Microsoft Showcases Xbox One S at E3, Announces Project Scorpio

A while ago I wrote about rumors of a new, updated Xbox One console that was smaller, 4K-capable, and more polished. According to a thread on NeoGAF, these aren't just rumors anymore. The Xbox One S is a very real thing, and it looks like the Xbox One is going to be getting a huge makeover in both a physical sense and with respect to actual performance. It has a much sleeker design and looks profoundly less clunky and clumsy than the original Xbox One, and an even sleeker controller to come along with it. From the looks of it, you can pre-order it at some time in the near future, perhaps when Microsoft showcases it at E3.

One of the major complaints people had about the original Xbox One was the fact that it was incredibly bulky and in-the-way for most gamers. The Xbox One S will have a magnitude reduction of about 40%, and it will have a little less width than the original console's ratio. A large part of this size reduction will be the ridding of the AC adapter's power brick, which was admittedly pretty big. The power brick will be an internal part of the console instead. The console is also going to be white with a pattern on the casing, which will add an extra aesthetic flair to the console. It is also shaped more like... well, a box, than its ancestor. It appears it will also come with a vertical stand, and when it's standing vertically, it looks way too much like a Nintendo Wii.

A few other portions of last month's leak have also been confirmed. The console will be 4K-capable and will also support High Dynamic Range, which is a form of photography where the same image is reproduced with multiple different lighting techniques to find the optimal amount of lighting for the image. Obviously, the aesthetic Xbox One S experience is going to be something extraordinary with this kind of capability. The 4K experience will mostly apply to less hyperactive images, like videos and other streaming devices, and not games yet. This console is also supposed to come with a 2TB hard drive, far surpassing its predecessor's 500GB HDD.

Hopefully, current Xbox One owners will be able to trade in their current console in favor of this shiny new one. It'll add a large incentive to actually purchase this new one, since the price of it is probably far greater than its predecessor.

The Xbox One S is to be showcased at E3 this year, and this article will be updated with any forthcoming reveals.

The controller of the Xbox One S will be updated as well. The new controller will be given the same fresh white coat as the console, and there will be some new textured grips on the back of the controller. There will also be an addition of Bluetooth to the controller, adding more wireless range and the ability to use the wireless controller with a Windows device.

A limited edition version of the Xbox One S will be available in August with the 2TB hard drive for $399. After that, two standard editions will come out, a 1TB one for $349, and a 500GB one for $299.


Alongside the unveiling of the Xbox One S, Microsoft confirmed the existence of a new 2017 console, nicknamed Project Scorpio. Microsoft has had this one up their sleeve for a while now, burning with anticipation to release the details. From the looks of it, there will be significant technological advances with this console that will deliver a fully 4K-gaming experience, complete with total VR integration.

Project Scorpio is extremely focused on an impeccable aesthetic experience, with hardware upgrades that are pretty colossal. The system will feature 8 cores, 320GB memory bandwidth, and six teraflops of performance, which should bring the 4K gaming experience to life. It's not just going to be simple 2160p either; it's the real deal. This is obviously going to be really taxing on the hardware that's used here, since the most advanced graphics cards have difficulty running 2160p at 60FPS. Microsoft is ambitious enough to not only throw 4K gaming into the ring, but also a "no compromise" 60FPS experience. Because of all of these staggering graphical improvements, Microsoft is obviously adding in VR support to the new console, potentially HTC Vive integration.



The 2017 console is going to be backwards compatible with the One an the One S, so you won't need to buy any extra cables or controllers when purchasing the new console, which doesn't have a concrete price on it yet.

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