Will There Be an Alternative ‘Scarlett’ SKU to the Xbox Series X?
Before any official reveals and we’d seen the cuboid that is the Xbox Series X, a rumor did the rounds regarding Microsoft’s next-gen system, ‘Scarlett.’ While it was all through the grapevine, speculative stuff, it did note something particularly interesting.
Microsoft’s next-gen console would be an all-digital beast. It’d be smaller in form factor, and would stream games from Microsoft’s cloud-based servers to offer peak performance.
Alas, all that we’ve heard about the Xbox Series X appears to point to the fact that Microsoft is opting for a disc-based, traditional console set-up. So what’s the deal with that old Scarlett rumor?
Chances are, it could have been a bit of a miscommunication in exactly what was going on behind Microsoft’s closed doors. Perhaps the cloud-based console was actually just the Xbox Game Streaming service that’s currently in ‘Preview.’
Or maybe, just maybe, the cloud-based console is coming, but just further down the line. The fact the Game Streaming platform is still in preview suggests there’s still work to be done there. If a console is to be solely reliant on this service, you can bet your bottom dollar Microsoft wants it absolutely perfect before they drop the SKU.
Will it ever be announced? Will it be an alternative SKU on launch day? Or will it just never come to fruition? Only time will tell.
Just How Big Will the SSD Be?
There has been a lot of talk recently regarding the internal specs of both the Xbox Series X and the PS5. Without question, both systems look to be a massive step forward compared to the standard Xbox One and PS4 respectively.
Toting a custom-built CPU and GPU based on AMD’s ZEN 2 CPU and Navi GPU architecture respectively, there’s ample reason to be excited. Especially when it’s partnered up with high-bandwidth DDR6 RAM and that GPU chipset is supposedly able to outperform NVIDIA’s RTX 2070 graphics cards by 10%.
However, in my opinion, the most significant improvement will come thanks to the SSD. Solid State Drives don’t have any moving parts, and are essentially flash drives but with very high capacity. They also have insanely fast read/write speeds compared to traditional hard drives.
Implementing one of these, therefore, will reduce load times significantly, especially when Microsoft claims it’ll also use a ‘new generation of SSDs’ that the company will use ‘as virtual RAM.’
The issue is, just how big is the SSD going to be? SSD prices have been on the fall for the past two years, but they can still be pretty pricey.
In this current console generation, however, it became very clear that 500GB just wasn’t enough in a time where the likes of Elder Scrolls Online, Red Dead Redemption 2 and Call of Duty can all take up close or over 100GB each.
As such, we’d be hoping the Xbox Series X packs in a fairly hefty SSD under the hood. 1TB at the very least sounds about right.
Whether or not that’s something that Microsoft can viably do, taking into account the various economic factors and the goal price point they’re aiming for remains to be seen. Guess we’ll just have to wait to find out.
What Will the Xbox Series X’s Price Be?
The Xbox One had a bit of a disastrous launch back in 2013. Not only was it marred by Don Mattrick’s ‘all-in-one’ TV set vision, but it also came with a difficult to swallow $499 price tag. Simply put, Microsoft won’t want to make that mistake again this time.
That being said, from what we know about the Xbox Series X and the PS5 for that matter, these next-gen consoles are packing a ton of horsepower.
We also know that the $499 price point isn’t necessarily something Microsoft sees as being out of bounds, with the Xbox One X initially releasing at this price, too.
Whether or not it’ll try again at $499, or take a bit of a loss on the hardware to entice more players to pick up the system by opting for a lower price point remains to be seen.
A lot of this, we imagine, will come down to what the rumours are about Sony’s pricing strategy with the PS5. Expect the concrete price tag for the Xbox Series X sometime in June.
What’s the Official Release Date?
The obvious question on everyone’s lips right now is exactly when they can get their hands on an Xbox Series X right now.
While we know that Microsoft’s new supercharged system will be releasing at some point in 2020, it hasn’t announced a set release date yet. Chances are, if we’re going off previous console launches, the Xbox Series X’s release date will be sometime around November.
In fact, we’ll go as far as to predict that the Xbox Series X’s release date will be Nov. 20 of this year. That’d drop it right on a Friday, and falls somewhat in line with the previous Xbox launch dates.
Both the Xbox One and Xbox 360 were released in North America on Nov. 22. If they did that this year, it’d be on a Sunday, so we’re hedging our bets that they’ll stick to this time window and go for the closest Friday.
Least you’ve got plenty of time to save those pennies if we are right, but remember we are just speculating. Microsoft will likely give us both the price and the release date later in the year, probably during it’s keynote at E3.
