While Microsoft is yet to lift the lid on the Xbox Series X release date or price, a new report suggests what might have been. The source of this is Xbox insider Brad Sams who has had a decent track record on all things Xbox. He previously reported what to expect from the Xbox Series X in terms of specifications and frame rate targets which ended up being pretty much in line with what Microsoft eventually revealed.
According to a recent post, Sams states that the Xbox Series X (codename Anaconda) was due for an August 2020 launch while the yet to be announced Xbox Series S (codename Lockhart) would be out in October of this year.
“Here’s a fun fact though, the original launch plans for Lockhart was that it was going to be released in mid-October,” reads Sams’ post. “That may not sound all that surprising, but Anaconda, the series X, was going to release in late August; clearly plans have been adjusted since the conception of the hardware.”
If the ongoing coronavirus pandemic was an afterthought, it would be interesting to see if Microsoft stuck to the original Xbox Series X release date that may have been at the end of August of this year.
Xbox Series X specifications
- CPU: 8x Cores @ 3.8GHz custom Zen 2 CPU
- GPU: 12 TFLOPS custom RDNA 2 GPU
- Memory: 16GB GDDR6
- Memory Bandwidth: 10GB @ 560 GB/s, 6GB @ 336 GB/s
- Internal Storage: 1TB custom NVME SSD
- Expandable Storage: 1TB expansion card
- External Storage: USB 3.2 external HDD support
- Optical Drive: 4K UHD Blu-ray drive
- Performance Target: 4K @ 60fps, Up to 120fps
It’ll be interesting to see how Microsoft executes in terms of OS and the overall user experience. Despite being the most powerful console this generation, the Xbox One X’s menus and user experience was far from fluid compared to the PS4.
Xbox Series X features
Microsoft also stated that it would be minimising latency with tech like Auto Low Latency Mode (ALLM) and Dynamic Latency Input (DLI) to make Xbox Series X the most responsive console ever. It’s no surprise that Project xCloud will be a part of Xbox Series X with “unique capabilities built into the hardware and software to make it easy” to bring games to the console and other devices.
Xbox Series X India release date
The Xbox Series X is likely to launch in India around the same time as it does the world over. According to Xbox boss Phil Spencer “significant delays in region launches” harm Microsoft’s prospects. This is an interesting turn when you consider that the Xbox 360 and Xbox One were officially released in India nearly a year after their international launches with the original Xbox skipping the country altogether.
“I will say, having lived through the Xbox One launch I know that significant delays in region launches hurt us,” said Spencer.
“It hurts us with the sentiment of the fans. Every time I go to Japan I am reminded that we were nine months late in launching there with Xbox One. And the Internet means everyone knows where everything is launched. Not like 30 years ago when it was kind of it’s ‘not here yet’ and you don’t get the roar of people getting excited from other regions. We haven’t started on a plan B but I’d be hesitant to do something like that. Fundamentally some of the issues we have to work through are more software-related than hardware and when you’re done with software it scales globally so I’m not predicting that but as I said, we’re managing day to day kind of watching how things are going and managing our productivity.”
Now, while Spencer called out Japan specifically, it’s safe to say that his plans extend to other regions including India as well. Microsoft’s other divisions have a huge presence in India and an Xbox Series X launch on par with a global release would be a welcome change of pace from the company. We’ve reached out to Microsoft India for comment and we’ll update this story if we hear from the company.
With that in mind, Spencer also stated that the safety and security of the Xbox team is of utmost importance over any short term gains in launching the Xbox Series X in the current environment.
