The Xbox Series X is confirmed for Holiday 2020 - but for those wanting a VR-compatible console, you may be waiting a while. Xbox Head Phil Spencer has publicly squashed the idea that virtual reality will have a role to play in the company's next console.
In simple terms, "nobody's asking for VR," he said.
We shouldn't completely write off VR making an appearance at some point, though. Twitter user WalkingCat claimed to have found two US patents filed in March 2018 by Microsoft - which are now available on FreePatentsOnline website. One describes a "six-degrees-of-freedom input device", while the other is filled as a "virtual reality floor mat activity region".
The images that accompany text suggest that Microsoft could be developing a boundary mat, stylus, and set of motion controllers for virtual reality, with a VR headset and Xbox Kinect camera visible in some of the sketches.
It's worth saying at this point that just because a patent has been filed it does not mean that this hardware is confirmed. Still, with Valve recently announcing that the new Half Life, Alyx, will be a VR game - demand for VR may pick up substantially.
Xbox 2020 pre-order and price
Xbox Series X isn't quite available for pre-order yet - but it will be soon we think.
However, if you sign up for Xbox All Access, you can upgrade to a Series X starting Holiday 2020.
Price wise, you can currently pick up an Xbox One X from £400 so the Xbox Series X will probably come in at about the same level. Maybe a bit more.
Xbox 2020 specs
The new Xbox will boast far more than the six teraflops currently inside Microsoft's flagship gaming console, the Xbox One X.
Although some have speculated that the console will be 8K ready, we doubt it'll have the raw power to run this natively.
According to insider sources, the next Xbox will be more powerful than the PS5 and "set the benchmark" for console gaming.
Instead, it'll likely use a solution much like PS4 Pro's checkerboard rendering / Nvidia's Deep Learning Super Sampling (DLSS)- upscaling an image from 1880p to higher resolutions allowing for higher framerates.
PAGE 2: WHAT GAMES WILL COME FOR THE LAUNCH OF THE NEW XBOX