPU cores, the most powerful GPU ever put into a games console and 6 teraflops of power, all combining to render games in 4K resolution at 60 hertz.
Meanwhile, the Xbox One S is the more modest option. It boasts a 40% reduction in size from the standard Xbox One, an internal power unit, support for 4K video playback, and a 2TB hard drive.
I guess it all comes down to how much money you have lying around, and just how powerful you want your console to be.
Remember, there’s also nothing wrong with your standard Xbox One, whatever those mean old Sony and PC loyalists might try and tell you.
Ewan Moore is a journalist at UNILAD Gaming who still quite hasn’t gotten out of his mid 00’s emo phase. After graduating from the University of Portsmouth in 2015 with a BA in Journalism & Media Studies (thanks for asking), he went on to do some freelance words for various places, including Kotaku, Den of Geek, and TheSixthAxis, before landing a full time gig at UNILAD in 2016.