Microsoft is currently set to release its next-gen console, the Xbox Series X, sometime later this year. A few details regarding the system have been shared, but we’ve yet to get a full picture on exactly what the Series X’s party tricks are, a full breakdown of its capabilities, and what games we’ll be playing on launch day. On top of that, the Xbox Series X price and release date have yet to be revealed, and these are the two big pieces of information fans are desperate to find out.
As such, we decided it’d be fun to sift through what information we do have so far, and try and predict the Xbox Series X’s price point when it releases (likely) this holiday season. So, without further ado, let’s hop to it.
Ray-Tracing Hardware
One thing Microsoft has made perfectly clear in its teases for the Xbox Series X thus far is its vast amounts of graphical horsepower.
It’ll be based on the same AMD Zen 2 chip that the PS5 will run on. This architecture is capable of 8K visuals, so there’s certainly a significant boost in the horsepower of both of these systems.
On top of that, both systems will be able to utilize ray-tracing technology. This essentially means the Xbox Series X will be able to calculate the exact path of each ray of light, its reflections, and the way they pass through transparent objects to offer a different level of visual fidelity entirely.
Right now, the best price we could find on Amazon for an NVIDIA GeForce RTX 2070 graphics card capable of running ray-tracing tech sits at $379.99. Prices do fluctuate around that, but this should give you an idea of roughly how much those Xbox Series X innards will set Microsoft back.
It’s worth keeping in mind, though, that Microsoft will no doubt get some discount on these parts due to economies of scale, and likely have some sort of deal in place. The more they buy, the cheaper they can mass-purchase, in turn enabling them to lower costs. We’ll return to this point later.
