Microsoft Reveals Project Scorpio Specs

Project Scorpio is, like Microsoft claimed, the world's most advanced video game console. As promised, the souped-up Xbox One console possesses six teraflops of graphical power (the PlayStation 4 only has 4.2), 12 gigabytes of GDDR5 RAM (the original Xbox One only has eight), and a custom AMD processor that runs 31% faster than the original Xbox One's.

Digital Foundry has a very thorough rundown of the device's capabilities, but if numbers and acronyms don't mean much to you, suffice it to say that Project Scorpio is very, very powerful. Naturally, Project Scorpio will be fully capable of outputting images in 4K resolution—Digital Foundry saw a demo in which Forza Motorsport ran in 4K at a consistent 60 frames per second and was appropriately blown away.

Games that you already own will immediately benefit from Project Scorpio's added power. The machine will play both Xbox One and backwards-compatible Xbox 360 games, and you should see a noticeable performance boost on both. Microsoft's Kevin Gammill, the group program director for the Xbox program, explains that Project Scorpio was designed with "the goal that any 900p or better title would be able to easily run at frame-rate at 4K on Scorpio," and notes that other features—load times, for example—will also be much better.

Of course, the big Project Scorpio reveal lacked a few crucial details—mainly, a price and release date. In addition, while Digital Foundry has quite a few screenshots of Scorpio's insides, the final design is still a mystery. Finally, it's not entirely clear whether Microsoft is positioning Project Scorpio as a brand-new console or simply a revised version of the original Xbox One, similar to the PlayStation 4 Pro.

Expect some of those mysteries to be solved at E3 2017, which is just over two months away. Oh, and keep an eye out for sales on some of the very best Xbox One games—it sounds like they'll be getting even better very, very soon.