Mike Ybarra: Xbox One X Would Not Be True 4K If Priced At $399

Fans aren't exactly thrilled about Xbox One X $499.99 price tag and Microsoft has explained that could have priced it $399 but not with 4K.

Xbox One X will be the most powerful console in the world when it launches later this year. While gamers are excited about its capability of running games at 4K but, most of the gaming community was not exactly thrilled about its $499.99 price tag and more importantly compared to PS4 Pro’s $399.99 price tag. Now, Xbox exec has explained that they could have sold Xbox One X for $399 but it would not be a 4K console.

Speaking with Polygon, Mike Ybarra explained that Microsoft could have sold Xbox One X for just $399 but that would have cost its 4K capabilities and 4K is a design pillar for the console which can’t be compromised.

[at $399] we wouldn’t have been able to usher in 4K to the living room, and that was a design pillar for this box. There’s lots of goals in the program, from compatibility to everything. But one, let’s really usher in true 4K where developers don’t have to think about, ‘Wow, how do we stretch this and make it really work?’ We needed to deliver that to consumers. They asked us for uncompromised true 4K in the living room. And so we leveraged a lot of PC technology, from the cooling, the power management system that’s in this, to get it this small — while managing acoustics. That was the goal.

Forza 7 was the first game Microsoft showcased running at 4K/60 FPS on the console. Given that the game runs at native 4K many had assumed including me that it would take everything that the console has got to achieve it. However, that is not the case, even though the console will run Forza 7 at 4K/60 FPS it will still have 30% of GPU power to spare.

Are you excited for the upcoming console from Microsoft? Let us know in the comments.

Source: Polygon

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