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Microsoft Says Upcoming Project Scorpio Might Be the Last Console Generation (engadget.com)
Earlier this year, Xbox chief Phil Spencer expressed desires to see a steady stream of hardware innovation rather than a typical seven-year gap between different console generations, noting smartphone market as inspiration. In an interview with Engadget, Aaron Greenberg, Microsoft's Head of Xbox Games Marketing has hinted that the company's upcoming Project Scorpio is likely going to be the last generation of Xbox console you will ever need to purchase. From the report: I think it is ... 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. But we'll see, we're going to learn from this, we're going to see how that goes. So far I'd say based on the reaction there appears to be a lot of demand and interest around Project Scorpio, and we think it's going to be a pretty big success. If the games and the content deliver, which I think they will do, I think it will change the way we think about the future of console gaming."
to be able to iterate with the hardware
The whole POINT of a console over a PC is a known quantity for software makers. You don't have to guess at CPU or GPU or RAM or what-have-you, you know the EXACT hardware specs of 100% of your target audience.
Take that away and what exactly would differentiate Scorpio from a gaming PC? I remember on the N64 when they started making extra RAM for it and you had to check the boxes for whether it required that particular hardware expansion or not. They stopped doing that on future consoles because it was STUPID.
What is it with Microsoft lately? Windows 10 being the 'last' Windows, everything after coming as patches and service packs, now their console division doing the same? Do they think we have somehow reached the end of the line of creating anything new ever that just won't work with old shit anymore?
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I read an article several weeks ago (sorry, no longer have source) from a Valve employee who was saying that Microsoft is trying to slowly break Steam and introduce technology that makes Steam unviable. The motivation being to move people to their marketplace instead of people using steam.
Truth? Maybe. Paranoia? Yeah, could be that too. I think Microsoft's vision is to blur the difference between Xbox and Windows over time and try and set up a similar walled garden to what Apple has- sharing apps between Windows and Xbox. The last thing Microsoft wants though is for Steam games to work on Xbox.
"That's the way to do it" - Punch
I think I see what MS is trying to do here. My guess is that they want something that looks more like the mobile phone model for consoles. Which is to say, rather than the "hard" generational breaks you get with the traditional console cycle, where every 5-8 years a new console comes along and renders the old one obsolete, they instead want new hardware every 2 years or so (at a guess), which emphasises evolution rather than revolution.
What I also suspect is that they're planning a kind of limited back/forward compatibility system for games. They've repeatedly said that Scorpio will not get exclusives. A lot of people are suspicious of this, but I actually believe what they've said. That said, I still think they're being disingenuous. Their next step will likely be another console iteration maybe 2 years after Scorpio (2019), let's call it Sagittarius, whose titles will be playable on Scorpio hardware, albeit with lower performance, but not on the current XB1. The eventual successor to Sagittarius (2021) will share compatibility with that console, but not with Scorpio - and so on. So Scorpio will technically never have exclusives.
That said, this is still a risky proposition. By and large, console gamers like the fairly long console cycle. They're usually on a tighter budget than PC gamers and being able to get away with very infrequent hardware changes is a plus.
Moreover, what this plan (if it is indeed their plan) would do is eliminate the mid/late part of the traditional console cycle. That's not necessarily a good thing. For gamers, the early part of the cycle is usually a pretty dire time. Early adopters tend to get a mixture of thin technological showcases and sloppy, hurried ports of games originally developed for the previous generation. There are very, very few classic console games that were early-cycle releases, from the mid-90s onwards. In the mid/late cycle, developers are comfortable with the hardware and the focus shifts more onto the actual games.
The mid/late cycle is also traditionally a good time for the console manufacturer. Launch windows are awful. They're risky and they need a lot of upfront investment (in hardware development, games development, support for third parties and marketing) that can be hard to recoup quickly. By contrast, in the mid/late cycle, the real cash cow, which is to say the third-party licensing fees (which are, I cannot emphasise enough, where the real money is in the industry) are flowing in nicely. Admittedly, in the 360/PS3 generation, the late-cycle was allowed to go on too long and gamers lost interest, but that was more down to tactics than industry structure.
So in some respects, this looks a bit of a self-destructive strategy. However, I think the industry has painted itself into a corner in this generation. For the first time I can remember, the real battleground between the main rivals was not their exclusive games franchises, but on multiplatform performance. With modern development costs, platform manufacturers can no longer afford to fund the same number or quality of outright exclusives. Instead, the PR battle was fought on technical specs; Sony annihilated MS when the PS4 and XB1 launched because the PS4 had some nominal performance advantages that were hard to even perceive for most gamers, but which made great marketing.
So the industry has locked itself into a battle of technical one-upsmanship. Worse, it's done so at a time when PC gaming is seriously resurgent. Trying to get into a tech-specs battle with the PC gaming scene is an unwinnable fight. So now, if Sony and MS don't want to lose a fight on the ground they themselves have chosen, they need to keep iterating the hardware to remain competitive.