Lockhart (Series S) Reveal in May

[Playstation Tablet 1,732]

Windowscentral has been damn reliable for MS news.

 

As per some of our earlier information on Xbox "Lockhart" and the Xbox Series X, we're expecting Lockhart to be a 4TF "entry-point" to next-gen gaming, and it should effectively replace the Xbox One X. This system is designed to be affordable but will offer aspects of a next-gen experience currently unavailable to past-gen consoles, presumably in the form of NVME loading speeds and perhaps some limited ray-tracing. We have no idea about the capabilities of Lockhart outside that magical "4TF" GPU number, which came alongside more of our detailed Xbox Series X info that turned out to be accurate.

Recently, we heard Lockhart is entering take home stages for Xbox employees to get their hands on the system and begin providing feedback and testing. The timing would indicate to me that rumors of upcoming showcases in early May are likely accurate. This is coupled with rumors from our Senior Editor Zac Bowden that Microsoft is gearing up to showcase new Surface hardware in May, as well.

In addition to Lockhart potentially moving out of the lab into the homes of internal Microsoft testers, we've heard Team Xbox is building a replacement for its 2014 Xbox Stereo Headset. If our sourcing on this is accurate, the new headset will be fully wireless, compatible with Xbox, PC, and mobile devices, presumably via separate Bluetooth and Xbox Wireless signals.

It could be Xbox's answer to the Surface Headphones, albeit with some of the more "premium" features stripped out. Given that the previous 2014 Xbox Stereo Headset was very much an entry-level affair, this may also be designed with entry-level users in mind, allowing for third-parties to target the more premium-end with the likes of the SteelSeries Arctis 9X and the Astro A50. It could also go the other way entirely, offering something at the premium-end as an "aspirational" product similar to the rest of the Surface product line.

[Goukosan 2,258]

Series S will be the anchor that holds back Series X.  

[Remij 4,688]

20 minutes ago, Goukosan said:

Series S will be the anchor that holds back Series X.  

 

No it wont.

[Goukosan 2,258]

8 minutes ago, Remij_ said:

No it wont.

[DynamiteCop 2,087]

33 minutes ago, Goukosan said:

Series S will be the anchor that holds back Series X.  

 

That's not how hardware works. 

[Remij 4,688]

As I said before, MS will be stopping production of the X1X and replacing it with Lockhart.  The Cyberpunk 2077 limited edition is apparently going to be the last limited edition version of the console to be released.

 

 

 

Lockhart will replace it, have a vastly better CPU and memory, essentially allowing for next gen console games to simply run at 1080p.  It will all be phased out relatively quickly.

[Cooke 2,031]

So it's just a repackaged 1x?

[Remij 4,688]

2 minutes ago, Cookester15 said:

So it's just a repackaged 1x?

No.  It will have a vastly better CPU and memory, as well as far more GPU power and features.

[Goukosan 2,258]

34 minutes ago, DynamiteCop! said:

That's not how hardware works. 

 

48 minutes ago, Remij_ said:

No it wont.

I'm referring to Software development.   Software will have to be designed around the lowest dominator first to ensure it runs on series S. 

[DynamiteCop 2,087]

1 minute ago, Goukosan said:

 

I'm referring to Software development.   Software will have to be designed around the lowest dominator first to ensure it runs on series S. 

No it won't, the entire concept behind a tiered system like this is linear scalability. 

[Remij 4,688]

1 minute ago, Goukosan said:

 

I'm referring to Software development.   Software will have to be designed around the lowest dominator first to ensure it runs on series S. 

Nah.  The CPU and Memory will be as powerful as they need to be to support next gen games.  The rest comes down to resolution and some visual effects.

 

Absolutely NOTHING that would prevent a XSX or PS5 game from running on it.

[-GD-X★ 7,760]

one x was a mistake. 

[Teh_Diplomat 2,054]

2 minutes ago, -GD- said:

one x was a mistake. 

Yeah but DC is pro-life

[Goukosan 2,258]

1 minute ago, DynamiteCop! said:

No it won't, the entire concept behind a tiered system like this is linear scalability. 

Game design bro, game design.  Engine will be scalable yes.    Series S will support all the API etcs. 

 

but the game design (world building, Size etc) will still have to factor in series S.    A game that can be designed around maxing out Series X in its scale and scope may struggle to run on series S. 

 

So the game will have to be designed to scale well with Series S.   There will never be a game to take full advantage of Series X because that would be out of the scope of Series S.   

 

That's kinda like Pro and X, both are much more capable than what we see now... but because zero games are built exclusively around the strengths of Pro or X because the base consoles must be factored into the design of the game.  So in a sense their true potential is held back. 

 

Now I'm not saying that series X won't run game better and at higher res than S... because it will.  I'm saying there won't be a single game designed around the series X alone from the ground up to take full advantage of series X's full potential to the Max because from a game design perspective, series S has to be  factored in. 

[DynamiteCop 2,087]

3 minutes ago, Goukosan said:

Game design bro, game design.  Engine will be scalable yes.    Series S will support all the API etcs. 

 

but the game design (world building, Size etc) will still have to factor in series S.    A game that can be designed around maxing out Series X in its scale and scope may struggle to run on series S. 

 

So the game will have to be designed to scale well with Series S.   There will never be a game to take full advantage of Series X because that would be out of the scope of Series S.   

 

That's kinda like Pro and X, both are much more capable than what we see now... but because zero games are built exclusively around the strengths of Pro or X because the base consoles must be factored into the design of the game.  So in a sense their true potential is held back. 

 

Now I'm not saying that series X won't run game better and at higher res than S... because it will.  I'm saying there won't be a single game designed around the series X alone from the ground up to take full advantage of series X's full potential to the Max because from a game design perspective, series S has to be  factored in. 

No it wouldn't, holy fuck you don't get the simplest of concepts. It's the identical system scaling GPU only with a resolution offset. The peak of the Series X rendering output would be the same peak of the Series S rendering output merely at a lower resolution. 

[Remij 4,688]

PRO and X really are not capable of anything more than what you're seeing right now.  This generation is greatly bottlenecked by CPUs and storage.

[Goukosan 2,258]

5 minutes ago, Remij_ said:

PRO and X really are not capable of anything more than what you're seeing right now.  This generation is greatly bottlenecked by CPUs and storage.

Yea the CPU is a huge bottleneck this gen. 

 

I'm not saying you would see a generatial leap... im simply saying A game designed around X alone or Pro alone would run better, look better and be designed differently than those same games that are made now for Pro and X that factor in Base X and Base PS4. 

Edited April 21, 2020 by Goukosan

[DynamiteCop 2,087]

1 minute ago, Goukosan said:

A game designee around X alone or Pro alone would run better, look better and be designed differently than the games that are made now that factor in Base X and Base PS4. 

Because neither of those were ever designed or optimized with the expressed intent of mirroring the rendering profile of each other. 

[JonDnD 2,644]

Makes me think series X will be more than 500 

[DynamiteCop 2,087]

1 minute ago, JONBpc said:

Makes me think series X will be more than 500 

Nah, they can come in at the same price as the PlayStation 5 with more compute and at a lower price with less. There's nothing that makes the Series X more expensive than the PlayStation 5.