Demand for the new Xbox One S, 2TB version has been so strong in Europe that it has sold out. It is not just gamers but video enthusiasts who are snapping it up as a 4K Blu-ray player with benefits.
Aaron Greenberg, general manager of games marketing at Xbox, revealed this in an update on Xbox at the largest consumer gaming event in Europe – gamescom 2016 in Köln, Germany.
The good news for Australians is that the soon to be released (22 September) 500GB and 1TB models will come with Xbox One S FIFA 17 Bundle. Greenberg added that over the next 12 months, the company is bringing its biggest line-up to Xbox One and Windows 10 PC, including ReCore, Forza Horizon 3, We Happy Few, Cuphead, Gears of War 4, and Halo Wars 2.
But as good as Xbox One S is, interest is growing in Project Scorpio – the beginning of the end of console gaming as we know it and the beginning of movement back to PC gaming.
{loadposition ray}Greenberg said at gamescom, “For us, we think the future is without console generations; we think that the ability to build a library, a community, to be able to iterate with the hardware – we're making a pretty big bet on that with Project Scorpio. We're basically saying, 'This isn't a new generation; everything you have continues forward, and it works.' We think of this as a family of devices.”
What he means is that computers are getting faster, cheaper and better faster than the console market can release a product, so the future is “software defined gaming” (my term) and games will need to be cross-generational or generation-less – play on every [Windows] platform and leave no one behind.
Greenberg explained, “The idea was, first, how can we innovate with hardware without sacrificing compatibility? When you bring a new iteration of console hardware, you lose compatibility with their games and accessories. So we’re saying if you bought games and accessories for your Xbox One, or you buy an Xbox One S, those games, and those accessories are going to work on Project Scorpio. When you think about backwards compatibility and our games line-up, we want gamers to know that when they’re ready to upgrade to Scorpio, that content will go with them. That’s our promise and commitment to compatibility.”
So Project Scorpio offers backwards compatibility but moving forward it is going to have content that needs its 6+ teraflops of video compute power for AR and VR. And moving even further forward, PCs will become the platform again. And games are still a lucrative market segment.