The PlayStation 4 has dominated this console generation, but Microsoft is hoping that its next console which is being developed under the name Xbox Scarlett, is going to win big next year.
Due to land on store shelves sometimes during the 2020 holiday season, the Xbox Scarlett is promising to be a hefty beast of a machine – but whether or not it can tackle the likes of the PlayStation 5 remains to be seen.
In an interview with GamesRadar, Xbox Game Studios boss Matt Booty stated that he believes Scarlett has “an advantage” over Sony’s PS5 in one specific regard: backward compatibility.
He told the publication: “We want–when you invest in Xbox–to know that you’re bringing that legacy content library with you. It’s why we think we’ve got an advantage with Project Scarlett, because our goal is that any game that runs on an Xbox One will run on Scarlett,
“You’re not porting to a different operating system; you’re not porting to a different graphics API; you’re just running an Xbox game, right? So we hope that that’s a big advantage in terms of our initial content library.”
The Xbox Scarlett will supposedly support four generations of Xbox games, making it an all-in-one console for Microsoft gamers. It’ll also be compatible with the current iteration of Xbox One controllers, meaning you won’t need to fork over more cash if you need additional pads.
Although Sony has promised that the PS5 will be backwards-compatible with PS4 games, the company has since been pretty quiet on the matter.
In an interview with Famitsu earlier this year (translated by Japanese journalist @bk2128), when asked about full backward compatibility, Sony said: “the dev team is putting all power on verifying whether they can secure a complete compatibility. Please wait for more information.”
It had previously been announced that the PS5 would be backwards compatible with PlayStation 4 games, but as for the rest of the Sony back-catalogue, it remains unclear.
Featured Image Credit: Microsoft/Sony