1. The Philosophy: "For us, the console is vital, and central to our experience. We heard you — a console should be designed and built and optimized for one thing, and one thing only: gaming."
With the Xbox One, Microsoft notoriously fumbled the announcement. While introducing the Xbox One, the company spent a lot of time talking about "entertainment" rather than gaming — the core of all video game consoles.
This time, Microsoft isn't making the same mistake.
The very first thing that Xbox head Phil Spencer said about the new console was the quote above — "we heard you" being core to that message. Spencer, on behalf of Microsoft, is making a direct effort to earn back the so-called "core gamer" audience that was so critical to the success of the Xbox 360.
To that end, the first details on the next Xbox, codenamed Project Scarlett, were focused on the kind of under-the-hood specs that will appeal most to that core audience.
2. The specs: A big step up over even the most powerful Xbox One console — "four times more powerful than the Xbox One X."
Let's not beat around the bush here — these are the approximate specs of Project Scarlett based on what was shown in its announcement video:
- Processor: AMD "Navi" processor ("SoC"): "At the heart of our next-generation console is our custom-designed processor, leveraging the latest Zen 2 and and Navi technology from our partners at AMD."
- Memory: GDDR6 RAM
- Optical Media Drive: Blu-ray disc drive
- Storage: Solid-state drive
Microsoft says all that hardware can produce 8K visuals, and up to 120 frames-per-second. The company also says that the SSD will load games faster than ever before.
All these specs are relatively meaningless, of course. What matters is how they're used.
3. The broad goal for Project Scarlett: Make it easier to play games on whatever device you want with whoever you want to play with. (But also, yes, it will still play discs).
Microsoft's been talking about a new Netflix-like video game streaming solution for awhile now, called Project xCloud. The idea is you can play whatever games you want on whatever device you want (as long as you have a strong, stable internet connection).
That plan is still in the works, and is a part of the vision for Project Scarlett — but so is a physical disc drive and a digital storage system as well.
All of which is to say one thing: No, this isn't a video game streaming box. Project Scarlett is very much a video game console in the traditional sense.
But in the long run, Microsoft wants Project Scarlett to be the centerpiece of a broader strategy to get people playing games on whatever they want, wherever they want, whenever they want, even without owning a physical video game console.
4. The games: "Halo Infinite" is a launch title, and a few other next-gen games are in the works outside of Microsoft.
In the announcement video, a Microsoft employees says "hundreds" of people inside and outside of Microsoft are already working on games for Project Scarlett.
Also in the video, "Halo Infinite" was revealed as a launch title for the next-gen Xbox console — the next major entry in the decades-old "Halo" first-person shooter series.
Outside of Microsoft, at least two major next-gen games are in the works that we already know of: "The Elder Scrolls VI" and "Starfield," both from Bethesdsa Softworks.
And beyond that, there are some obvious guesses we can make: The annual new "Call of Duty" game coming in 2020 will almost certainly come to Scarlett, as will a new "Assassin's Creed" game.
5. The Bonus Details: All your Xbox One stuff is coming forward to Scarlett, including the backwards compatible stuff that worked there.
The next Xbox console will play all your Xbox One games. It will also play all the original Xbox and Xbox 360 games that your Xbox One would play, and it'll work with all your Xbox One accessories.
Indeed, Microsoft confirmed that the new Xbox Elite Controller Series 2 — a $180 premium controller for the most discerning gamer — will be compatible with both the Xbox One and Project Scarlett.
"Your games, your achievements, your progression, your accessories — your console gaming experience with Xbox? It all comes forward with Scarlett," a Microsoft Project Scarlett staffer says in the intro video.
Given that, and given how popular some games are with current-gen console owners — think "Fortnite" and "Minecraft" — a big question is whether those games will work across game console generations.
It sounds like the anser is yes.
"At the highest level, if you talk about these games that have such massive communities today, a lot of those developers and studios are going to want to think about how they grow their community — not take it to zero and rebuild it," Xbox head Phil Spencer told Business Insider in an interview on Sunday evening.
Spencer said he didn't want to speak on behalf of any developers, but that the concept philosophically "fit right in" to the company's vision for the future of Xbox.
