Microsoft has finally talked in more detail about its next generation of console, and it sounds like Xbox Scarlett is an absolute beast. What’s more, it’s coming next year and will launch with Halo Infinite during the holiday period in 2020.
In a brief video, a number of the team working on the new console – which is still being referred to as Project Scarlett – shared some details on the new console. It was confirmed that Scarlett will be more “four times” more powerful than the Xbox One X, which is currently itself the most powerful console on the market.
“This isn’t just a console launch, this is about the future of gaming”, said Xbox head Phil Spencer.
Microsoft also promised resolution and framerates that we’ve “never seen before” thanks to GDDR6 RAM, along with 120 fps, 8k, next gen ray tracing, drastically reduced loading times, all in aid of creating the “most immersive” console experience of all time.
What’s more, it was confirmed that all achievements, friends, and progression will carry over from your Xbox One to Scarlett. Unfortunately, we didn’t get a look at the box itself or discover the console’s official name today. Pricing was also not discussed, so it’s not clear just how much saving up we have to do yet.
Backwards compatibility was also confirmed, as Microsoft promised to showcase “four generations of content” like we’ve never seen it before. A welcome, if unsurprising feature for the console.
Microsoft also claims to have invented an entirely new SSD for the console which will be used as virtual RAM, according to a Microsoft spokesperson.
Based on what we’ve heard so far, it sounds as if Scarlett will be a lot more like a traditional console than we might have originally expected, but there are still obviously plenty of details about the hardware that we don’t yet know – expect to hear more about it in the coming months.
Sony had previously promised that the PS5 would support up to 8K graphics, 3D audio, SSD storage, and backwards compatibility with existing PlayStation 4 titles.
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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.