What Xbox ‘Project Scorpio’ means for PC gaming

"Microsoft has dished the deets on its upcoming ‘Scorpio’ hardware update for the Xbox console, and in what amounts to uncharacteristic detail and candour given the ruddy thing isn’t going on sale until the end of 2017. But what are we poor PC peasants to make of the Beast of Redmond’s latest game box and its towering on-paper capabilities? In short, what influence will Project Scorpio’s trick new hardware have on future PC games?"

[DevilOgreFish]

The PC gaming community never dies; more likely goes underground, occasionally.
Even when i jumped ships in the early millennium it was pretty much kicking. especially with NOLF2 that game was golden! and then Half life and F.E.A.R.!

[DevilOgreFish]

Trust me when I say that, I was almost for sure PC would disappear when the PS2, Xbox and GC were making it rain with games. that was highest level of hype to ever hit console gaming, 3 strong platforms!! and It was (unfortunately) the Dreamcast that got wiped out. If PC could withstand that era it can withstand the generations. Consoles on the other hand have much more hype and anticipation to live up to compared to the sleeping giant PC.

[Kingthrash360]

Why would pc feel anything from the scorpio when pc will have the same games + steam and gog and the fact that's it's an actual PC ...throw in the fact they don't need to sub to xbl and you wonder why this question is even asked.

[freshslicepizza]

@Kingthrash360
"Why would pc feel anything from the scorpio when pc will have the same games + steam and gog and the fact that's it's an actual PC ...throw in the fact they don't need to sub to xbl and you wonder why this question is even asked."

if you bought all your games on the pc and only used your ps4 for exclusives you might have a point but that isn't the case is it for you and the rest 98% of ps4 owners who keep saying there's no need for xbox now is it? so please keep parroting the same old weak argument. also what percentage of pc gamers play games in 4k or even at the same performance level being offered from microsoft?

besides, what the pc lacks is what I miss and that is sports games. i love madden and nhl and ea wont put them on the pc and scorpio will have the best versions of them.

[XabiDaChosenOne]

Where are you getting your stats from moldybread? Honest question and I like how you conveniently left out Nba 2k and Fifa but I guess that's just a coincidence. Modly bread would rather pay 60 dollars a year to play online just for NHL and Madden 😂😂😂

[starchild]

I think with Scorpio and PS4 Pro in the market we will tend to see more games taking advantage of the higher spec platforms (PC, Scorpio and PS4 Pro).

[Tech5]

The Xbox Scorpio will be a beast but PC gaming will always be eternal.

[DeadSilence]

It means nothing, Pc will remain super strong.

[ProjectVulcan]

Indeed. PC rolls on, the juggernaut isn't slowing.

AMD's rebirth as a CPU competitor thus reducing performance CPU prices and talk of Nvidia launching Volta graphics cards before Scorpio even arrives the hardware scene will move on quickly.

Consoles can get close to PC performance when they first launch, but never beat them. After a year PC has just increased it's lead once more.

Scorpio offers little PC gamers won't be able to get on PC, this is credit to Microsoft's play anywhere program. It ensures if you have a capable gaming PC, you probably don't need an Xbox to play your favourite Xbox titles any more.

[ShadowKnight]

Agreed

[starchild]

I agree. And I don't think Scorpio will be quite as powerful as some people are imagining. I mean, don't get me wrong, it's a well designed console and quite powerful as consoles go, but not all games are going to run like Forza did. That's where people are kind of exaggerating their expectations and jumping to conclusions.

I think even my current GTX 1070 will generally outperform it.

[LP-Eleven]

Exactly.

[krypt1983]

What your missing is console gaming moves the indusrty forward not pc.

[XiNatsuDragnel]

PC outtakes Scorpio

[343_Guilty_Spark]

Scorpio out takes Pro

[ShadowKnight]

Pro exclusives out takes Scorpio exclusives lmao

[krypt1983]

Maybe for you they do but not me

[Armyntt]

If reality meets expectations, the multiplatforms are gonna look so much better on Scorpio they might as well be exclusive.

[Lon3wolf]

Bishop takes knight.

[Bigpappy]

I think it helps PC gamers get even more quality games. If Scorpio does really well AMD stands to gain tremendously in the PC world also.

[tyasia0]

What are you on about now?

AMD has been making the consoles the entire gen and Sony has been helping them twice as much as Microsoft. On top of that if you actually knew about AMD they are already a generation ahead of what is in Scorpio with Ryzen and Vega should be coming out in a month or two. Not to mention that fact that AMD publicly shares their road map that lists what they are working on into 2020 and beyond.

And more quality games? PC games have been doing 4k for years and PC has way more games than consoles already. And PC has true backwards compatibility. You can play games from 40+ years ago on PC unlike Microsoft backwards compatibility where they spoon feed you a few games per month.

Scorpio is following PC... PC is not following Scorpio.

[starchild]

That's true. No other platform has the kind of backwards compatibility the PC does.

[_-EDMIX-_]

So they never were before this?

[Brave_Losers_Unite]

It means that PC can make comparisons with the Scorpio completely humiliating it

[stuna1]

It means the PC crowd is likely to see a substantial leap in new CPU and GPU hardware around the time Scorpio releases.

[TheColbertinator]

Unless Xbox Scorpio gets mods,keyboard and mouse,free online,upgraded hardware setups,varying online stores(Steam/gmg),emulators,an d MMOs it won't really change the PC landscape.

PC gaming is great because of its options and lack of hurdles. Someday the Xbox and Playstation may die and on that day PC gaming will still go on.

[Artemidorus]

"But what are we poor PC peasants to make of the Beast of Redmond’s latest game box"

Many PC gaming systems make this games console like it's something from the Gamecube era.

Expensive yes, peasants when you have that status of owning one? No.

[SyWolf]

Hopefully it means that graphical fidelity on PC ports will go up because there's a console that can support tons of extra shiny features.

[corroios]

Better ports

[quent]

It means more business for AMD, which in turn means better pricing for pc hardware

[psychometer]

Project Scorpio makes the abbreviation of PC means Project Corpsesio. :D

[KwietStorm_BLM]

"But what are we poor PC peasants...."

Never in my life..

[Ulf]

It will not affect PC gaming at all.

The idea is that the Scorpio will run games at high PC settings, for the next couple years, not that PCs will get better because of it?

Also, this author's claim that a piledriver FX is profoundly better than the 2.3 GHz Jaguar/Steamroller in the Scorpio is just plain untrue. The Jaguar has a FPU on *each* core (I.e. 8 of them), and the best FX chip has one per *module* (i.e. 4 of them). On top of that, the instruction dispatch on the Jaguar is waaay better than the wacky FX dispatcher. I bet each one of those 2.3 GHz cores is darn close to a 4. GHz FX core, and it has twice the FPUs, and the ability to manually allocate cores on the console OS besides.

Yes, a Ryzen, or i5/i7 is unquestionably better, but his claim that the FX chips, or frankly the laptop processors most PC games target are, is just plain BS.

[MagicBeanz]

Nothing really, PC will still be the benchmark for power. The bigger question is what does PC mean to project scorpio as its games will be playable on those very same PC's.

[showtimefolks]

pc gaming isn't going anywhere let's get that out of the way

consoles will be even more like pc's moving forward and i think that's a good thing

pro and scorpio are like pc's

[SynestheticRoar]

Nothing.

[--bienio--]

Nothing. Pc is even stronger than before..I can say Pc is in a golden age... so consoles can only dreams about this perspective...

[feraldrgn]

PC tech is advancing faster than consoles can now, so if you're bothered about power & only power, you'd get a PC.

[_-EDMIX-_]

Nothing

[EatCrow]

Doesn't mean much. PC gaming will continue.
Scorpio is landing in the console business. It is not trying to compete with PC because if it did MS would not be releasing their games on PC. It would also be counter productive as MS owns Windows OS so every new PC actually makes them money from the operating system purchase.

But what it does mean is that Scorpio and PC may be able to help push graphical power (not necessarily graphics) closer to where it should be.
Im curious to see how the technical aspects of scorpios design help it acheive 4k in multiplatform games. Should be interesting.

[Tzuno]

For me as a PC user a console doesn't mean nothing anymore, the things i can do with a PC is far more evolved, maybe costs more but it does more than gaming and that's a big plus.