Microsoft considered releasing a more powerful Xbox this year

Microsoft considered releasing a new, more powerful Xbox this year, head of Xbox Phil Spencer has revealed, but decided against it to focus on releasing a “true 4K console” in 2017 instead.

“We could have done a new update this year,” Spencer told Eurogamer. “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.”

Releasing an upgraded console in 2016 would have resulted in something “kind of weird in the middle” between 1080p and 4K, Spencer says.

“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,” he adds. “So let’s go focus on 4K and next year was the right year to do that.”

Microsoft is releasing a new slimline Xbox One this year, of course – the Xbox One S – which ships with support for HDR and 4K video streaming, although it is not designed “to play Xbox One games better than the original Xbox One console,” Spencer says.

Project Scorpio, meanwhile, will run games at a native 4K resolution when it goes on sale next year, although by the sounds of it, you won’t get anything out of it if you don’t upgrade your 1080p TV.

Source: eurogamer.net