With the upcoming Xbox Scorpio, Microsoft’s goal is to build a console without having to make compromises on graphic fidelity, framerate, lighting effects, etc., and deliver that in 4K at 60FPS. According to Microsoft’s senior director of product management however, not every developer will be using the hardware of the Scorpio in that way.
During Microsoft’s E3 press conference this year, the company announced “The most powerful console ever.” – Project Scorpio. The Xbox Scorpio is currently slated for a release next year, and developers are promised access to 8 CPU cores, 320GB’s of memory bandwidth, and 6tflops of GPU power. Although Microsoft’s goal is to build a console that delivers true 4K games, it’s up to the developers to decide what they will do with the console’s power. Microsoft’s sr. director of product management, Albert Penello, said as much in a recent interview with The Inner Circle.
“You have to have a goal. When you decide to do a piece of technology…when you want to launch, how much do you want it to cost…and there are all these decisions. At some point you have to say that this is what we want to do. So Phil kind of teased this up…we didn’t…and this is not a slam on anybody…we didn’t want to take a half step. Phil used to run studios and he is got all this studio guys and all these technology guys and he said if we are going to do this we need to make sure that we make a technology goal for ourselves.”
“So the goal was can we take the same level of graphics, the same frame rate, the same lighting effects, same number of enemies and AI on screen and deliver that in 4K. No compromises. I don’t have to half the number of enemies on screen, I don’t have to reduce the effects, I don’t have to make the game smaller. I should be able to take an Xbox One game today that is in 1080p and 60fps and I want to do 4K/60fps on this new box. And we built the box to deliver that goal. So we know the box will do what we want it to do.”
Microsoft’s goal is to deliver a box that can deliver 4K at 60FPS, but Penello can imagine that developers might want to do something different for their game.
“I think people get confused and say our messaging is weird. Not every developer is going to use it that way. Not every developer is going to decide to take that 6TFLOPs and do 4K/60fps with it. They might decide for their game, their engine that they want to do something different and that’s fine. But our goal is to build a box that deliver true 4K games at the same level of fidelity that you see on your current Xbox One games. That is the box we are building. We know we can do it. We wouldn’t have went out and said it if we didn’t think we could do it. We have a lot of work ahead to do it but that is our goal.”
Are you excited for the Xbox Scorpio? Do you expect that developers will aim for true 4K gaming or will they rather opt for 1080P at 60FPS with visual options maxed out? Leave your comments below.
