Earlier today Microsoft officially took the wraps off the Xbox One X, which was formerly known as Project Scorpio while it was in development. This is the latest console in the Xbox platform lineup and is essentially an upgraded version of the Xbox One, and it also came with an “upgraded” price tag of $499.This seems to have gone against what some had predicted which was $399 and no doubt it is pretty expensive, but yet Microsoft seems to be pretty chuffed about it. In an interview following the Xbox E3 press conference, Geoff Keighley spoke to Microsoft’s Aaron Greenberg about the pricing which he described as being twice the price of an Xbox One S (which received a $50 discount ahead of the Xbox One X’s launch).
According to Greenberg, it seems that Microsoft is proud of the pricing due to the fact that this is a console that can offer “true 4K gaming”. “Look at something like Forza that is delivering that native 4K, 60 frames per second. That takes an incredibly powerful GPU. That takes a lot of memory. That takes really unique design. So we designed it with no compromises. We did not build this to be a low price box. We built this to be a premium product for people that want the very, very best console games they’ve ever seen.”
If you recall, the Xbox One was also originally launched at $499, a price which not many gamers reacted favorably towards which in turn allowed cheaper consoles like the PS4 to gain an advantage. Microsoft later reduced the price which did seem to help bolster sales. While it is possible the performance and hardware can justify the price of the Xbox One X, whether or not gamers will actually want to pay for it remains to be seen.
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