We’re starting to go into a seesaw with this console: it’s rumoured to be in development one time, only to hear that it might not be the case. Now it’s starting all over again.

It’s hard to follow what Microsoft is planning to do, even though at the E3, they officially started talking about their next-gen Xbox, which only has a codename for now (Project Scarlett, which was previously dubbed as Anaconda as part of the Scarlett product family…). Earlier, the rumours also talked about another Xbox console with weaker performance, aimed at the streaming. It would be Lockhart, which we wrote about how Microsoft allegedly halted ints development, as developers found it too difficult to develop for two Xbox units at the same time…

And Thurrott, who was the source of all next-gen Xbox-related rumours, steps in here once again. Brad Sams, who writes for Thurrott, talks in the video below how the cloud-exclusive (which we can call Project xCloud for now) next-gen Xbox is in development after all, and it would be strong enough for the player to „move around in a virtual environment,” but everything else (NPCs, items to interact with, text, graphics…) would all be cloud-based.

It probably sounds very stupid, but there’s some rational thinking behind it: if the Lockhart can deal with the movement calculations instead of Project xCloud via its Microsoft Azure data servers, then the input lag would be lower, resulting in a fluid gameplay experience… on paper. In practice, we have no clue how Microsoft wants to pull this off…

If Microsoft can launch this console, whose name can’t even be guessed at this point, at a cheap price (under a 100 bucks), then it could be a very useful option for those who want some comfort and not use a web browser to stream games.

Source: VG247