LOADS more at the link. It's a huge interview / article.
https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2016/jul/11/scorpio-microsoft-xbox-one-s-future-video-games?
https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2016/jul/11/scorpio-microsoft-xbox-one-s-future-video-games?
The question on a lot of lips was, why? Why did Microsoft start its press briefing with Xbox One S, promising 4K compatibility, a new 40% smaller body and support for HDR gaming, only to apparently undermine the package by revealing Scorpio at the end? Due in late 2017, this intriguing iteration packs in eight CPU cores and promises six teraflops of processing power. And while Xbox One S will run 4K movies and promises to upscale games to that resolution, it’ll be Scorpio that delivers true, native 4K gaming. So why not keep it secret for a few more months? Why instantly cannibalise the Xbox One S market before it has even launched?
In short, Spencer wanted to use E3 to reach the whole development community and pique its interest in the new hardware. Of course, the counter-argument would be that Microsoft could have done that in secret, with a whole bunch of NDAs, but then, the industry has changed a lot, even since the last hardware generation. There’s much more appreciation for – and even reliance on – the vast, global independent sector, and it’s unlikely Microsoft would have kept its new platform secret for long while communicating with such a large community. So the thinking was perhaps, why not go big? Why not light the powder keg at the biggest show in gaming?
Meanwhile Microsoft remains confident in its Xbox One S proposition. The company has seen the decent uptake of 4K televisions, and knows consumers are looking for compatible content. “A lot of people are missing the fact that Xbox One S is a 4K, UHD physical Blu-ray player too,” says Mike Ybarra, director of program management for Xbox. “Well, those are retailing at $399. With Xbox One S, at $299, you’re getting 4K Blu-ray, a 4K upscaler for games and video, it’s 40% smaller than Xbox One, and has the power supply built in. I think people are going to be blown away when they see HDR games and video, frankly. It’s a pretty big difference.”
‘I’m not trying to turn PC gamers into console gamers’
Spencer is not keen on that supposition. “PC gaming and console gaming are different, and the customer segments have capabilities and expectations that are unique to the platforms they play on,” he says. “With Xbox and Windows, there are some common things that we can put in the hands of creators and gamers – like Xbox Live, like your friends list – that help unify your gaming experience and put you at the centre as the player.
“But I bristle at the idea we’re bringing the platforms ‘together’. It’s not that I’m trying to turn PC gamers into console gamers or console gamers into PC gamers. We just know, and I’m sure you’re tracking it, the health of PC gaming is incredibly high right now, and we know some of our best and most active customers on Xbox One are also PC gamers – so we see this opportunity to service the customer and where they actually play, and they want to stay connected to their friends wherever they are. Things like Xbox Play Anywhere are really about choice and where they want to play. So if you’re at school and want to play a couple of rounds of a game and then you go back home and want to continue on your couch, that seems normal. Every other kind of media – your music, your movies – everything else works that way.
VR – the future, as usual, is hazy
One element of the future that Microsoft is not so certain on is virtual reality. Unlike Sony, the company has not developed its own headset, concentrating instead on augmented reality via its Hololens project. It has a partnership with Oculus, and we’ve seen the excellent virtual reality version of Minecraft that runs on Rift and Windows 10 PC. Furthermore, at E3 we saw Phil Spencer on stage saying, “The next step change for gamers and developers must deliver true 4K gaming and high-fidelity VR.”
So was VR support a key part of the Scorpio vision? “I think the capability in the consoles that are on the market today to play high-fidelity true console-like experiences in VR ... they’re just not powerful enough,” he says. “To deliver the experience that console gamers expect, that’s really a six-teraflop problem at least. You kind of need to get there.”
But there’s a problem here. Microsoft has said that there will be no Project Scorpio exclusives, that all games will be compatible across the whole range. But if publishers begin to create high-end virtual reality titles that will only run on Scorpio-level hardware – that’s market fragmentation, right? “I will say, we’re very focused on console games and what console gamers want, and I see VR as something different,” he says. “Like, other people might try to say, ‘VR is the future of console gaming.’ I’m not saying that. I’m saying if you’re an Xbox One console gamer, we are so focused on making your experience the best experience you’ve ever had with the best lineup of games. We’re not getting distracted.”
Perhaps then, we’re looking at a future market where Xbox One titles will feature VR modes and augmentations that will only be accessible to Scorpio owners – but not a future where we’ll see totally dedicated VR titles. If this at first seems limiting and appears to show a company attempting to sideline VR, there are interesting hints that this is not the case. When asked about the idea of multiplayer VR games and virtual social spaces like AltSpaceVR running on Xbox, Ybarra is unguardedly enthusiastic. “We’re focused right now on what we announced on Scorpio, but Xbox Live and VR opens a lot of doors that we’re looking into for sure,” he says. “The opportunity of VR and Xbox Live together is boundless – we’re just starting to consider what that will look like. We have teams looking at what’s coming and how we apply that.”