Microsoft is getting ready to unveil their newest product in the Xbox family of entertainment systems, Project Scorpio. There isn’t any real doubt that the price for the Scorpio will be high given the specifications. The burning question is still “how high?” Geoff Keighley, the host of E3 Live and the Game Awards, seems to have the inside track on the price of Project Scorpio — a “confident” $499.
I can now say with confidence Project Scorpio is $499. Unless something changes today, that is what will be announced.
— Geoff Keighley (@geoffkeighley) June 11, 2017
Now of course, the Xbox One S has been dropped to a cool $200 ahead of the Scorpio debut, making the Scorpio 250% higher than the current pricing of the current Xbox model.
Not everyone is pleased with this news, as Kotaku’s Jason Schreier noted:
Anyone who cares that much about power will (and should) just get a PC
— Jason Schreier (@jasonschreier) June 11, 2017
Speaking as a journalist and somewhat of a financial connoisseur, I’ll respectfully disagree with Mr. Schrier here. A gaming PC, with similar (unoptimized, because PC games cover a wide spectrum in of themselves) specifications, could easily run you $1000 or more. While the average consumer would balk at this price point, the Scorpio is largely targeted at the enthusiast crowd, as Keith, myself and Aaron have repeatedly explained on the Xbox Xperience.
Notwithstanding the inevitable “backlash” this will receive, $499 is a sensible price point given what we know about the Scorpio, especially the fact that Microsoft just unlocked an additional 1GB of their GDDR5 memory for game development. However, Destiny 2’s director Luke Smith has his own theory:
Hot take/wild theory: @geoffkeighley Scorpio price leak is a "designed leak" and actual price is lower
— Luke Smith (@thislukesmith) June 11, 2017
All we can do now is wait and see.
You can watch Microsoft’s E3 2017 press conference, as well as all of the others here, check out our speculation piece, as well as stay tuned to our E3 coverage throughout the event.
