The game industry is buzzing about the recently revealed specs and details about Microsoft's Scorpio console, launching later this year. The hardware is a mid-cycle console refresh of the Xbox One, future-proofing the device as we move into an era of 4K televisions.
But what does the new system mean for game developers?
Gamasutra's own news editor Alex Wawro got a chance to get an early look at the Scorpio, as well as dev kits for the Scorpio. He also got to have a wide-ranging chat with Microsoft's head of Xbox Phil Spencer. You should definitely read both of those articles.
Gamasutra staffers have been discussing the significance of these announcements all week. First in a Twitch chat, and then in an epic email thread. We gathered up the email conversation, and are sharing it below.
Chris Baker (@chrisbaker1337), assignment editor: I'll kick off the conversation on the newly revealed details about the Scorpio. So what do we think this means for developers? And how will consumers respond?
"If I can also play hotly anticipated Xbox games, like Cuphead, Tacoma, Crackdown 3, Sea of Thieves, and State of Decay 2, on a PC as well...it's hard to justify shelling out for a second hidef console under my TV."
I can give my own firsthand reaction as a consumer. I have been torn over whether to buy an Xbox One or a nice new gaming laptop for the last year or so. I mean, if I can also play the most hotly anticipated Xbox games, like Cuphead, Tacoma, Crackdown 3, Sea of Thieves, and State of Decay 2, on a PC...it's hard to justify shelling out for a second hidef console under my TV.
But I really dig what I've seen of the Scorpio's specs, and I like the idea of a future-proofed game and media device that'll still be good enough for the 4K TV I upgrade to a few years from now. So if the price is right, I may well pick it up.
I'm very keen to know what the Scorpio means for developers. I'm sure we'll see lots of retrofits of previously released games, but how will it change developing for Microsoft's ecosystem?
How does Scorpio change the console business? Phil Spencer's remarks in Alex's interview suggest a desire to create a platform with tons of backwards compatibility, and no hard breaks between generations, like people who play games on PC currently experience. But--honestly, that rich selection of games on PCs has more to do with Steam and GOG and Dosbox than it does with Microsoft. Can Microsoft deliver that on a console?
Alex Wawro (@awawro), news editor: Yeah, I think Microsoft's success with Xbox depends more on games than hardware -- Scorpio is shaping up to be a beast, but that doesn't really matter if everyone's playing Mario and Zelda on Switch, or Minecraft and Dota 2 on PC.
"What we're seeing is a major console maker acknowledging that the PC, more than the PlayStation or the Switch, is its primary competitor right now."
Still, the arrival of Scorpio is broadly interesting because it suggests one of the biggest players in the console game space is adapting its platform to be more like Steam. When I spent a day at Microsoft talking to folks about Project Scorpio, they kept coming back to how approachable it would be for third-party game devs, especially PC game devs, because they're already accustomed to designing games that can scale to run well across a variety of hardware.
More than once, the Microsoft folks described Project Scorpio and Xbox One as roughly analogous to games' recommended spec and minimum spec on Steam. They talked about wanting to make sure Xbox games would be playable across multiple iterations of Xbox hardware. They seemed excited about the prospect of first-party Xbox games (like Gears of War and Forza) coming to PC.
What we're seeing here, then, is a major console maker acknowledging that the PC, more than the PlayStation or the Switch, is its primary competitor right now. That seems like something devs should be aware of.
Chris Baker: Alex, I definitely agree that Scorpio seems to be more about Xbox vs PC rather than, say, Xbox vs Playstation. They're aiming to make Microsoft's console and computer platforms complement each other even better.
Something Spencer said in your interview with him answered one of my burning questions about how fundamentally these mid-cycle console refreshes are shaking up the standard business model. It was:
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