Xbox’s Project Scarlett has been in the pipeline for what feels like forever — thanks to E3 2019, we now have some concrete specs. They look… oddly familiar.
That is because the specs resemble the proposed PlayStation 5 specs almost to a tee. Nothing officially official has been announced by Sony regarding its upcoming console, but we are aware of the details anyway. Let’s break down Project Scarlett’s specs as revealed by Xbox head Phil Spencer at the Xbox press event and see how the consoles match up.
Will Scarlett hit its mark?
The new device will be four times more powerful than the Xbox One X and powered by an AMD chip. It’ll be able to offer frame rates up to 120 frames per second — twice the magic number preferred by PC gamers. The console will also include a solid-state drive (SSD), that’ll cut down annoying loading times. Scarlett will feature ray-tracing capabilities on a brand new custom-designed CPU based on AMD’s Zen 2 and Radeon RDNA architecture — something Samsung might be familiar with. Microsoft is also using GDDR6 RAM, that it claims will “usher in resolution and frame rates we’ve never seen before.”
Sony will reportedly make the PS5 capable of up to 8K visuals, with 3D audio, SSD storage and backwards compatibility with existing PlayStation 4 titles. The PS5 will use an eight-core CPU based on AMD’s third-gen Ryzen line, and ship with a GPU that supports ray-tracing graphics. We’re also expecting 4K graphics and a 120Hz refresh rate on this one as standard.
To Infinite-y and beyond
Microsoft will launch its new Xbox with its upcoming space war game, Halo Infinite. Check out the trailer below and try to hold back your tears.
Scarlett will land on retail shelves next year in the ‘holiday season’. We’re guessing that’s a late November/early December release date. We will update with a definite date when we know it, along with local pricing and any other details as they become available.