Microsoft has officially announced their new Project Scorpio at E3 2016 and has scheduled it for release in the holiday season of 2017.
The Redmond-based company has followed when Sony announced their PlayStation NEO upgraded console. Fans have previously thought that Project Scorpio will be the Xbox Two but Microsoft has not yet given more details regarding their new console.
What everyone does know is that the new console will be able to run games smoothly at 4K resolution. It will also be capable of running the new VR games that will be supported but Microsoft's VR headset has not been unveiled yet.
Phil Spencer from Microsoft told The Verge that developers will now have to take advantage of what Project Scorpio has to offer in terms of performance. The console will be dishing out six teraflops of computing power.
"Project Scorpio is actually an Xbox One that can natively run games in 4K and is built with the hardware capabilities to support the high-end VR that you see happening in the PC space today... when it ships it will be the most powerful console ever built," said Spencer.
Microsoft's bold statement of the new console being the most powerful will have to be challenged by Sony and Nintendo. The PlayStation NEO has been confirmed to exist and the Nintendo NX is set for an early 2017 release.
There has been no VR headset announced during their E3 2016 presentation. There is a possibility that the Project Scorpio Xbox One will just make use of the Oculus Rift, Polygon reported.
Microsoft does have a relationship with Oculus considering that the Rift ships with a wireless Xbox controller inside. The company has also promised earlier that Xbox One players will be able to stream their games with the VR headset inside a virtual reality theater.
It is now time for Sony's move. The Microsoft Project Scorpio Xbox One has laid out what it can do on paper but the PlayStation NEO's specs have not been revealed yet as of this writing. However, the NEO could be released later this year while the Xbox Two is not expected until next year.