The Xbox Scorpio price could be $399, says Wedbush Securities analyst and all-around gaming svengali Michael Pachter. Pachter is an oft-cited observer of the various business trends within the gaming industry in his role as a money-making capitalist guy. But for us gamers without thick financial portfolios, he is better known as a source for industry insights into things like pricing and release dates. And, according to his sources, he told gamesindustry.biz that the Xbox Scorpio (or Project Scorpio if your heart still bleeds for Hank) will set you back $399.
Historically, this is right in line with the Xbox One debut. Unless you were a sucker like me and paid $499 to get the Kinect too because you thought… well, I don’t know what I was thinking but it involved the Kinect somehow. But $399 for a Kinect-less Xbox Scorpio is a price that fits comfortably within what Microsoft has charged before. And it lines up with statements Xbox president Phil Spencer made earlier this month.
“I want Scorpio to be at a console price-point,” Spencer said. “I’m not trying to go and compete with a high-end rig… because we’re building one spec, we’re able to look at the balance between all the components and make sure that it’s something we really hit that matters to consumers and gamers.”
The looming question is will Xbox Scorpio matter $399 worth? Sales of the PS4 Pro have been good, according to Sony at least, so it seems fanboy demand for souped up second consoles is there. But the install base for Xbox One is much lower than PS4, which could mean two things. The first, and bad for Microsoft, is that fewer fans means fewer diehards means fewer Xbox Scorpio sales. The second, good for Microsoft, is that a lot of potential customers might be holding off the purchase until next year. Although robust sales of the Xbox One S seem to suggest console gamers are doubling up this year instead.
Right now there are too many unknowns for the Xbox Scorpio. Pachter’s call of an Xbox Scorpio price of $399 might be accurate, but it doesn’t tell us if it’s worth the cost. Game devs seem to be stoked about the system. Todd Howard, of Bethesda fame, told me it’s “a monster” and “a stellar piece of hardware” on separate occasions. For the Bethesda folks it’s an exciting prospect because their games have a long tail, so a Fallout 4K would probably sell just fine on a new system.
Whether other devs are ready to start patching up old titles (looking at you, Rockstar) or not remains to be seen. We don’t know the official specs yet, either, or if it’ll have any features beyond shinier graphics. Lots of fans, myself included, are hoping for a modular console that allows idiot-proof component upgrades to rival PC culture.
We’ll just have to wait and see. Or keep following Michael Pachter.
You stoked for Xbox Scorpio? Tired of this new console trend since it was the only thing that made it better than having a PC was not spending a couple hundred bucks every few years? Let us know in the comments!
