Anticipation for the Xbox Series X has been mounting, and rumors about its hardware and software have begun to circulate. Head of Xbox, Phil Spencer, has now confirmed the specs of the new Xbox. One confirmation was that the console would have 12 Teraflops of power, yet that fact does not equate to value to all players. Fortunately, Xbox has now clarified what these specs mean for players.
The Xbox consoles have been incredibly successful since their inception. Delivering exclusive franchises such as Halo, Gears and Fable set the console apart and allowed it to take a share of the highly competitive gaming market. Although the Xbox One did not match the success of its predecessors, there are theories that the Xbox Series X could dominate the next generation. After the post by Phil Spencer, it is clear that the next console has the hardware to impress fans.
Xbox very simply explained that a Teraflop is "a unit of computing speed equal to one trillion floating point operations per second". The Xbox One has 12 Teraflops so will be able to hand numerous tasks incredibly quickly. Yet it is important to remember that the Xbox One X has 6 Teraflops and it is not completely new technology. With that said, many will be keen to see how the new Xbox Series X uses this power.
Some comments to this post have raised concerns about how this speed will be used. After all the PS4 Pro had 1.8 less Teraflops than the Xbox One X and still proved to run more exclusives. Ultimately this speed is impressive and a huge achievement for the company, but there has yet to be a confirmed benefit for Xbox gamers. With exclusives set to be released more than a year after the release of the Xbox Series X, this hardware may be redundant until the console has content to utilize it.
Microsoft has been creating a buzz around E3, and the announcements made at this event may make the application of this hardware clear. Many fans will be excited by the technology, but how it can be used will ultimately sway players and determine the success of the console. While fans wait to hear news about content, they can rest assured that the Xbox Series X is going to be an impressively powerful console.
The Xbox Series X console is set to launch holiday 2020.