Microsoft has officially announced the name of the next Xbox, and it isn’t exactly what we expected. Xbox Series X is coming next holiday season, and it looks more like a PC than any game console we’ve seen before.
Announced via a short teaser during The Game Awards 2019, the Xbox Series X console is the official name of Project Scarlett, and its form factor is vertical, with a disc drive visible on the front. The console was teased with footage of Master Chief, as well as a car from Forza and a soccer player — presumably either from FIFA or PES. With Microsoft boasting that the console will have four times more processing power than the Xbox One X, the possibilities seem pretty limitless for the kind of games we will end up seeing.
A new controller will be shipping with the console, which is quite similar to the Xbox One’s controller. It features a share button similar to the PS4’s controller, as well as a new directional pad that is based on the design of the Xbox Elite Series 2 controller. The console itself can be placed vertically or horizontally, and resembles a PC — to the point that we believed it might have been a PC before Microsoft confirmed it was indeed its next-generation console.
One other game was shown during the presentation, and it’s a sequel from Ninja Theory. Senua’s Saga: Hellblade II will release on the Xbox Series X, and the trailer was near-photorealistic and once again featured Melina Juergens in the lead role. Given the dark and emotional impact of the previous game’s ending, it will be interesting to see where the story goes. It’s the second game in development now at Ninja Theory, with the studio currently working on the multiplayer action game Bleeding Edge coming to Xbox One next year.
Speaking to GameSpot, head of Xbox Phil Spencer revealed that the console will indeed have 12 TFLOPS of GPU power, GDDR6 RAM, and an NVMe SSD. The system will also let you pause and resume multiple games, unlike the one-game limit on current systems.
Sony has yet to confirm the design of its PlayStation 5, but we don’t anticipate it being radically different from its current console. We will likely hear more in early 2020, and will keep you updated on the latest news.
For more The Game Awards updates, check out our full coverage.
