Microsoft Already has Post-Scorpio Xbox Plans

Microsoft’s new Xbox One – dubbed Project Scorpio – isn’t even out yet, but already the company is planning its successor. Project Scorpio, expected for release in 2017, will introduce 4K and VR support, and Xbox chief Phil Spencer has revealed that Microsoft already has ideas for “what could be after Scorpio.”

Spencer’s tweet tallies with statements made by Microsoft back in June regarding the future of the Xbox platform:

“We see exciting opportunities on the horizon to create new innovations that will benefit both gamers and game developers alike.

The next step-change for gamers and developers must deliver true 4K gaming and high-fidelity VR experiences to the console. To that end, we were happy to announce the next addition to the Xbox One family: Project Scorpio.

When it ships next year, Project Scorpio will be our most powerful console ever built, specifically to lead the industry into a future in which true 4K gaming and high-fidelity VR are the standard, not an exception.

Project Scorpio will be the first console with 6 teraflops of power, which will empower the world’s greatest game creators to fully embrace true 4K gaming without sacrificing quality, generate premier VR experiences, without sacrificing performance, and putting greater graphic fidelity in the hands of the world’s best game creators.

Best of all, Xbox One, Xbox One S and Project Scorpio will all be compatible. All Xbox One games and accessories will play on each device. It’s very important to us that no one gets left behind, which is a big part of why we view Project Scorpio as a new way of thinking about consoles and generations.”

However, a fellow Xbox executive has suggested that Project Scorpio could be the last of its kind. “We think the future is without console generations,” Aaron Greenberg, Head of Games Marketing told Engadget. “We think that the ability to build a library, a community, to be able to iterate with the hardware — we’re making a pretty big bet on that with Project Scorpio.”

“We’re basically saying, ‘This isn’t a new generation; everything you have continues forward and it works.’ We think of this as a family of devices,” he added.