Front-page

Leaked files suggest Microsoft is working on multiple Xbox Series X consoles

xboxsx.jpg
It's become customary for console makers to release multiple versions of the same console within their lifetime. However, next-gen consoles might be available in more than one flavor right at launch. The PS5 is already releasing in two versions, one with an optical drive and an all-digital one. Reports suggest that Microsoft is also working on more than one version of its Xbox Series X but with a different strategy from Sony's.

Today The Verge reported on Microsoft's multiple next-gen console plans. Their source "familiar with Microsoft’s Xbox plans" confirm a Lockhart profiling mode in dev kits. The latter refers to a second Xbox Series X console version, codenamed Lockhart, which is a less powerful but cheaper entry into next-gen gaming. The Lockhart profiling mode allows developers to toggle "Lockhart mode" and gauge how their games will perform on the weaker hardware, which is geared towards 1080p or 1440p gaming.

The Verge's report also mentioned that Lockhart's specs include "7.5GB of usable RAM, a slightly underclocked CPU speed, and around 4 teraflops of GPU performance". For comparison, the known Xbox Series X (codenamed Anaconda) includes 13.5GB of usable RAM, and targets 12 teraflops of GPU performance.

Moreover, The Verge's claims are supported by a recently-leaked Game Development Kit release from June 2020 which mentions support for "AnacondaProfiling" and "LockhartProfiling" modes:

The leaked document also mentions Project Scarlett consoles, without specifying the number of these next-gen devices:

gdk leak.png
Given these leaks and Microsoft's silence on the issue, we should take the news with a pinch of salt before we get any official announcements. Until then, would you prefer the option of a cheaper next-gen Xbox?

:arrow: SOURCE
 
  • Like
Reactions: Red771, Deleted member 668561, Tyvar1 and 10 others
Click to expand...
D

Deleted User

Guest
This multiple systems malarky is taking the piss imo. At one point, the weaker systems will be abandoned by developers. 1/3rd the performance is not great, and I doubt it'll be much cheaper than the "full" version.
 
  • Like
Reactions: PhyChris, Tyvar1, Ra1d and 5 others
Arras

Arras

Well-Known Member
Member
Level 16
Joined
Sep 14, 2010
Messages
6,317
Trophies
2
XP
5,401
Country
Netherlands
That seems like a massive power difference, to the point where I wouldn't be surprised to see stuff have to be gimped to run on it, or not run at all. A mid-gen power upgrade like the PS4 Pro and Xbox Whatever Letter It Was I can see the use of, but this just sounds like a recipe for trouble down the line.
 
  • Like
Reactions: Pokemon_Tea_Sea_Jee, Payne, Deleted member 388531 and 1 other person
shaunj66

shaunj66

GBAtemp Administrator
Administrator
Level 31
Joined
Oct 24, 2002
Messages
11,954
Trophies
4
Age
39
Location
South England
Website
www.gbatemp.net
XP
25,028
Country
United Kingdom
Is anyone really surprised by this? The PS4 Pro and Xbox One S/X opened the floodgates for this to happen. It gives the companies the opportunity to market their machines as "starting at £/$X...." which is great for them, and it also allows those on a tight budget to still enjoy "next gen" gaming which is also great.

The only real downside to this is if it means devs have to make sacrifices when developing a game in order to support both machines and also any extra development time needed to do so.
 
  • Like
Reactions: Tyvar1, GilgameshArcher, Karones and 9 others
Zense

Zense

Well-Known Member
Member
Level 14
Joined
Apr 20, 2008
Messages
1,977
Trophies
2
XP
4,300
Country
Italy
This is hardly surprising at all. As stated above, it's called "xbox series..", so of course there's gonna be more.

Also we've been hearing about a supposedly new switch pro since the first year of the switch but here we are with the only upgrade being the Mariko.
 
  • Like
Reactions: GilgameshArcher and StrayGuitarist
pedro702

pedro702

Well-Known Member
Member
Level 19
Joined
Mar 3, 2014
Messages
12,719
Trophies
2
Age
33
XP
8,692
Country
Portugal
Also the diference is massive if developers must code with 4tf and 12 that is gonna be a huge diference... seriously that is like running a game on ps4 and have the same game running on the wiiu since even switch to ps4 isnt that majpor of a diference

ps4 base model is 1.84tf and switch is arounf 0.7
while xbox is goona make consoles playing the same games with 4 and 12?the switch games need to be chagnegd alot to even run and devs will take how many hours if their games must be playable on both models? that makes no sence imo.
 
Silent_Gunner

Silent_Gunner

Crazy Cool Cyclops
Banned
Level 14
Joined
Feb 16, 2017
Messages
2,696
Trophies
0
Age
29
XP
4,727
Country
United States
StarGazerTom said:
This multiple systems malarky is taking the piss imo. At one point, the weaker systems will be abandoned by developers. 1/3rd the performance is not great, and I doubt it'll be much cheaper than the "full" version.
Click to expand...

It reminds me of a certain other thing...

https://www.slant.co/topics/3723/~best-steam-machines

It's funny how MS is trying to copy Valve and possibly repeat its mistakes...

--------------------- MERGED ---------------------------

shaunj66 said:
Is anyone really surprised by this? The PS4 Pro and Xbox One S/X opened the floodgates for this to happen. It gives the companies the opportunity to market their machines as "starting at £/$X...." which is great for them, and it also allows those on a tight budget to still enjoy "next gen" gaming which is also great.

The only real downside to this is if it means devs have to make sacrifices when developing a game in order to support both machines and also any extra development time needed to do so.
Click to expand...

Actually, it was the Steam Machines that kind of introduced the concept to the market. The reason it didn't work out was because Steam Proton wasn't a thing at the time, and, as customizable as the SCs were, the Steam Controller just isn't the absolute best option for every game out there.
 
Teletron1

Teletron1

Space Tech Engineer
Member
Level 8
Joined
Jan 4, 2019
Messages
582
Trophies
0
Location
EARTH
XP
1,506
Country
United States
Xzi said:
I can understand wanting to make a cheaper option, but 4 tflops? Why even bother when the XB1X manages 6? Just give that a price cut instead and extend support for it through next gen.
Click to expand...
Because of price target could be 199 or even 99 plus you still have Project X Cloud
 
DAZA

DAZA

Shaun's Mum
Member
Level 11
Joined
Nov 5, 2002
Messages
346
Trophies
2
XP
2,506
Choice is what the people want.. not everyone wants the best.. not everyone can afford the best but they can enjoy a variation at their budget and microsoft's varied price points.. sounds like a thought out plan

Question is...... do you get first release version of the top spec console or do you hold out for the 2nd major revision and scaled down size wise..
 
Goku1992A

Goku1992A

Well-Known Member
Member
Level 11
Joined
Nov 20, 2019
Messages
1,823
Trophies
1
Age
33
XP
2,612
Country
United States
As much as I like Microsoft I don't agree with this at all... Just make one console and just do the PC route Low/Medium/High/Ultra settings therefore you can pick the settings based off of your television. Some people don't own a 4K TV... I just bought a 4K TV recently so I been playing my games on 1080p... This gen we have Xbox One / Xbox One S/ Xbox One X/ I understand the "cheap model" and the "premium model" but sometimes peoples economical status change and they don't want to reinvest more $$$ into a system or take a financal loss selling their older system for a better one.

Charge $500 and call it a day. I'm pretty sure game stop would have the trade in credits and etc... but making too many variants of a console isn't a good thing. "Cough switch lite"
 
  • Like
Reactions: Ra1d, AlexMCS, 64bitmodels and 1 other person

Site & Scene News

Go to forum More news

Popular threads in this forum

Nintendo Switch firmware 18.0.0 has been released

GitLab has taken down the Suyu Nintendo Switch emulator

Atmosphere CFW for Switch updated to pre-release version 1.7.0, adds support for firmware 18.0.0

Wii U and 3DS online services shutting down today, but Pretendo is here to save the day

Denuvo unveils new technology "TraceMark" aimed to watermark and easily trace leaked games

GBAtemp Exclusive  Introducing tempBOT AI - your new virtual GBAtemp companion and aide (April Fools)

Pokemon fangame hosting website "Relic Castle" taken down by The Pokemon Company

MisterFPGA has been updated to include an official release for its Nintendo 64 core

General chit-chat
Help Users
  • The Real Jdbye @ The Real Jdbye:
    the vram is one advantage when it comes to AI but ends up being slower even with that and really AI is the only use case that needs more than 12gb vram right now
  • Psionic Roshambo @ Psionic Roshambo:
    Interesting lol
  • Psionic Roshambo @ Psionic Roshambo:
    I think I watched a video where two games at 4K where eating just over 16GB of RAM and it's the one case where the 7900XT and XTX pulled ahead (minus RTX of course)
  • Psionic Roshambo @ Psionic Roshambo:
    So my opinion is that they could age a bit better in the future, and maybe AMD will continue improving them via drivers like they tend to do. No guarantee there but they have done it in the past. Just a feeling I have.
  • The Real Jdbye @ The Real Jdbye:
    cyberpunk at 4k without DLSS/fidelityfx *might* exceed 12gb
     +1
  • The Real Jdbye @ The Real Jdbye:
    but that game barely runs at native 4k
  • Psionic Roshambo @ Psionic Roshambo:
    I think it was some newer games and probably poorly optimized PS4 or PS5 ports
  • The Real Jdbye @ The Real Jdbye:
    they definitely will age better but i feel dlss might outweigh that since it looks about as good as native resolution and much less demanding
     +1
  • Psionic Roshambo @ Psionic Roshambo:
    When I played Cyberpunk on my old 2080 Ti it sucked lol
  • The Real Jdbye @ The Real Jdbye:
    AMD could introduce something comparable to DLSS but nvidia's got a lot more experience with that
  • The Real Jdbye @ The Real Jdbye:
    least amd 7xxx has tensor cores which the previous generations didn't so there is the potential for AI upscaling
  • Psionic Roshambo @ Psionic Roshambo:
    They have FSR or whatever it's called and yeah it's still not great
  • The Real Jdbye @ The Real Jdbye:
    so AMD seem to finally be starting to take AI seriously
  • Psionic Roshambo @ Psionic Roshambo:
    Oh yeah those new 8000 CPUs have AI cores built in that's interesting
  • Psionic Roshambo @ Psionic Roshambo:
    Maybe they plan on offloading to the CPU?
  • Psionic Roshambo @ Psionic Roshambo:
    Would be kinda cool to have the CPU and GPU working in random more
  • Psionic Roshambo @ Psionic Roshambo:
    Tandem even
  • The Real Jdbye @ The Real Jdbye:
    i think i heard of that, it's a good idea, shouldn't need a dedicated GPU just to run a LLM or video upscaling
  • The Real Jdbye @ The Real Jdbye:
    even the nvidia shield tv has AI video upscaling
  • The Real Jdbye @ The Real Jdbye:
    LLMs can be run on cpu anyway but it's quite slow
  • BakerMan @ BakerMan:
    Have you ever been beaten by a wet spaghetti noodle by your girlfriend because she has a twin sister, and you got confused and fucked her dad?
  • Psionic Roshambo @ Psionic Roshambo:
    Lol
  • Psionic Roshambo @ Psionic Roshambo:
    I had a girlfriend who had a twin sister and they would mess with me constantly.... Until one chipped a tooth then finally I could tell them apart.... Lol
  • Psionic Roshambo @ Psionic Roshambo:
    They would have the same hair style the same clothes everything... Really messed with my head lol
  • Psionic Roshambo @ Psionic Roshambo:
    @The Real Jdbye, I could see AMD trying to pull off the CPU GPU tandem thing, would be a way to maybe close the gap a bit with Nvidia. Plus it would kinda put Nvidia at a future disadvantage since Nvidia can't make X86/64 CPUs? Intel and AMD licensing issues... I wonder how much that has held back innovation.
    Psionic Roshambo @ Psionic Roshambo: @The Real Jdbye, I could see AMD trying to pull off the CPU GPU tandem thing, would be a way to...