Microsoft promised to reveal the details of its Project Scorpio Xbox upgrade at its E3 keynote this year. There have been rumors and leaked videos of footage from games on the console which lead to a lot of build up to today’s announcement. What we got is the Xbox One X.
Anyone expecting a new design will be disappointed as the new console looks like the standard Xbox. The development kits had an OLED display, physical buttons and a lock, none of which made it to the final builds. It is the same in shape to the cheaper Xbox One S, although it is slightly smaller. Microsoft did mention that it would come in multiple colors, but only black units were on display at the launch.
The real changes that make it an upgrade over previous editions of the Xbox are inside. Using a custom GPU specially designed for the Xbox One X, the console produces around 6 teraflops of graphical number crunching. The GPU is far ahead of its competition, with the PS4 producing 4.2 teraflops. The GPU runs at 1172 MHz, also ahead of the PS4’s 911Mhz. Microsoft announced 22 exclusives, and all run at 60fps at 4K, illustrating the graphical power of the console.
Consoles will always have the same drawbacks: the lack of upgradeability, the lack of choice in where you can buy games, but the new Xbox delivers gaming performance close to a high-end PC, making it worthwhile. The Xbox one X retail price starts at $499 and goes on sale on the 7th of November 2017.