What we’ve all been calling Project Scorpio for what seems like ages has finally been unveiled as the Xbox ONE X, extending the console family of the original console and Xbox ONE S. It’s been accompanied by a lot of details, including the UK release date, technical specifications and initial games, so here’s our rundown of everything you need to know.
UK release date
The Xbox ONE X has been confirmed for a UK release date of the 17th November 2018, which coincides with the worldwide launch of the console. That means that you’ll be able to fire up the new console on the same date, whether you’re in the UK, US, Canada, Australia, New Zealand or wherever else. You’ll just need to make sure you get on the pre-order list.
Price
The upcoming hardware release will cost $499 in US, which had us worried for the UK launch, but Microsoft has confirmed that it will retail in the UK at £449.
Xbox One X E3 2017 World Premiere 4K Trailer
You can see more from the console and the games featured during the presentation with the Xbox YouTube Channel.
Technical specifications
In addition to the release date and the name of the console, the Xbox E3 2017 presentation also confirmed the technical specifications for the Xbox ONE X. While a lot of it was already known before the presentation, it’s good to get it all officially confirmed. For anyone that isn’t all that up on their tech knowledge, it can be boiled down to the simple statement that Xbox has put behind it: “The most powerful console ever!”
However, for tech heads, it’ll deliver 6 Teraflops of power, has 12gb GDDR 5 memory, 8-core custom AMD CPU is clocked at 2.3GHz, delivers true 4k resolution and has a liquid cooled vapour chamber. Game graphics will be much faster to load with 326 GB/sec memory bandwidth, which should help with more seamless animation, draw distances and a smooth gaming experience.
You’ll need a pretty decent 4K TV to really appreciate the majesty of that kind of power, but super sampling means that even if you don’t have one, you’ll still get to experience some of the visual improvements that the console delivers.
It comes with 4K Ultra HD Blu-ray playback, so you’ll be able to play super high definition movies through it, which have become the next big thing where home entertainment releases are concerned.
It all starts to sound even more outstanding when you also take into account the fact that the Xbox ONE X is also the smallest Xbox ever! If that isn’t enough, all existing Xbox ONE and S accessories and games will work on the new console, and they’ll tap into improved graphics on the new system as soon as you fire it up.
The size and power of the system hasn’t detracted from the hard drive space that the console comes with out the box. It’s been crafted with 1TB HDD Internal Storage, which should at least allow you to start things off or transfer a good chunk of you back catalogue straight on the device. The game storage size should be higher for Xbox ONE X enhanced titles, so it’ll need a little extra anyway, so we’re expecting most gamers to need an external memory before too long anyway.
