Internal Xbox Series X docs refer to a ‘family of consoles’

Further evidence of Microsoft’s plans to release multiple next-gen consoles has emerged.

Security researcher TitleOS posted new developer documentation on Wednesday, which shows that Microsoft’s latest guidelines, dated ‘June 2020’, references both ‘Anaconda’ (Series X) and ‘Lockhart’.

Lockhart is the codename of Microsoft’s yet-to-be-announced second next-gen console SKU, which is designed to appeal to cost-conscious players and will reportedly target 4 teraflops of computing power (compared to the 12 of Series X).

In further recently distributed developer documents seen by VGC, Microsoft refers to its next-gen console hardware only as “the Scarlett console family.” According to the docs, the “family of Xbox consoles” includes ‘Anaconda’ and ‘Lockhart’.

Lockhart will support Series X features such as Smart Delivery, enhanced backwards compatibility and more.

Game developers are expected to support both Series X and Lockhart, VGC understands, in a setup similar to the existing Xbox One X and Xbox One S consoles, and PlayStation 4 and PlayStation 4 Pro.

Lockhart has been reported in the press several times in the past year and the latest leaks indicate Microsoft is going ahead with its two-console plan.

According to an April Windows Central report, although Lockhart is reportedly less powerful than Series X, it’s claimed ‘Series S’ – its likely final name – will still offer aspects of the next-gen experience currently unavailable to past-gen consoles, possibly in the form of faster SSD loading speeds and limited ray-tracing.

It was previously claimed that Lockhart would ship with a faster CPU, no disk drive and target 1440p gaming.

Series S may also be heavily promoted with Microsoft’s xCloud streaming service, which could theoretically allow the console to stream Series X-quality performance when Microsoft transitions its server blades to incorporate the next-gen processor.

Microsoft has already confirmed that the first few years of Xbox Series X’s releases will be expected to run on its less powerful legacy hardware and PC.

It’s likely that Lockhart will be announced when Xbox is ready to confirm its next-gen pricing, so that it can fully push the benefits of the console, later this year.