Rumor: Xbox Lockhart Specs Leaked in New Document, Weaker Next Gen Console - News
by William D'Angelo , posted on 01 July 2020 / 3,944 Views
It has been long rumored Microsoft plans to release two next generation consoles, with evidence of two codenames: Anaconda and Lockhart.
The Xbox Series X, the more powerful of the two, was officially unveiled during The Game Awards last December, with the complete specs getting revealed earlier this year. It was discovered the console features an Anaconda snake etched into the mainboard.
The weaker of the two consoles, Lockhart, is said to have a lower price point for gaming at 1080p or 1440p. However, up to this point Microsoft has yet to acknowledge the existence of Lockhart.
A Microsoft document has now been leaked and posted on Twitter. It makes mention of Lockhart and multiple "Project Scarlett consoles."
Source: https://t.co/xaf432dsV9 https://t.co/e9xcLoyeVE
— TitleOS (@XB1_HexDecimal) June 26, 2020
Sources have told The Verge a special Lockhart mode is available in the Xbox Series X developer kits, which have been codenamed Dante. Lockhart mode features the performance that Microsoft wants to hit with its second console. The specs for Lockhart includes a 4 teraflop GPU, slightly underclocked CPU, and 7.5 GB of RAM.The Xbox Series X boasts a 12 teraflop GPU and 13.5 GB of RAM.
The Lockhart codename is also found in the Xbox One operating system, alongside mentions of Anaconda and Dante. Microsoft plans to launch Lockhart alongside the Xbox Series X, with a likely name of Xbox Series S, this Holiday season. That is if Microsoft doesn't cancel it last minute.
A life-long and avid gamer, William D'Angelo was first introduced to VGChartz in 2007. After years of supporting the site, he was brought on in 2010 as a junior analyst, working his way up to lead analyst in 2012. He has expanded his involvement in the gaming community by producing content on his own YouTube channel and Twitch channel dedicated to gaming Let's Plays and tutorials. You can contact the author at wdangelo@vgchartz.com or on Twitter @TrunksWD.
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Seems unlikely that Series S is coming this winter. I'd think that's a 2021 launch. Early adopters will throw down the cash for the Series X
They better make sure they announce it before XBSX is out though. If I were to pay the premium to buy into next gen early, only to have that brand later reveal there's a cheaper weaker SKU coming that will ultimately hold back my high end console to some degree, I'd be pretty ticked off. Now if I knew it was coming at some point and I went ahead and made the early purchase anyway, at least I had all the facts and decided to go with that ecosystem.
Why did SNY and MS have to have a policy that no game could be exclusive to the mid gen upgrades? Weren't they basically just upgraded versions of the base models? Couldn't it be said that the base consoles were running lower settings of the mid gen upgrades? Are we also assuming the much cheaper Lockhart will have every single feature the XBSX has, no compromises? Why is it that all XB games for the first couple years of 'next gen' have to play on XB1 forward and can't be exclusive to XBSX? Why would anyone want to make a game exclusive to XBSX unless the game could be made more advanced overall in which the other models couldn't play?
There could be some difference in the series S vs series X thing, in that they were planned out ahead of time to not interfere (or minimally interfere) with one another. Whereas the XBone and XBone X were not (to the best of my knowledge) planned simultaneously, so nobody was able to address these issues during development of those systems. Presumably, this stuff has been carefully considered during development of the new systems, and either determined not to be a problem, or the extent of any problem has been kept to an absolute minimum.
While I don't recall either SNY or MS specifically saying mid gen upgrades were a definite part of the plan, they both heavily hinted towards somewhat of a cell phone type of upgrade future. Neither wanted to subsidize much if at all, and so either you have to shorten the gen significantly, or provide upgrades. If they planned on upgrades, which they almost certainly did to some extent, then they simply just didn't get it exactly right, which isn't a surprise considering it was their first attempt. I'm also not saying that there would be a night and day difference between XBSX and Lockhart, meaning if Lockhart held XBSX back, it may only be to a small degree. Some may not care, but for others it may be seen as a negative, so the full details need to be out in the open before XBSX launches. Getting a strong start only to get backlash 6 - 12 months later due to Lockhart is not what you want if you're MS. They have to be crystal clear upfront before the gen starts.
Seems like a next gen console designed for 1080p gaming with high frame rates. If it comes in for $299 it could make waves....
4 Teraflop? Wouldn't that make it weaker than the Xbox One X?
@Shikamaru Got a source on RDNA being 1.5 times as powerful as GCN per Teraflop?
Wouldn't it be easier and cheaper to rebrand the Xbox One X, instead of making a weaker version? Or offering SSD upgrades to buy if Lockhart comes with an SSD?
Four Teraflops with 7.5 GB of RAM isn't next gen.
My thoughts here:
https://gamrconnect.vgchartz.com/thread.php?id=242736
Curious to see what will happen with two models at launch with this big power disparity, will be a first.
As somebody pointed out to me, the risk is really if a Series X game ends up outputting sub-4K (say, checkerboard "4K") then even if everything else scales fine, Lockhart will then have to do proportional equivalent at sub-1080p which may be alot more noticeable relatively. And unless they leave plenty of headroom which may be wasted in any particular game, it seems likely they will have occasional problems scaling down.
Anyhow, I just find it strange that if Lockhard is in the dev specs for games are expected to run, that they don't also launch it immediately at the beginning. Since games are being affected by it immediately, and devs have to do the work to get it to run on that spec, yet no consumer actually uses it for a year or whatever they plan. If you're going to do this approach, seems like you might as well start from Day 1, and get more sales with the low price point... I wonder if MS is actually testing games to see if they run on Lockhart spec before being released, if they aren't and devs were "optimistic" leading to it not really running adequately (or actually at 1080p) then it becomes sort of a farce.
Overall, this just seems a dubious move for the #2 console with <1/2 the marketshare of it's competitor. With Sony's marketshare supporting a low spec variant is reasonably worthwhile. Doing so with Xbox, and when it's not even available for a year or something seems like it would piss developers off.
Relatedly, this makes me wonder about future high spec versions... Seems like changing their I/O to be more like Sony might be possible, but also really awkward an inconvenient. But one way they might try to get comparable end results is just increasing the RAM by 2x, since that is effectively what Sony's faster and deeper I/O controller allows for.
If the XSX games run subpar 4k, than the XSS will just remove an effect if its really struggling, like 1080p without Raytracing.
so it's not anext gen console is it
No thanks. Seems like too much compromise if that's real.
This will hold back full potential of the seriesx. I would not buy any next gen system if there was a weaker sibling.
Essay Pro