[Update] Of course AMD won’t talk about unreleased products, but they have sent over the following statement regarding the new console from Microsoft. Naturally, it is an AMD SoC, but exactly what won’t be revealed just yet. Patience Padawan.
“We are proud that Microsoft has chosen to expand their Xbox One family of devices with two new consoles featuring AMD’s high-performance semi-custom SoCs that support revolutionary new technologies like HDR, 4K and high fidelity VR to enable the next generation of immersive gaming experiences.”
Not to be outdone, Microsoft too has a new, upgraded, Xbox One console on the way. Their new Project Scorpio was announced at their press conference and will be a bleeding edge evolution of their console, making it that much more quick.
Project Scorpio is Microsoft’s answer to Sony’s PlayStation Neo
With the rumors and subsequent confirmation from Sony that they’re working on a more powerful version that’s aiming to provide a better VR experience, not to mention to have games be graphically better and run faster than they otherwise would, it’s natural that Microsoft wanted to do the same thing. Last year at E3 they also announced a sort of partnership with Oculus, and this is likely in response to that. Their own platform that’s capable of true VR without terrible sacrifices to graphical fidelity.
This new Project Scorpio console will feature what they’re saying is a true 4K resolution, 6 TFLOPS of raw GPU compute power and will run gaming content at a full 60Hz. For comparison, the Xbox One only has 1.23 TFLOPS of raw GPU compute power. PC hardware evolves very quickly, and game engines are becoming increasingly complex so this mid-cycle update is a necessary to remain competitive. It’s entirely likely that it’ll use a custom AMD Zen-based APU with custom Polaris GPU attached to it. The exact specifications are unknown currently, but we’ll know more the closer it gets to it launching.
The new console will launch during the Holiday season in 2016 and all games, accessories and everything in-between will be compatible across all three consoles, the regular Xbox One, S and the Project Scorpio. They haven’t announced a price, but with the Xbox One S being $299, we can expect that it’ll be somewhere north of that.