Microsoft have lifted the lid on an upgraded Xbox One that they claim will support 4K gaming and VR. It is currently called Scorpio and will ship sometime next year. No pricing was announced.

They’re promising 6-teraflops of performance thanks to a new GPU. Basically what they feel like they’re saying is that this is what the Xbox One was supposed to be.

The problem is even with 6-teraflops 4K gaming still isn’t a realistic expectation. Even the most powerful card in the world, the GTX 1080, is only just about capable of handling 4K gaming with its 9 teraflops or so of power. Realistically 1440p gaming would be a much more believable claim.

At least they’re promising all existing games and accessories will work with Scorpio.

My thoughts on consoles getting hardware upgrades are complicated, but suffice to say that for now I’m not convinced this is a smart move. It also feels like it makes the newly announced Xbox One S (Slim) feel utterly redundant already. Why bother buying it when a new, much more powerful Xbox One will be arriving next year? Hell, why not just get a PC at this point.

Maybe I’m just being too cynical.