Project Scorpio is the newest video game console coming from Microsoft in late 2017, and from what we can tell, it could very well be the most powerful video game console to ever hit store shelves since the PlayStation 4 Pro.
This is the console Microsoft hopes it can use to retain much of the market share it lost to Sony since the launch of the PlayStation 4 about 3 years ago. The company says the console is rocking a 6-teraflop GPU along with a processor with eight cores.
The idea here is to bring the first truly 4K console to market. The question is, what else is Project Scorpio capable of outside the 4K gaming and being extremely powerful? Well, how about being able to play Xbox 360 games with less of a hassle?
If we look at the Xbox One right now, Microsoft has made it backward compatible with certain Xbox 360 games through the power of software emulation. However, it's not perfect and it takes a lot of work to get the games to perform on the Xbox One.
Microsoft aims to do the same with Project Scorpio, but it should be more streamlined than what is on offer right now.
In a recent interview with Stevivor, head of Xbox, Phil Spencer, made it clear that backward compatibility on Project Scorpio won't require any form of technical wizardry. It should just work as the system will be built with playing games via Xbox One and Xbox 360 in mind.
"We've very specifically designed it [on Scorpio] so Xbox games just run," he said. "It's nothing like Xbox 360 backward compatibility right now - there's a lot of technical wizardry involved in that. We didn't want to have to do that again."
What Microsoft is saying here is that backward compatibility with Project Scorpio will work similarly to how things are done on the PC side of things. No need for the company to work overly hard to bring old games to the console, they should just work right out of the box.
Not too long ago, Microsoft had claimed that Project Scorpio's development is ahead of schedule, which could mean the official launch date could come earlier than the announced holiday 2017 target. An earlier date would likely be good for Microsoft seeing as the company could better compete with the Sony PlayStation 4 Pro.
Sony has a head start with its new console, and this could allow the company to grow its user-base even more before Microsoft is ready.
