Xbox Head Phil Spencer publicly revealed he’s played games for the Xbox One’s successor, Project Scarlett, in an unexpected but noteworthy update on next-gen hardware. The upcoming console is slated to launch during the 2020 holiday season and has garnered a ton of intrigue and excitement just over a year after its reveal.
Much has been made about Project Scarlett since Microsoft first teased it back at E3 2018. Between then and its reappearance during this year’s E3, fans have learned that its coming next year and will apparently be substantially more powerful than the Xbox One X. The console’s actual specs haven’t been officially detailed, but third-party reports point towards improvements such as including a solid state drive. That hasn’t stopped insiders from speculating the system’s price, however.
Spencer’s casual mention of his time with Scarlett came during his Destiny 2 Mixer stream with Bungie CEO, Pete Parsons. The pair sat down to play a Bungie Bounty together. Spencer, a known Destiny fan, spent most of his time gushing over the game but casually stated “I played my first games on Project Scarlett this week.” Naturally, he didn’t go into any more detail than that but that didn’t stop viewers from getting excited at the unintentional update.
Again, this shouldn’t come as a shock given that Spencer oversees all things Xbox. He’d be among the first to sample any next-gen projects but the real question lies in what he’s played. So far Halo: Infinite is the only confirmed title for Project Scarlett, slated to launch the same day as the console. It also isn’t too far-fetched to assume that some if not all of Microsoft’s roster of acquired studios such as Ninja Theory, Compulsion Games, and most recently Double Fine are hard at work creating first-party software. Has Spencer gotten to play any of these potential games in-development?
Xbox fans can only hope that whatever Spencer played represents a strong first-party line-up for Project Scarlett. Xbox One has suffered from a near-crippling lack of exclusive titles compared to Sony and Nintendo. Odds are fans will have to wait for 2020 to roll around before Spencer and Microsoft fully unveil their next-gen plans.
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Source: Bungie/Mixer
