During an interview with Windows Central, Xbox head Phil Spencer revealed that the Xbox division was considering releasing an upgraded Xbox One console this year, however, decided against it because according to Phil, there was no ‘half measure’ over at Xbox. During the interview he talked about how there are both 1080p TV’s, and 4K TV’s, but that there was no middle ground to sell an effectively meaningless upgrade to consumers, hence the current Scorpio plans for Holiday 2017.
We could have done a new update this year. We actually looked at it. We went all the way to, we had the spec in front of us, should we ship something that’s less than Scorpio this year, but in truth you can’t do a true 4K console this year. And I just didn’t think anything between what is effectively a 1080p console and the 4K console, like, from a consumer television standpoint there’s nothing in the middle. So let’s go focus on 4K and next year was the right year to do that.
This is in stark contrast to the ‘half measure’ release over at Sony. Phil Spencer recently stated that he wasn’t a fan of the ‘point five’ release idea that Sony adopted, instead waiting until he can make a ‘giant leap forward’ in terms of console power. Microsoft revealed the slightly updated Xbox One S at E3, for the 4K Streaming crowd, and for those holding off upgrading until the Xbox was slimmer. The Xbox Scorpio has reinvigorated the Xbox brand in general, and we’re excited to see what the 6Tflop Xbox can do when it launches later next year.
Source: Windows Central
Dreyer was a regular ICXM contributor between 2016–2017, publishing 139 articles across opinion pieces, game reviews, Windows and PC, and Xbox news. Their work focused on hands-on reviews, platform commentary, and breaking-news reporting during the Xbox One X launch year and Microsoft’s wider Play Anywhere / UWP gaming initiative. They post on X as @dreyer_smit.