Project Scorpio: Here's What Ken Lobb Thinks About The Console

The gaming veteran who worked on GoldenEye 007 shares his thoughts.

Gaming veteran Ken Lobb, who is a creative director at Microsoft, is the latest to weigh in on the company's upcoming super-powerful Project Scorpio console.

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He was interviewed in the latest issue of Game Informer, which is out now. Asked for his take on the new platform, Lobb praised the device, specifically its backwards compatibility component.

"What's new is we've figured out how to write software in such a way that it can be better, but still be forward and backward compatible," Lobb explained. "The Xbox One S is a good version of this. It's better than the One. It's, you know, less than 10 percent better, but it's better, and that kind of thing was sort of impossible when you go back to the Super NES. We couldn't have shipped a 10 percent faster Super NES. Most of the games would have broken. They would have run at a different clock rate, and things would have melted down."

He added: "The way we do software development today makes it possible. How can a PC game run on a laptop and on a Titan X? How is that possible? Well, because developers over the last 15 years-plus have figured out how to make their games scale with hardware. So it's not rocket science to think, 'Well, gee, if I have an Xbox, can't I have a more powerful Xbox? And isn't that better than just one that's a different color or a little smaller?' I think that this idea is fantastic."

Before joining Microsoft, Lobb worked at Nintendo of America. One of his credits includes the landmark shooter GoldenEye 007. One of its guns, the "Klobb," is named after Lobb.

The full interview Lobb gave to Game Informer is a great read that covers his life and career. You can find out how to get your hands on the newest issue of the magazine here.

Project Scorpio is set to come out this year. Last week, Xbox boss Phil Spencer said Microsoft may announce more details about it before E3 and then during the show itself.

One of the biggest unanswered questions is about price. Spencer says the system will carry a "premium" price tag, more than the $300 Xbox One S, but that's all we know for now.

"I'm not trying to scare anybody on the price," he said. "We're going to come out on a price that we think is fair for the product that we build and the customers will tell us as they always do. I call it premium because I don't want people to get confused that somehow Scorpio is the thing that is going to take over the Xbox line."

Spencer added that he fully expects that Xbox One S, with its lower relative price point, will sell far better than Project Scorpio.

"The majority of the consoles that we're going to sell are the Xbox One S and I'm very proud of that," he said.

Source: GameSpot