Last night at the annual Game Awards, Xbox unveiled Project Scarlet’s new look and name. The next Xbox will be called the Xbox Series X and features a much boxier, vertical design.
Writing in a blog post, Phil Spencer, head of Xbox spoke about the “bold and unique” design:
“Xbox Series X will be our fastest, most powerful console ever and set a new bar for performance, speed and compatibility, allowing you to bring your gaming legacy, thousands of games from three generations and more forward with you. Its industrial design enables us to deliver four times the processing power of Xbox One X in the most quiet and efficient way, something that is critically important in delivering truly immersive gameplay. We also designed Xbox Series X to support both vertical and horizontal orientation. It’s bold and unique, very much like our fans around the world and the team of collaborators and innovators who built it.”
Phil Spencer, head of Xbox
In addition to the unveiling of the Xbox Series X, the company also showcased the new Xbox Wireless Controller. With a slightly new design, the advanced D-pad is derived from the Xbox Elite Series 2 Wireless Controller and features a new Share button for easier sharing of screenshots and game clips. The new controller will be compatible with Xbox One, Windows 10 PCs, and, of course, the Xbox Series X.
Without getting too specific, Spencer also mentioned that the next Xbox will easily run in 4K at 60FPS and possibly hit 120FPS. It will also support Variable Refresh Rates and 8K. With an AMD GPU, it will also have hardware-accelerated ray tracing, Variable Rate Shading technology, and feature a next-generation SSD.
Like the generations before it, the Xbox Series X will be backward compatible and allow gamers to play games from four generations of Xbox, as well as use all their existing Xbox One accessories on the new console. Spencer also noted that Xbox Game Studios games will support cross-generation entitlements which we assume means if you purchase it for the Xbox One X, you’ll be able to play it on the Xbox Series X should you upgrade at some point.
As is the norm, pricing or other detailed specifications haven’t been officially announced yet. The Xbox Series X will be released in Holiday 2020 with more information about it coming throughout the next year.
What do you think about Project Scarlet’s official name and design? Are you going to be picking one up next holiday season? Let us know in the comments below or on Twitter, Facebook, or MeWe.
Last Updated on February 3, 2021.
