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In the past few days, we’ve been talking about the price of the next-gen consoles. That’s thanks to a report in Bloomberg that said Sony has been struggling to get its build price for the PlayStation 5 below $450, indicating something like a $500 for either a break-even price or a moderate loss, depending on extra costs. People suspect that the Xbox Series X is slightly higher than that, but not by much, again suggesting that we might see both of these consoles come out at the $500 price point unless one company decides to do something drastic in either direction. The thing about all this talk, however, is that we’re focused on two consoles: the Xbox Series X and PlayStation 5. What if there’s a third? And no, not the Switch.
Ever since we heard the very first rumors about Microsoft’s next-gen “Project Scarlett”, they came with an interesting wrinkle. Microsoft, these rumors said, was not working on one next-gen console, but two: a big, fancy machine that we now know is called the Xbox Series X, and a smaller, more affordable machine known as “Lockhart”. Microsoft hasn’t said one official word about this machine yet, but the last we heard was that it was still happening, at least according to a report from Kotaku’s Jason Schreier in December.
There are still a ton of questions about this thing. Sure, it will be less powerful, but how much less powerful? Cheaper, of course, but how much? Will it come out at the same time as Series X, or the next holiday season? This is not something that any company has done before—the closest analog would be the Wii U or Xbox 360, which launched with “premium” versions. This would be something else entirely.
Let’s say it comes out at $299, putting it right in line with the Switch. $199 isn’t impossible either, particularly if Microsoft is willing to take a loss in favor of subscription revenue. That would be a significant discount compared to a $500 “premium” console, and an attractive option for holiday shoppers looking to stretch their budgets. A big reason we need so much power in new consoles is to chase 4K resolution, and it’s easy to make the argument that 4K isn’t really all that necessary.
Ever since we heard the very first rumors about Microsoft’s next-gen “Project Scarlett”, they came with an interesting wrinkle. Microsoft, these rumors said, was not working on one next-gen console, but two: a big, fancy machine that we now know is called the Xbox Series X, and a smaller, more affordable machine known as “Lockhart”. Microsoft hasn’t said one official word about this machine yet, but the last we heard was that it was still happening, at least according to a report from Kotaku’s Jason Schreier in December.
There are still a ton of questions about this thing. Sure, it will be less powerful, but how much less powerful? Cheaper, of course, but how much? Will it come out at the same time as Series X, or the next holiday season? This is not something that any company has done before—the closest analog would be the Wii U or Xbox 360, which launched with “premium” versions. This would be something else entirely.
Let’s say it comes out at $299, putting it right in line with the Switch. $199 isn’t impossible either, particularly if Microsoft is willing to take a loss in favor of subscription revenue. That would be a significant discount compared to a $500 “premium” console, and an attractive option for holiday shoppers looking to stretch their budgets. A big reason we need so much power in new consoles is to chase 4K resolution, and it’s easy to make the argument that 4K isn’t really all that necessary.