Although holiday 2019 is still underway, it feels like the next generation of consoles is truly right around the corner. With Microsoft and Sony both poised to release new hardware in late 2020, the marketing machines are going to fire up for both new consoles in just a few months. That means it won't be long before gamers learn the real name of Microsoft's mysterious Project Scarlett.
Sony hasn't been shy about the fact that its next console will likely be branded as the PlayStation 5 (or PS5), but Microsoft hasn't committed to a name quite so quickly. In a recent interview with Stevivor, Phil Spencer confirmed that Project Scarlett is not the actual name of the console and he went on to offer some hints about what kind of naming convention the new hardware will follow.
This shouldn't come as too much of a surprise, as players look back at the prior consoles: Xbox, Xbox 360, and Xbox One. The last two iterations of Xbox had names that spoke about the machine's general functionality or goals and Spenser suggests that the 2020 model will do the same...
“Our naming convention has been around what we think the capabilities are... Xbox 360 was about the entertainment experience around the box and the box being in the center of that entertainment experience. Xbox One, if you remember our branding early on, was ‘always on input, all in one’. Those names were really built around the purpose of the box... I don’t feel like I need to follow in their footsteps because they’re kind of self-contained.”
Some fans were starting to wonder if Project Scarlett was going to be the actual name, since Microsoft has been talking about it for two years now and built up some brand recognition, but apparently that won't be the case. So far all we know about the Project Scarlett is that it aims to be incredibly powerful, just take a look at the leaked Project Scarlett specs, but we don't know how else the machine is going to be marketed. That makes prediction a name pretty impossible at this point, but it seems safe to say that Xbox Two is likely off the table.
Be sure to check back in the near future for more details and news on Microsoft's next-gen console development.
Project Scarlett is set to launch sometime during Holiday 2020.
Source: Stevivor