XBOX Polygon: Xbox "Scorpio" | 6 Tflops (to PS4K's 4.14 Tflops) | Fall 2017

[CerebralTiger]

If there arent any exclusives, what is the actual point of owning Xbox?

There's absolutely no point at all, especially for someone who already has a decent gaming PC. And even if one doesn't own one, it's easier to build one or get a pre-built one now than it used to be.

This also gives rise to another question i.e. why pay for Xbox Live when I can get the same online features for free on PC?

Also, Microsoft's messaging is so messed up at this point:

Spencer: Scorpio won't do anything for you if you don't have a 4K TV

Developers can use Scorpio's 6 teraflops however they wish, says Spencer

Which one of them is the real Phil Spencer? :lol:

 

[Necrokiller]

hmmmm...you are right but I also think the avg joe in upcoming years will be more tech savvy than previous years due to demographic shift.

This sentiment is reinforced every year or so, but its hard to see its real impact. Third party "Steam Machines" flopped, even though tech savy people could've turned them into Windows gaming PCs. The majority console audience still doesn't care about the teraflops, clock speeds and bandwidth numbers. Others probably already have a capable gaming PC.

 

[NaNoW]

[h=2]No frame rate difference[/h]In the interview, Loftis talked about resolution differences between the Xbox One and Xbox Scorpio, but also mentioned framerates. While one would expect a rather big frame rate difference between both consoles, this isn’t the case according to Loftis.
“No, there wouldn’t be a frame rate difference, because typically the frame rate is determined by the game developer and what’s right for the gameplay mechanic,” Loftis said. “You don’t necessarily want to create two different mechanics for two different configurations.”

Loftis’ answer implies that game performance on the Scorpio might be limited to sub-60 frame performance of the Xbox One.

We asked about what happens when Xbox One games are only capable of sub-60 frame performance and whether Scorpio would be pinned to the lower spec in that regard. “Typically, yes. A good example is Killer Instinct, which is cross-play on PC and Xbox One. We have locked the frame rate to 60 frames per second,” Loftis says. “We could do better on super high end PCs, but that ruins the competitive nature of it.”
​

Spencer discussed the motivation to make the Scorpio came from delivering hardware innovations for developers to use, innovations that that they are free to use. In other words, if they would rather use the spec bump for something other than delivering 4K gaming, they are free to do so!

“We were thinking about where we wanted to take the Xbox program,” he said. “Any why can’t consoles see the same innovation in hardware that any other device around you has? Any we started to work on platform support to do that, and the culmination to that was Project Scorpio. Which is a 6TFLOPs gaming machine. It’s a great machine for 4K gaming, giving you a 4K frame buffer, so you can see games in all their beauty. Or if developers want to use those 6TFLOPs in any other way, they can do that.”

Why arent MS execs on the same page ?

 

[Schneizel]

Cliff Bleszinski's take on Scorpio is brutally honest and right on the money:

"I think it feels like an apology move for them for not making the console as powerful as it should have been in favour of making sure the Kinect was boxed in with it. So now they have to play catch-up. In a way, you can trace this all the way back to their well-intended E3 from a few years ago — where they were trying to go fully digital, etcetera, etectera, and the internet backlash made them back pedal"

More on it here: Cliff Bleszinski Really Isn't A Fan Of Project Scorpio | Kotaku Australia

 

[9Meez]

i don't know about others. but to me XBOX scorpio is just like a weapon without ammo. You have the strongest console in world they say, but what if there are no AAA exclusive titles ???????????????????

 

[manigamer]

[h=2]Microsoft: Xbox Scorpio's power advantage over PS4 Pro 'will be obvious'[/h][h=3]Not worried about Sony's one-year head start[/h]

Albert Penello seems sanguine about Sony's long-awaited unveiling of the PlayStation 4 Pro (formerly known by its in-development codename, "Neo").
"I feel pretty good about the decisions we've made," said Penello, who serves as senior director of product management and planning at Xbox, in a phone interview with Polygon today. In this, Penello is referring to Microsoft's announcement in June of its own "mid-generation" console upgrade, currently referred to as "Project Scorpio," but he's also referencing both Microsoft's and Sony's more entry-level options. "I feel good about what we've done with the Xbox One S," Penello said. "Both we and Sony are investing in 4K as the future of the console space, and we have a history of adding features to our hardware."


Penello pointed out that the Xbox One S is a more feature-complete system in some ways than even the just-announced PlayStation 4 Pro, to say nothing of the PlayStation 4 Slim that Sony also officially announced today. Other prominent Xbox employees expressed similar opinions on Twitter, including Aaron Greenberg, head of games marketing.






Xbox representatives were quick to point out the absence of a 4K Ultra HD Blu-ray drive in the PlayStation 4 Pro. When pressed about the inclusion of a UHD Blu-ray drive in Scorpio, Penello said the console would have one, though a Microsoft spokesperson clarified that it is the company's "intention to deliver it."
One of the bigger surprises at today's Sony presser was the company's assertion that it would release a firmware update adding "HDR compatibility" to all existing PS4 consoles, going back to the platform's launch in November 2013. When asked if Microsoft would be able to offer a similar patch to customers who own an Xbox One but not an Xbox One S — which Microsoft introduced in part because of its addition of both 4K and HDR support — Penello was non-committal, saying, "Until I know more about how they're doing it, I can't speak to whether or not we can offer something similar."
Current UHD 4k industry standards require an HDMI 2.0a connection with HDCP 2.2 enabled to support HDR10 and Dolby Vision, the competing HDR standards in North America. Both the PlayStation 4 and Xbox One launched in 2013 with HDMI 1.4 support, which offers some support for expanded color gamuts, one component of the current HDR standards. HDMI 2.0a requires specific hardware to support HDR requirements, and while some devices can be upgraded from HDMI 2.0 to 2.0a, it's unclear if this is the case with the PS4's HDMI 1.4 output.


With Sony's announcement of a November 10 release this fall and a price tag of $399, eyes are now on Microsoft to announce more about Scorpio. Penello wouldn't speak to price, explaining in part that these things are still being determined. "We know it's important to deliver an experience that demonstrates the power gap between [the PS4 Pro and Scorpio] at a price that makes sense to console gamers," he said.
Penello was confident that Microsoft's upcoming console will convincingly eclipse Sony's upgraded hardware. While Sony did not discuss hardware specifications on stage during their press conference, a press release from the company confirmed earlier reports putting the PS4 Pro's GPU at 4.2 teraflops of computing power.


This means Scorpio — which Microsoft has said will feature a GPU clocked at 6 teraflops — will be approximately 43 percent more powerful on paper than Sony's system. "The performance delta will be obvious," said Penello. Other information about Scorpio remains unknown; Microsoft has touted the system's increased memory bandwidth, for example, but hasn't yet clarified whether the system will have more RAM than the existing Xbox One and Xbox One S.
Because of that power gap, Penello said Microsoft isn't especially worried about the one-year head start that the PS4 Pro will have on Scorpio. When asked about a more concrete release date, Penello reiterated the holiday 2017 timetable that Xbox head Phil Spencer announced at E3 2016.
"We announced this year to give developers more time to familiarize themselves with the hardware," Penello said. When asked if the work developers are doing on the PS4 Pro now will benefit Scorpio when it launches next year, Penello responded that he hoped so. "It's interesting that we've arrived in a similar place," Penello said, referring to Microsoft and Sony. "The PlayStation 4 Pro gives developers a road map for 4K gaming."

 

[manigamer]

[h=1]Microsoft touts Xbox Scorpio’s ‘native, true 4K’ over PS4 Pro’s 4K ‘caveats’[/h]

[h=2]Throwing down the gauntlet[/h]

With the PlayStation 4 Pro, Sony is beating Microsoft to market when it comes to a mid-cycle console upgrade to deliver 4K gaming, but Microsoft’s position is that Project Scorpio’s undeniable power advantage will make a difference to discerning gamers when the console arrives next year.
The PS4 Pro, which launches Nov. 10 for $399, will be unable to run the vast majority of PS4 games in native 4K resolution. (So far, only one has been confirmed: The Elder Scrolls Online, a massively multiplayer title that is not known for being graphically intensive.) Instead, most developers we’ve spoken with are planning to render at a resolution north of 1080p — the standard for games on the current PS4 — and then use a technique such as "checkerboard rendering" to essentially upscale the image to 4K.
When Microsoft announced Project Scorpio at E3 2016, the company said the console’s graphics unit would have 6 teraflops of computing power. That means it will be approximately 43 percent more powerful than the PS4 Pro, whose GPU is clocked at 4.2 teraflops — which is "not enough to do true 4K," said Microsoft’s Albert Penello in a recent interview with Eurogamer.


Penello, senior director of product management and planning at Xbox, acknowledged that until Project Scorpio launches, it will be difficult to compare the effective output of the two consoles. But in addition to touting Scorpio’s power advantage, he told Eurogamer that "there are things we haven’t said about Scorpio yet that give me a different perspective on this."


Asked about Microsoft’s seemingly renewed marketing swagger, Penello downplayed the thought that the company is adopting a more aggressive strategy. At the same time, he highlighted the weaknesses of the PS4 Pro compared to Scorpio.
"I think there are a lot of caveats they’re giving customers right now around 4K," Penello said of Sony. "They’re talking about checkerboard rendering and up-scaling and things like that. There are just a lot of asterisks in their marketing around 4K, which is interesting because when we thought about what spec we wanted for Scorpio, we were very clear we wanted developers to take their Xbox One engines and render them in native, true 4K."
Penello noted that developers will be able to use Scorpio’s extra power however they want, so native 4K isn’t an across-the-board requirement. But Shannon Loftis, general manager for publishing at Microsoft Studios, told USA Today last week that all first-party titles coming to Scorpio in the console’s launch window will do native 4K.


For more on Microsoft’s thoughts about the PS4 Pro, check out our own interview with Penello from the day Sony announced the console.

• Source: Eurogamer

 

[manigamer]

[h=1]Xbox Scorpio ‘Beefier’ Than Expected, Says Halo Boss[/h]

Sony’s current home video gaming console, the PlayStation 4, may be leading in terms of worldwide sales, but Microsoft’s Xbox One is certainly no slouch either. In fact, Xbox hardware outsold Sony’s for a brief period in 2016 after the release of the slimmer, HDR capable model, the Xbox One S. And with Microsoft touting their upcoming gaming system codenamed Project Scorpio – a piece of hardware that Microsoft is calling “the most powerful console ever” – the company hopes to take a commanding lead later in 2017.
Project Scorpio was first announced at Microsoft’s Electronic Entertainment Expo (E3) press conference last summer, but the tech giant has stayed relatively quiet since. There has been some debate here and there about the console’s prospective price, but other than that, Xbox executives have kept their cards held close to the chest. With talk of teraflops and pixels, it might be hard to get a grasp on how powerful this console is. In fact, even developers that work closely with Microsoft are surprised to find just how impressive this hardware actually is.
Frank O’Connor, the head of 343 Industries, recently stated (via NeoGAF) that the Scorpio is even “beefier” than he expected. For those who do not know, 343 Industries is the developer behind Halo 4, Halo 5, and this year’s highly anticipated Halo Wars 2, among others.

As previously mentioned, Microsoft is not shy about the capabilities of their upcoming product, so hearing that it is powerful is indeed no surprise. That being said, if developers such as 343 Industries are claiming the dev model to be even “beefier” than expected, that is truly impressive. Arguably, no franchise is more important to Microsoft than Halo, and no developer works more closely with Xbox than 343 Industries.
The prospects of a home console this powerful are certainly exciting, but still, there is so much information that Microsoft has declined to share as of yet. One common belief is that Microsoft will wait to unveil their spec-heavy masterpiece until this year’s E3, which is slated to take place in mid-June. However, there is nothing stopping Xbox from conducting their own press conference either – not unlike the upcoming Nintendo Switch press conference or the reveal show that Sony held for their heavy hitter, the PlayStation 4 Pro.
Again, there are still many unanswered questions concerning Project Scorpio, but until Microsoft unveils their high-tech home console, fans will likely be anxious to get their hands on any Xbox information that presents itself.
The Xbox Scorpio is slated to release in the holiday season of 2017.
Source: NeoGaf (via MS Power User)