Xbox Scorpio Australian price could be the same as Xbox One at launch

Now that the specs are out in the wild, all the talk about Project Scorpio has shifted to two things: release date and price.

We know the console will ship at the end of 2017, and there’s no way Microsoft will miss the busy holiday season.

Digital Foundry, who dumped all of the information about the console overnight, even said the console was ahead of schedule, making a November-ish launch increasingly likely.

So what about the price? Well, that is where much of the conjecture lies.

This console is faster than the Xbox One, with a custom-built architecture that will allow it to play games natively in 4K. It’s faster and will be the most powerful gaming console on the market when it launches.

Eurogamer — who published the preview and saw the console first-hand — predicts the console will ship for US$499, which was the same price as the Xbox One at launch in North America.

That’s feasible, as component prices have dropped in the four years since, and while Scorpio may have cost well over $1,000 in November of 2013, it could well fit within the $499 mark some four years later.

If it does fall within the $499 US price, that means we should expect somewhere in the $599 range in Australia, which is what Xbox One cost when it launched here.

Microsoft probably doesn’t want to push the console into the $500 mark, as it would appear increasingly unappealing next to the PS4 Pro — a great and powerful piece of hardware — and Nintendo Switch.

The Pro launched for $399 US, but was $560 in Australia. Even though Microsoft is indeed going for the “core” gaming audience with Scorpio — one that is heavily invested in digital and 4K technology — it still doesn’t want to sell expensive hardware in a saturated market.

A $599 price in Australia is realistic should it be $499 — as expected — in the US. However, it could well push into the $650 mark Down Under.

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