When we reported that Assassin’s Creed Origins information had leaked earlier today, we also reported that the game will be Scorpio optimized. The full extent of those optimizations is now known- according to Game Informer [via DualShockers], the game will be running in 4K resolution on the Xbox One Scorpio on a ‘consistent’ framerate (whatever that last bit means).

Of course, 4K isn’t always 4K- do they mean native 4K, or upscaled 4K? Because the former, for a modern AAA open world game, is an amazing feat, especially when you consider that Assassin’s Creed games are no graphical slouches to begin with. The latter, while still impressive, is obviously not that impressive.

I imagine we will be learning more about this in the coming days- E3 is almost here at all. Stay tuned to GamingBolt, and we will keep you updated on all the latest news on this game, and more.

The PS4 Pro and the Xbox One Scorpio having better hardware than the PS4 and Xbox One means that PC gaming could now benefit, too. Since multiplatform developers largely target consoles first, and scale up for PC from there, having two more powerful consoles leads to the possibility that developers will be able to leverage the flexibility and power of PCs better and more effectively.

This is also a stance shared by Zen Studios, who are currently working on Infinite Minigolf.  Speaking to GamingBolt, Desiree Frost of Zen Studios told us, when asked the question of Xbox Scorpio impacting PC gaming with its 12GB of memory, that there could be positive ramifications for all platforms involved. 

“Being multiplatform means we need to take new hardware releases very seriously,” Desiree said. “Zen releases games which continue to be serviced well after release and there will be no exception here. Improvements to hardware always challenge developers, usually in good ways! Increases in memory is a good thing, and usually other competing performance platforms catch up quickly so I am sure we will see PC go the same route.  “

Desiree also confirmed that the PS4 Pro version of the game will have a resolution bump over the standard version. “On PS4 Pro we are rendering 1440p@60fps.” And what about the base PS4 and Xbox One versions of the game, then? “Both the PS4 and Xbox One versions are running at 1080p@60fps.”

So everyone should have a visually satisfying experience with this game, no matter what platform they plan on. Stay tuned to GamingBolt for our full interview with Desiree Frost, coming soon in the next few days.

The Xbox Scorpio has 12GB of GDDR5 RAM, which is 4GB more than the standard Xbox One. On the standard Xbox One, 5GB of that was available for games, and the remaining 3GB saved for the system itself. On the Scorpio, 8GB was reserved for games, and 4GB reserved for the system and OS. However, that has now changed.

According to a tweet from Mike Ybarra, Microsoft has now freed up an additional GB of memory for developers, meaning they can now use 9GB of GDDR5 memory- this is almost double the memory that is available on the PS4, Xbox One and One S, and it is more than the memory available to developers on the PS4 Pro as well. 9GB of usable memory is a lot- and it should remove any bottlenecks the developers might have run into (though, of course, the CPU being Jaguar remains a very real constraint, still).

This further adds to the Scorpio’s entire aura of being the most powerful console ever made- now let’s hope developers actually leverage all that hardware properly.

The Xbox One Scorpio will end up being the most powerful console ever when it launches later this year. But Sony, the market leader, with 60 million units of hardware sold, and having their best lineup of games yet since the PS4 launched, are apparently not that worried about the impending launch of Microsoft’s console.

Speaking to Business Insider, Sony’s Jim Ryan said, “We won’t be frightened of what they do.” Elaborating on the statement, Ryan said that in the end, the success of a game system comes down to the games- and not only are most games that are on the Xbox also on the PS4, but the PS4 has the added benefit of a highly appealing lineup of exclusives as well, thanks to games like Horizon: Zero Dawn and Uncharted.

He’s not wrong- in terms of lineup, the PlayStation does laughably outclass Xbox. The question is, is this something that Microsoft will be able to change this E3? I personally have my doubts that they do so, but all eyes will be on them come this Sunday.

Ahead of its full, proper, final reveal at E3 this year, Microsoft’s Major Nelson walks us through the ins and outs of the Xbox Scorpio devkit in a brand new video. In this video, he walks us through the features and hardware of the developer kit, to explain exactly how and why the hardware is as powerful as it is, and what that might mean for games.

We also get some technical jargon and information, including some insights into the game development process. On the whole, for Xbox fans who are eagerly anticipating the release of Scorpio this year, this video should be enough to tide them over until Sunday, when the console will be revealed at last.

The Xbox One Scorpio is due to launch later this year. It is going to be a more powerful Xbox console, with a 6TFLOP GPU and 12GB of GDDR5 RAM. While the most powerful home console ever made, it will still maintain compatibility with the Xbox One and the Xbox One S. Stay tuned to GamingBolt for more information on the system.

The Xbox One Scorpio is coming later this year, and it appears to be a pretty damn powerful system. It’s certainly powerful enough for most developers targetting the Xbox One base spec as to be able to get some extra juice out of it.

So when we had the chance to talk to Paul Coleman of Codemasters, Chief Game Designer on DiRT 4, we figured we would ask him if the developer will be trying to leverage the new hardware for some extra visual pizazz, especially given that the PC version of the game already supports high end specs. Could the Scorpio version of the game support, for instance, 4K at 60fps for DiRT 4?

“I think it will be interesting to try,” Coleman said measuredly. “We know many of our PC community enjoy DiRT Rally in 4k so it is theoretically possible.” But Coleman was quick to point out that nothing is planned yet. “The tech guys won’t be happy with me making any promises so you’ll just have to wait and see. We haven’t got any plans to support Scorpio at the moment but it really is too early for us to be making any decisions about it”

He also confirmed that the PS4 and Xbox One versions will be targeting 60fps and in order to achieve that they may be using dynamic resolution. “60fps is the most important thing for us. Our aim is to run it at 1080p as much as we can, but we dynamically drop the resolution to maintain the framerate if we have to.”

Which is more than fair. DiRT 4 is due out on the Xbox One, PS4, and PC next week. Stay tuned to GamingBolt for our full interview on DiRT 4.

Slightly Mad Studios’ Andy Tudor already confirmed a few days ago that the studio does not plan on holding back the Xbox Scorpio version of Project CARS 2 because of the comparatively weaker PS4 Pro, and that they will instead look into leveraging the Scorpio the best that they can. Apparently, the reason they can do so is because of their PC development spec, which allows them to detect different hardware configurations already, and scale their offering accordingly.

“We have scalability in our cross-platform engine already, and use that on PC. We can apply a number of detail levels reasonably easily to help differentiate between base and advanced versions,” Andy Tudor said, in an exclusive interview with GamingBolt. This means, even the PS4 Pro’s power will be utilized properly for Project CARS 2 provided the studio decides to implement enhancements for it.

We also asked him if the Xbox Scorpio’s specs make it, theoretically, powerful enough to deliver 60fps at 4K for AAA games- especially since they are making one of the most graphically impressive games of the generation, so this would be a question he would be equipped to answer.

Surprisingly enough, he feels as though the Scorpio should, in principle, be powerful enough for this. “In principle, yes. In principle because we really don’t know until we get things up and running and see what it can do,” he said.

We also asked Andy about their target resolution and frame rate on the Scorpio and he stated that they are still exploring the console. “We are exploring the console now, so it’s too early to give specific answers on those.”

It seems from the early indications that we are getting, specially from a massive AAA developer like Slightly Mad Studios, it does sound like Microsoft has something special on its hands here with the Scorpio.

Our full interview with Andy Tudor will go live tomorrow. Stay tuned.

Yes, you can tell the difference, and yes it does have a palpable impact on playability, depending on what you’re playing and how you’re playing it. I game primarily on an overclocked, 83 Hz monitor. And yes, that’s luxuriantly smooth in games like Doom, and Prey. But I am just as content to run Mass Effect: Andromeda, heavily ENB-fied Skyrim, and the like at lower framerates. (Also, as a long-time fan, I actually loved Andromeda. *flies away*).

The relative merits of 30 FPS and 60 FPS gaming are for you to decide on. What matters is that PC puts that decision in your hands. In the case of the original eighth-gen consoles, locked resolution and framerates were, in a sense, a boon. With a paltry amount of processing power, the PS4 and Xbox One tended to become CPU-bound well before GPU constraints were hit—higher framerates were often just not possible, however graphically intensive the title was. Alien: Isolation is a good example of this: the 750 Ti, a regular stand-in for the PS4’s GPU, delivers a locked 60-FPS update when paired with middle-of-the-road Core i processor.

The PS4, however, only manages to deliver a more-or-less stable 30 FPS update, with dips below. Moreover, as the years rolled by, GPU constraints have become increasingly evident, with sub-native and dynamic resolutions becoming the norm for AAA titles. The midcycle refreshes—Scorpio and the PS4 Pro—are targeted squarely at owners of 4K displays. However, 4K is still a few years away from mainstream adoption. There is a massive potential market of console gamers on 1080p displays who are currently getting a rather sub-par experience on the PS4 and Xbox One.

It’s debatable as to whether or not the PS4 Pro serves up an adequate 4K experience. Coming from the PC space, I am dissatisfied with the 4K performance of hardware that’s twice as fast as the Pro. And while the Scorpio promises better, we are still yet to see gameplay footage. Real potential—the people Sony at least seems to pretend don’t exist—lies with the aforementioned owners of 1080p TVs. At a firmware level, Sony doesn’t expose the Pro’s complete hardware to unpatched games. Rather, “boost mode,” as it stands, just allows games to make use of the slightly higher GPU and CPU clocks, delivering a slightly more consistent framerate at best. Mark Cerny’s reasoning, that this is to “ensure compatibility,” is unconvincing, to say the least.

Most multiplatforms today are developed with PC as the lead platform. Even in the case of exclusives, actual development takes place on PC machines (obviously). Existing multiplats today run on a mindbogglingly wide assortment of PCs—literally 100s of possible hardware configurations. There is really no reason as to why games can’t make use of the Pro’s additional resources—PC titles don’t have trouble utilizing the additional horsepower if you swap in a more powerful graphics card. Moreover, ensuring that all existing titles run and look tangibly better, is one of Microsoft’s promises for the Scorpio.

The way things stand right now, Sony seems to be shrugging the responsibility off to developers: Only a handful of older titles have received Pro patches. Several games offer users the option to downsample from a higher resolution for better AA. A handful of third party titles, such as Final Fantasy 15, Shadow of Mordor, The Surge and Nioh actually offer high-performance or high-visual quality modes at 1080p, giving Pro owners justifiable bang for their buck. But a few, such as Prey, (which by all rights should hit 1080p/60 on the Pro), don’t even offer downsampling.

This leads us to a scenario where your new, expense box, that’s both bulkier and pulls more power than its predecessor, ends up running most games…exactly the same as before or with the bare minimal upgrade. This is a patently ridiculous state of affairs. The only logical explanation we can think of for this is that Sony’s dug itself so far down the “this isn’t a new console” rabbit-hole that it really doesn’t want to give Pro owners a better experience. Fobbing Pro support off to developers is a good way to ensure that it’s never ideal—time’s money and, considering the Pro’s rather tepid adoption rate, not every developer would be bothered to put in the extra couple man-hours to enable decent Pro support. What can be done to rectify this? We feel that a bit of out-of-the-box thinking is necessary.

For starters, Sony needs to implement an actual boost mode. All 36 CUs need to be exposed to a given game’s code.  Games should, at the very least, be given access to the system’s entire resource pool. How effectively that’s utilized is secondary. Secondly, output resolution should be toggleable. At the very least, 4K output mode should be an option in system settings, irrespective of the display actual resolution. This would function much like downsampling in Windows, and ensure that players have access to a high-resolution option, irrespective of their display. Secondly, developers themselves would do well to approach the Pro in much the same way as they’d approach a midrange PC.

How does that work? Settings! PC users have been able to toggle visual settings for, well, forever. A handful of console titles, such as Project CARS, The Division and The Surge actually give users a degree of control over the console version’s visual makeup. This, in addition to performance/visual presets as seen in Final Fantasy 15 and Nioh, would put power in the hands of Pro owners. Those leaked Pro whitepapers from ages ago indicate that Sony has a say in terms of setting the guidelines developers adhere to. Instead of laying out constraints on what developers can do with the Pro, why not require the inclusion of performance and visual presets for Pro games at 1080p?

At the end of the day, getting a better 1080p experience on the PS4 Pro requires effort from both developers and Sony. While attempts so far have largely been half-hearted, the impending arrival of the Xbox Scorpio, which promises an enhanced experience on all existing titles, may spur Sony to action.

What Remains of Edith Finch has been a highly acclaimed game thus far. And while the developers, Giant Sparrow, who released their games only on PlayStation (The Unfinished Swan was only on PlayStation since Sony was the publisher), have eschewed PlayStation exclusivity with this title, and released it on PC, too, there is still no Xbox One version in sight.

Is an Xbox release for the game even a possibility? When we asked Ian Dallas, Creative Director at Giant Sparrow, in an exclusive interview we had with him, why they had not released the game on Microsoft’s console, the answer we got was encouraging for those still hoping for an Xbox One release. “For What Remains of Edith Finch we started by releasing on PS4 and PC but we’re still considering other platforms and might have something to announce soon.” he said.

We also asked him what he thought of the Scorpio- might that be something that would enable a port of the game to that platform? “We don’t have development kits for the Scorpio yet so it’s hard to tell, but it’s something we’re looking at,” he said.

So, Xbox fans- if you want to play this game, there may be some good news for you in the future. Unless Dallas was possibly referring to a Switch version when he said that? Whatever this announcement is that might come, it sounds intriguing for sure. For now, the game is playable exclusively on the PC and PS4.

The Xbox Scorpio and the PS4 Pro (along side the just released Nintendo Switch) represent brand new console hardware by all three major console manufacturers, released at roughly the same time. At any other time, something like this would mark the beginning of a new generation of consoles. But owing to the incremental and iterative nature of the PS4 Pro and the Xbox One Scorpio, that is something that often remains up for debate among gaming enthusiasts.

So when GamingBolt had the chance to sit down and talk to Jean-François Fiset, the Community Manager of Parabole, who are currently working on Kona, we decided to ask him for his take: are the PS4 Pro and the Xbox One Scorpio a new generation? “Although Microsoft and Sony are making more powerful versions of their respective console, developers still have to make sure their games run on the regular version. This is why we believe it’s not a new console cycle,” he said.

We also asked him what he feels about the Xbox One Scorpio-specifically, the fact that in spite of the system being such a radical and dramatic upgrade over the existing Xbox One, it is tied to the base system anyway, meaning that it has no true exclusives of its own. Would something like this not hurt its chances on the market compared to if it had been a true next generation system with its own exclusive games?

According to Fiset, it might- but if the system launches with full VR support right off the bat, the situation can be tempered somewhat, since VR games will be exclusive only to the Xbox One Scorpio in the Xbox ecosystem. “The lack of exclusives can hurt a little, but if the full VR support is there on release, it will most likely make up for it,” he said.

That’s more or less a sensible stance to take, though of course, the question of the viability of VR games for the larger market is one that still remains. This will be something that we will only be sure of more as time goes on.