Strategy Analytics’ director of digital media strategies, Michael Goodman, recently spoke with WeWriteThings about his predictions for Microsoft’s upcoming video game console, currently codenamed Project Scorpio, and admitted that the hardware likely won’t come into its own until its second or third year. “My expectation is that the launch titles on Scorpio aren’t going to be that much more amazing than what you’ll find [elsewhere]. It is going to be a year or two down the road where you should start to see the [true] capability of the platform,” he was quoted as saying. “Kudos to the developers who have been able to get the most out of the Xbox One system. They’ve made that gap fairly seamless. It’ll be interesting to see what they can actually do when they have access to all of this additional power.”
Goodman also commented on Sony’s current lead in the video game market and felt confident that Microsoft will be able to hold its own and could even give its rival a run for its money. “Sony is still leading but Microsoft has made some in-roads in key markets over the past six months. I think they’re going to turn that on its head even more so in 2017 with Scorpio coming out,” he said before adding that, “From a purely technical standpoint, this is the first time Microsoft will have ever had the most powerful console on the marketplace. It’s going to be really interesting to see what they’ve been able to do.”
The “in-roads” Goodman mentions are likely a reference to the success of the new Xbox One S console which sold fairly well in 2016 and the significant effort Microsoft has been making recently to further integrate the Xbox Live gaming network into the Windows 10 operating system, essentially making all PC owners Xbox gamers even if they don’t own an actual Xbox console.
A release date and finalized name for Project Scorpio has yet to be announced however all is expected to be revealed at this year’s Microsoft E3 briefing on June 11th. Do you have any predictions for Project Scorpio and Xbox? Let us know in the comments below.
