Home Gaming Xbox Scarlett is being designed to keep the PlayStation 5 in second place

Xbox Scarlett is being designed to keep the PlayStation 5 in second place

2 min read
41
if you ain't first you're last

I’m a big believer in the idea that graphics aren’t everything, but at the same time my primitive monkey brain starts flooding with dopamine the second I see some tasty 4K visuals running at 60 frames per second while a developer asks me to cast my gaze at revolutionary new technology that allows for accurate tooth decay to be rendered in a character’s mouth.

For many of us, getting games to run at their very best requires either a top-notch PC or one of the more recent mid-cycle console upgrades that Sony and Microsoft pumped out. Microsoft may have the edge in the current arms race with the Xbox One X, but that’s an advantage that came from them being absolutely manhandled by Sony in the first few years of this generation.

Remember the stories? Remember the console comparisons that highlighted how the base Xbox One console regularly delivered fewer peas and saw diminished frames per second every time the action got too hot on the screen? Going forward, Microsoft isn’t looking to kick off the next generation of console gaming on the technical backfoot again. “There are going to be areas where we should compete,” Xboss Phil Spencer said to Giant Bomb via Windows Central.

Xbox Scarlett (1)

And those areas can lead to better outcomes when we compete but it’s still a world where in order for us to do better, you don’t have to do worse. Gaming is a better space when there are brands that people trust, where brands that have been around for decades continue to be around. I want Xbox obviously to be one of those.

We’re not building Scarlett to not be the best console. I want to be number one. I’m as competitive as anybody. But that doesn’t mean that I need somebody else to suffer from a business standpoint. I think raw power is very important. I don’t have a PS5 development kit, so I don’t know what they’re building. I will say that being a leader in consoles is what the team is committed to doing.

We aren’t building this program to try to aim for second place. We’re building it aiming for first place and that’s what I want to hit.

Spicy. Competition benefits everybody, and I’ve got a feeling that Microsoft is going to give Sony a hell of a fight in 2020 and beyond. The Xbox Game Pass program has proven to be a hit, the company has a ton of studios now working for them and the console coming next year is said to have quadruple the power of the Xbox One X.

Meanwhile, some reports indicate that Sony’s PlayStation 5 will be the more technically impressive beast in this reignited console war, with the boss of SEGA’s Yakuza game studio praising the console and what it’ll be capable of. The next console generation is going to be a hell of an interesting battle, only this time it won’t be so one-sided.

Last Updated: June 13, 2019

41 Comments

  1. You mean THIRD place!

    #MasterRaceHurrDurr

    Reply

  2. Dutch Matrix

    June 13, 2019 at 11:20

    I see the new dick measuring cycle starts…

    Reply

    • Original Heretic

      June 13, 2019 at 11:20

      That’s about the long and short of it.

      Reply

  3. Gavin Mannion

    June 13, 2019 at 11:20

  4. Yahtzee

    June 13, 2019 at 11:41

    8K 10FPS Hype!

    Reply

    • Admiral Chief

      June 13, 2019 at 12:02

      LOL @ 10fps

      In other words, EXPENSIVE PURRRDY SLIDESHOW PROJECTOR

      Reply

  5. Yahtzee

    June 13, 2019 at 11:41

    You know I almost had bingo on this reveal, the only one i still needed was “Terraflops”. I was so sure they would say it, but it never happened.

    Reply

  6. G8crasha

    June 13, 2019 at 11:41

    Chances are, if I were to pick between the new Xbox and the PS, I would pick the PS, simply because it seems like MS will be looking at the Windows PC and Xbox as the same platform, and thus, will develop their exclusives for both platforms. Sony will still have exclusives that can only be played on a PS console.

    Reply

    • Pieter Kruger

      June 13, 2019 at 12:03

      Maybe, but Sony has recently/suddenly been very vocal about streaming & “play where you want to”……just saying, playing God Of War on PC might not be such a crazy idea in the near future. How many PC gamers would opt in on a Sony subscription service in order to play those great exclusives? PLENTY! Time will tell though…

      Reply

      • G8crasha

        June 13, 2019 at 12:25

        True. Every company and their dogs are joining the streaming game, so there may come a time when there is nothing to differentiate one platform from the next. Why restrict your games to one platform, when you can open them up to all, and generate more money. With streaming, there is no limitation on hardware. It is all purely restricted by what type of IC you have!

        Reply

    • For the Emperor!

      June 13, 2019 at 11:42

      • Peder Aas

        June 13, 2019 at 17:57

        I don’t think higher raw power differs much – unless the gap is big.

        Reply

    • G8crasha

      June 13, 2019 at 12:25

      True. Every company and their dogs are joining the streaming game, so there may come a time when there is nothing to differentiate one platform from the next. Why restrict your games to one platform, when you can open them up to all, and generate more money. With streaming, there is no limitation on hardware. It is all purely restricted by what type of IC you have.

      Reply

  7. Viper_ZA

    June 13, 2019 at 12:25

    MS should rather focus on the gaming library, it’s bland — that’s being polite.

    Reply

  8. Guz

    June 13, 2019 at 11:20

    Can wait xD when they come out I can buy this old gen console at a better price and catch up on some of the exclusives I’ve missed out on, there are some awesome games that I never got to play on PC

    Reply

    • For the Emperor!

      June 13, 2019 at 11:20

      Like God of War! Though if the PS5 is backwards compatible for that game (and a few others I missed), I might just grab that. Or give up gaming on new games/platforms and keep playing Stellaris ad infinitum…

      Reply

      • Guz

        June 13, 2019 at 11:41

        God of war and Horizon Zero Dawn are two that I’m itching to play

        Reply

        • Original Heretic

          June 13, 2019 at 11:41

          H: ZD never really grabbed me.

          Reply

          • Dutch Matrix

            June 13, 2019 at 11:41

            If it did, I would shit myself. Spontanious discs grabbing me unnerves me a bit…

          • Original Heretic

            June 13, 2019 at 11:42

            I was sorely disappointed. Heard such good things about it, but it just felt like another open world romp.
            Maybe I didn’t give it enough time/chance.

          • Dutch Matrix

            June 13, 2019 at 11:42

            The same this side. A friend of mine played it for weeks on end. Loved it to bits. Perhaps one day…

          • Original Heretic

            June 13, 2019 at 12:02

            I think at the time I just had to step away from another open world game.
            We’re so spoiled for choice on those these days, it has to be REALLY special for me to play it.

          • Original Heretic

            June 13, 2019 at 11:42

            I was sorely disappointed. Heard such good things about it, but it just felt like another open world romp.
            Maybe I didn’t give it enough time/chance.

          • Dresden

            June 14, 2019 at 08:30

            Glad I’m not alone. Got it with my PS4 and I’ve never played more than an hour of it.

        • For the Emperor!

          June 13, 2019 at 11:41

          Those two specifically. The others I cannot remember now, but there were a few in the RPG/Action-RPG genres that were exclusives as well. I hope XBox gets their act together but damn I don’t want them to temp me away from Kratos!

          Reply

  9. HvR

    June 13, 2019 at 11:42

  10. stu123

    June 13, 2019 at 19:29

    Sorry Microsoft if it was 4 times more powerful I’d still want the new Playstation.

    Reply

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