In conversation with the Head of Xbox, Phil Spencer, we asked how he describes a teraflop when trying to sell Microsoft’s upcoming beefed-up Xbox One, Project Scorpio.
“Well, I try not to really talk using the term,” he began. “It’s like a car — you wouldn’t describe how fast it goes using only one characteristic. But I guess it’s like a teraflop is like horsepower — you’d probably have in your head what 100 horsepower could do, or 200.
“But it’s much more than that — there’s other things that dictate how fast the car goes. A transmission. Its weight. It’s the same with Scorpio; it’s not just the number of teraflops that makes it powerful.”
According to Spencer, Scorpio has been many years in the making.
“We had to make decisions like 4K — to run games in 4K natively — years ago,” he said. “We thought it would be like the jump to HD with the Xbox 360. Obviously, it’s different — that was from a 4:3 ratio to 16:9 — but it’s still the same idea.”
As far as whether or not Spencer considers the Scorpio a current- or next-gen iteration, he’s remaining tight-lipped.
“I just consider it as part of the Xbox family,” he said, matter-of-factly.
Sadly, this was our last #TuesdaysWithPhil post. If you missed past articles, they are detailed below:
- Phil Spencer on Project Scorpio backwards compatibility: No “technical wizardry” required
- Xbox Play Anywhere: Xbox’s Phil Spencer says new Surface Books will have no trouble running cross-platform games
- Xbox’s Phil Spencer: VR will come to Project Scorpio when it doesn’t feel like “demos and experiments”
- Xbox’s Phil Spencer on Alan Wake 2: Remedy “has to want to make the game”
- Xbox’s Phil Spencer: Licensing arrangements mean Xbox Fitness can’t be made available offline
- Xbox’s Phil Spencer: Xbox Play Anywhere’s drawcard is cross-platform play with friends, no cross-saves
- Xbox’s Phil Spencer: Expect cross-collaboration between Microsoft Games Studios developers
- Destiny: Phil Spencer can’t jump, just like the rest of us
- Xbox: Phil Spencer on the brand before and after his leadership
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