Microsoft's head of Xbox, Phil Spencer, has already clarified that they aren't looking to release a new Xbox every two years, but they are looking to release Project Scorpio sometime next year – four years after the Xbox One released.
Scorpio will essentially bridge the gap between the Windows 10 PC gamer and the Xbox gamer. One leg up that PC gamers have (besides more power) is the ability to use VR. Fortunately, it was recently revealed that Scorpio will ship VR ready and will be compatible with the Oculus Rift.
A VR compatible PC costs quite a bit of money, so does this mean Scorpio's price will be boosted up? No, apparently not. According to Spencer's recent interview with AusGamers, Scorpio will be priced at around the same price as most consoles.
"When you talk to me about Scorpio, the term I use about the architecture isn’t the six teraflops which is obviously what we’ve announced, it’s balance. Really what it is, is you want a platform that is balanced between memory bandwidth, GPU power, you know, your ability to move memory and [an] amount of memory around in many ways is more inhibiting to the performance of your game than absolute teraflops on any one of the individual pieces, and when we designed Scorpio we really thought about this balanced rig that could come together at a price-point.
Like, I want Scorpio to be at a console price-point, I’m not trying to go and compete with a high-end rig. And because we’re building one spec, we’re able to look at the balance between all the components and make sure that it’s something we really hit that matters to consumers and gamers."
With an eight-core CPU, 6 terflops of power and a 320Gb/s of memory bandwidth, it's good to hear that Scorpio won't exactly break the bank. If priced at around current console prices, Scorpio will probably be anywhere from $400 to $450 at launch.
