Xbox One Scorpio will have a 'premium' – but fair – price

When the Xbox One Scorpio is released in 2017, fans should expect to pay a price reflective of its status as a "premium console", according to Xbox boss Phil Spencer.

In an interview with NZGamer, Spencer discussed how Microsoft had designed the Xbox One S and Scorpio consoles in a kind of "parallel" in order to establish a "good price continuum", where an increased price would be a fair reflection of increased performance.

Since the Xbox One Scorpio is expected to be a good deal more powerful than the current Xbox offering, it's fair to assume that the price increase won't be miniscule.

However, Spencer says people shouldn't be "worried that this thing is going to be unlike any console price you've ever seen", as it simply wasn't designed that way.

4K visuals don't mean a 4K price tag

Spencer went on to add: "The opening price point for the Xbox One S, and the different hard drive sizes, that is a critical part of this whole product. When I think about it as a product line, you should expect the pricing to kind of be in line with that."

So, what can we expect? Well, it seems likely that, as with the Xbox One S, Microsoft will launch a Scorpio console with a large HDD drive first, before releasing consoles equipped with smaller hard drives at lower price points not long after.

As far as specific numbers, it's quite hard to pin something down. When the Xbox One was first launched it retailed for US$499 / £429 / AU$599 including the Kinect camera. This might seem pricey, but it's worth bearing in mind that when the PlayStation 3 launched in the US the 60GB version of the console retailed for as much as US$599 / AU$999, although it was only £425 in the UK.

It's likely that Microsoft wouldn't want to go above these high price points, particularly as when the PS4 Pro launches in November of this year it'll only cost US$399 / £349 / AU$559.95.

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