Microsoft is ‘all-in’ on the next-gen Xbox
www.theverge.com
“I would say a learning from the Xbox One generation is we will not be out of position on power or price"
Lockhart is dead in the water as a 4 TF console if PS5 with 10.3 TF and a disc drive is at 399. And since Microsoft can't control Sony's pricing (and they would have expected PS5 to hit 399 since that was the launch price of both PS4 and PS4 Pro) if Lockhart exists, it's built accordingly. Which means 299 is completely ridiculous. For it to be any kind of value proposition it needs to be 199 or 249. It would be an additional revenue stream, it's not in any way the main console, that's why they only talk about XSX. 4K adoption in the US is already over 50 %. The number of people interested in a purely 1080p console is shrinking every day. If Microsoft wants to launch a 299 XSS and a 499 XSX against a 399 PS5, they are dead. So that's not what they will do with all the talk about market leadership and selling loads of consoles to sell Game Pass subscriptions. It's going to be 199 XSS and 399 XSX. Because back when they were designing these things in 2016, those would have been the targets to put them against Sony's PS5 at 399. Nobody could've seen back then that NAND and DRAM prices would spike in early 2020. So while the consoles might be more expensive now than anticipated, the point still stands: You can't launch a 4 TF console against either a 10.3 TF console or a 12 TF console for just $100 cheaper. It makes no sense.
Even XSX can't be $100 more than PS5, because nobody in their right mind would pay 25 % more for 20 % more power. Price/performance matters. And thus Lockhart needs to hit a price where you feel you are stupid not to buy one, like it happened with the Xbox One SAD last Christmas. As a device for those that play predominantly on PS5, or on Switch, or on PC, or that don't have a 4KTV or not enough disposable income. That's what Lockhart's job is.
XSX is not for the enthusiasts, it's for the mainstream Xbox customers. The enthusiast console will come in three to four years and blow XSX out of the water with 25 TF. Why? Because Sony will want to get that power crown back with a PS5 Pro, so Microsoft has to follow. Thanks to their weird BC hardware requirements it's pretty obvious that PS5 Pro will end up at 72 CU and simply have 20.6 TF max. Double PS5. And since Microsoft doesn't want to have their core users jump ship halfway through the generation they will beat that, at a slightly higher price.