With the Xbox 2020 announced at the Game Awards, we now know more about Microsoft's flagship console. We even have an idea of when it's coming out, with a targeted window of Holidays 2020. But how much is it going to hurt our wallets?
How much does the Xbox 2020 cost?
During the era of the Xbox 360, the console became extremely popular as it was more accessible to people because of the cheaper price tag when compared to the PS3.
The Xbox One turned that on its head by coming with a huge price tag at $499/£429 which turned off a lot of people.
Microsoft's Phil Spencer came out to say earlier this year that they have learnt from this mistake:
“I would say a learning from the Xbox One generation is we will not be out of position on power or price,” Spencer told The Verge. “If you remember the beginning of this generation we were a hundred dollars more expensive and yes, we were less powerful. And we started Project Scarlett [Now called The Xbox] with this leadership team in place with a goal of having market success.”
The price is all determined on what the machine will be made of.
Specs
Microsoft confirmed that the next-generation console will be four times more powerful than the Xbox One X, and provides four times better performance than the current generation in terms of load times.
As for the actual Xbox Series X specs, we have been promised 120 FPS, 8K, and ray tracing supported by dedicated hardware.
In fact, one Microsoft employee promised “frame rates we’ve never seen before,” though that’s surely not accounting for modern PC hardware.
As for 8K and 120 FPS, they make great headlines, but the reality is that you’d have to be running an extremely basic game on the most powerful of PC hardware to approach anything like those numbers, let alone simultaneously.
If the Xbox 2020 is to be even more powerful than the Xbox One will we see a more expensive console?
When will the Xbox 2020 release?
Gamers can expect to see the Xbox Series X console launch sometime between October and December 2020, in the ‘holiday’ window of 2020.
It shares the exact same rumoured launch date window as that of Sony’s PlayStation 5.
We may be able to take some clues of the exact date by looking into the past consoles Microsoft has announced.
The Xbox One was released on November 22, 2013, in North America, as the successor of the Xbox 360.
The 360, widely regarded as the best console in the Xbox's lifespan, was also released on November 22.
Looking at these, it looks as though the 22nd could be earmarked for release - however, this has not been confirmed by Microsoft.