Cheaper Xbox Series S console could be revealed in August, reports say
Xbox Project Lockhart reveal plans leak in a new report
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Rumors ofMicrosoft’s cheaper Xbox Series S console, codenamedProject Lockhart, popped up again after its nameappeared in a Microsoft technical document– now, two separate sources say Microsoft is likely to do a full reveal of the console in August.
The report comes fromEurogamerwhich echoed the findings of an earlierVentureBeatreport about a lower-cost, disc-less console that was first scheduled to be revealed in June before being pushed back to a separate event in August. Note that Eurogamer refers to it as the Xbox Series S, while VentureBeat refers to it as Xbox Lockhart.
If that’s true, we’ll see the lower-cost alternative to theXbox Series Xsooner rather than later.
TheXbox Games Showcase event, which took place on July 23, didn’t show any new hardware. Microsoft stuck to its promise of only showing first-partyXbox Series X gamesfrom Microsoft’s in-house development teams, includingHalo Infinite.
Both Eurogamer and Venturebeat seem sure that we’ll have to wait until August to see the new – and supposedly much more affordable – hardware.
Xbox Series S vs Xbox Series X: what’s the deal?
The rumors of Project Lockhart – which is reportedly the Xbox Series S’s official name – have been flying around for years but have only recently begun to pick back up as we approach the final stretch of the console’s marketing campaign.
The theory most folks have about Project Lockhart is that it will be a disc-less Xbox Series X with slightly less powerful innards that can only push 4 TFLOPs of processing power with a maximum of 7.5GB of usable RAM, compared to the 12 TFLOPs GPU and 13.5GB of usable RAM on the Xbox Series X.
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Those numbers come from the ProjectLockhart Mode specs found in last week’s Microsoft Game Development Kit code and could mean that the console will push 1080p graphics instead of full4Klike the Xbox Series X.
Regardless of its final specs, Microsoft has already said that the Xbox family of consoles will be able to play the same games, so don’t worry too much about being locked out of thenext Haloor Gears of War game.
All of this depends on Microsoft fully unveiling the console in the near future and carefully laying out the differences for information-hungry fans before either console launches later this year as a marketing faux-pas here could cause a major setback in Microsoft’s race to reclaim the spot as the top console maker.
Nick Pino is Managing Editor, TV and AV for TechRadar’s sister site, Tom’s Guide. Previously, he was the Senior Editor of Home Entertainment at TechRadar, covering TVs, headphones, speakers, video games, VR and streaming devices. He’s also written for GamesRadar+, Official Xbox Magazine, PC Gamer and other outlets over the last decade, and he has a degree in computer science he’s not using if anyone wants it.
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