The lid was taken from Microsoft's Project Scorpio console last weekend. Commercially named the Xbox One X, the new Xbox console will join the "Xbox family of devices" with much higher power envelope than any other console currently in the market, at 6 TFLOPs of computing power. At that rate, Microsoft says (and has demonstrated) that its new console will be able to power premium, true 4K experiences. However, some analysts say that the $499 price point will be too high for consumers, which usually look to purchase consoles in the $249, $349 price band.
That said, the question could be put to Microsoft whether or not the company could have decreased their new console's pricing even further, by taking a cut from the hardware selling profits. When asked whether Microsoft was making any profit at all from the Xbox One X's retail pricing, Phil Spencer answered with a pretty frontal "No". So Microsoft really isn't profiting from the sale of any Xbox One X console, which may look somewhat unbelievable considering its steep price point (relatively; we have to keep in mind this console Can actually power 4K experiences.) However, this is nothing new: in fact, most gaming consoles ever released barely made any amount of money on hardware sales at the moment of their introduction to market. Manufacturers such as Microsoft and Sony instead usually choose to subsidize console purchases by bringing their profit margin to zero (and sometimes even below zero, as in, the consoles cost more to manufacture than their selling point) so as to allow a greater number of customers to purchase the hardware. Software, and more recently DLC, is where the money is to be made in consoles.
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