Leaked Microsoft Document Hints at Second Next-Gen Xbox (theverge.com) 21
Microsoft has been planning a second, cheaper and less power next-gen Xbox console. Codenamed Lockhart, it's designed to take most of the key next-gen improvements found in the Xbox Series X and provide them at a lower price point for gaming at 1080p or 1440p. A newly leaked Microsoft document, posted on Twitter, includes references to this Lockhart console and multiple "Project Scarlett consoles." From a report: Project Scarlett was the name Microsoft originally used to reveal its Xbox Series X console before it was officially named. Rumors had suggested two next-gen consoles under the broader Project Scarlett plans: Anaconda and Lockhart. Microsoft has etched an anaconda snake into the Xbox Series X mainboard, but the company has never publicly discussed its Lockhart plans. The leaked document also mentions a Lockhart profiling mode. Sources familiar with Microsoft's Xbox plans tell The Verge that this special Lockhart mode is part of the Xbox Series X developer kit. The devkit, codenamed Dante, allows game developers to enable a special Lockhart mode that has a profile of the performance that Microsoft wants to hit with this second console. We understand that includes 7.5GB of usable RAM, a slightly underclocked CPU speed, and around 4 teraflops of GPU performance. The Xbox Series X includes 13.5GB of usable RAM, and targets 12 teraflops of GPU performance.
Damn (Score:2)
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This is the opposite of the Osborne 1, which suffered because Osborne advertised a better successor early in the sales cycle of the original. Microsoft is announcing an inferior classmate, so we'll have to see what kind of damage (if any) occurs.
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Re: Damn (Score:1)
Or possibly no one. I haven't seen their market research. Maybe it'll just bomb. Wouldn't be the first MS project to die on day one if it went that way.
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I think it's to be aggressive on prices.
The Xbox One X will probably be the cheap $200 unit, the Lockhart be $300, while the Sbox Series X will be $500.
It's the same reason Sony has both the discless and disc versions of the PS5 - it's rumored to be expensive at $500 for the discless version and maybe $600 for the
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Price will be key (Score:1)
So if true, Lockhart is 1/3 of the GPU power, 10GB RAM instead of 16GB, and a slightly slower CPU than XSX. RDNA2 (XSX) graphics are more efficient than GCN (XB1X) but I don't think they're 50% more efficient, so this 4 TFLOPS will not really even match the old XB1X.
The lower CPU speed would suggest that framerate as well as resolution will be dropped. A 4K60 XSX game may well turn into a 1440p30 game on Lockhart.
I wonder if it will even both with ray tracing. Depends on whether the XSX can do it at 4K, or
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I think they will just lock lockhart into a plain 1080p for everything, as well, many people are still stuck on this resolution. This gives it an advantage over the XB1X that tries in most titles to get close to 4k, and also greatly reduces the raytracing load because it scales linearly with the number of pixels.
Add the MUCH better CPU (if compared to XB1X) and it's not that bad of a deal.
Of course, minecraft RTX would have to do exactly what you said, but games using raytrace only for reflections or shadow
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Wild guess here, but I'm thinking Lockhart will replace XB1X, probably at higher margins, since a lot of the hardware is shared with XB Series X (Anaconda) so they might get better economies of scale. I expect to see XB1X disappear in 2021 or sooner, replaced by Lockhart for less than the current XB1X price of $479 CAD in my case, and with better performance and full compatibility.
I'm in! (Score:3)
Bring me a sleeker, cheaper (doesn't matter if it's digital games only), more silent XBOX Series S that fits into my TV cabinet and I'm in!
No need to play games at 4k 120fps!
(Maybe I'm in the minority)
Microsoft is the new SEGA (Score:2)
Too many consoles, confusing options, compatibility with games will suffer.
The only question (Score:3)
The only important question is the price. At the previous gen the lost mostly because they bundled the expensive kinect sensor, and people opted for the cheaper (and slightly more powerful) PS4.
This gen both Sony and Microsoft seem to play the game of chicken, waiting for the other one to announce the price first. The first one to do so would be at a disadvantage. Even though Series X seems to have performance advantage on paper, and Sony has better exclusives the race could be won before it starts depending on the price equilibrium.
(But I believe in any case us gamers would benefit from their competition).
Erh... did they think that through? (Score:2)
Considering that 9 out of 10 new titles are basically the same old game just with beefed up graphics, why do they think anyone would go and buy the new game when it will just look like the one they already had on the old console?
Switch screen is 1280x720, 1080p over HDMI (Score:3)
https://www.nintendo.com/switc... [nintendo.com]
Not everything has to be 4k. Hell, they're probably making more money on the Lite version.