Microsoft Reportedly Scrapping Plans For One Of Two Next-Gen Xbox. One of the weirder aspects of Microsoft’s next-gen announcement last year was that Phil Spencer talked about future consoles, rather than just one. Those two projects were reportedly codenamed Lockhart and Anaconda, with the latter evolving into Project Scarlett.
But according to sources, microsoft is ditching their new low-end affordable Xbox codenamed lockhard & will only launch Xbox codenamed Project Scarlett. While not talking about this publicly, it’s easy to guess why this is probably happening. Launching two consoles, one cheaper and less powerful and one pricier with more horsepower, is a recipe for another mangled, confusing launch that Microsoft can’t afford after the Xbox One-Kinect nonsense.
It seems clear that most players would race to the cheaper option, which would no doubt find them owning a system less powerful than Sony’s PS5, once again cementing the narrative of Sony’s dominance at launch, even if Scarlett did indeed have comparable power. It would be like launching the original Xbox One and One X at the same time. While upgrades may make sense over the course of the generation, trying to pull an iPhone with different models at launch is probably not a good idea for a video game console, and Microsoft seems to realize that now. - AJI72
