Microsoft E3 Xbox Teasers Might Just Hint At Project Scorpio Release Date

Next week cannot arrive fast enough. Why is that? Five days from now, the Electronic Entertainment Expo (E3) will kick off, and it is there that Microsoft will officially announce Project Scorpio, its next generation game console with beefed up hardware for 4K game play. In the months, weeks, and now days leading up to that moment, Microsoft has been teasing little tidbits about Project Scorpio here and there, and it may have even tipped a launch date.


Mark your calendars for October 13, 2017, just make sure to use pencil or erasable ink. While that date is not (yet) official, an E3 teaser video that Microsoft put together contains a couple of Easter eggs, one of them a presumed launch date. It appears in the video amid a crowd of people standing in front of a stage with "X10S101-317" scrawled on the side. Have a look:
Microsoft has been known to use the same format on its Windows and Xbox builds. If we break it down, the X10S points to the next Xbox, which is Project Scorpio, leaving the numbers 101317. That looks like a date to us, and it is also worth pointing out that October 13 falls on a Friday. While Friday the 13th seems like an ominous choice, Friday has often been a popular day to release new consoles in the past.

We'll have to wait and see, though that is not the only Easter Egg in the video. There is a scene at a carnival where the numbers "6>4" appear on a tent next to a Ferris wheel. Take a look:


It is not likely that Microsoft chose those numbers at random. Instead, it is a somewhat snarky call out to Project Scorpio's 6 teraflops of compute power, which is greater than the 4 teraflops of Sony's PlayStation 4 Pro. Game on.

The teaser video follows an interview that Microsoft's Larry Hryb (Major Nelson) had with Kevin Gammill from the Xbox Engineering team. In that interview, Gammill discussed some of the differences between the Project Scorpio development kit that and what will eventually be a retail build for consumers. Along with other teases and leaks, it all adds to the excitement surrounding Project Scorpio's launch. Let's hope it is soon.