Just wanna throw my 2cents into the ring here.
Full disclosure, i'm getting a PS4Pro despite not having a 4K TV. I'm looking for that extra performance boost in other titles I own and ones coming out down the line. Games like FF15 might need that boost, Horizon too, and whatever else might come out in the next few years. So yeah, jump down my throat if you will, but i'm going for whatever performance boost I can get.
As for Scorpio, I can honestly see MS make a few backtracks on its 6TFLOPS claim.
First of all, lets take a look at this graph. Source is Wikipedia
Now, if we assume MS is basing Scorpio on the Jaguar Architecture (to preserve compatibility with older software) we have to assume atm that the Scorpio spec will be close to or slightly over PS4Pro.
The GPU in the pro is approx 2.27% faster than the vanilla PS4. With the manufacturing process getting cheaper, they could squeeze in the extra juice. Maybe some overclocking is present too, but unsure.
For Scorpio to hit that magic 6, it would need to have a boost of 4.6%, which I assume will be a mix of a new model and some really hardcore on-console overclocking to achieve. And that's a bold statement, given the closest thing to 6TFLOPS on PC is a GeForce 1070, which retails for $460!
There is also the boost in RAM performance that Scorpio is claiming to have. PS4Pro has the same amount of Ram, but overclock by 1.24%. Not a terrible increase, but enough to squeeze that extra bit of response out of the machine. If MS plans to get to 320Gps performance out of it's RAM, it will either be doing 2 things.
1: Keep the 8GB but switch to GDD5 and overclock to hell.
2: Upgrade the 8GB DDR3 to 12GB GDDR5 and Overclock like hell to get the performance up.
Not that adding more RAM will increase overall performance, but it does provide more room for developers to add better textures and detailed scripting to their games. Not alot more, but a definite boost. But that too will come at extra cost to the consumer.
I'll brush over CPU just quickly, as PS4Pro bumped the CPU from 1.6 to 2.2ghz, keeping the cores the same. Unsure if the new architecture will make processing pipelines a bit more efficient, but overclocking does help somewhat. I can see MS matching that, or going to maybe the 2.4 mark. Who knows.
Honestly, I
can see Scorpio being the more powerful machine. But the trade off in performance will be overall cost to the consumer. If MS honestly tries to reach the 6TFLOP mark and make a 1TB HDD as standard, I can realistically see the machine costing around
$599! perhaps even more.
PS4Pro isn't the most powerful machine on the market, and they have been very clear that the Pro provides "Up-to" 4K, and other devs have said they will be using up-scaling to get to 4K. PS4Pro provides the consumer with a happy medium between power and visual quality. Also PS4Pro doesn't need to be that much more powerful than vanilla PS4, because the machine is still blisteringly fast as it is. It is leaps and bounds ahead of the competition in most, if not all aspects.
But MS seem to be going for an approach that makes them look desperate.
They
need to be ahead of everyone.
They
are willing to make a loss to be ahead.
And they
don't care who get's in their way, developer or consumer. They just need to be the best in the market!
I would honestly say that MS needs to rethink Scorpio as no Average Joe will be willing to fork out $599 midway through a generation. If they drop the overall FLOPS to around 4.5/4.9, you can still retail the machine for around $399/$450 and still have the most powerful machine on the market.
In the end, if MS choose this selfish route of performance over value, it will be like the Xbone and PS3 launch all over again.
It may be the most powerful system, but how many consumers are they willing to alienate with their pursuit of dominance?