Is scorpio microsoft's version of the ps 4 pro? i.e., a more powerful version of the xbox one? Or is it microsoft's next iteration of the xbox? I'm a little confused as to what it is.

Out of interest what are Sonys big guns that haven't released yet?

People are confused about this because it is confusing but when you really start analyzing all the facts its neither.
Yes it will run All Xbox One and most Xbox360 games and have access to all the supported hardware, controllers, kinect etc from the Xbox One but it will also support VR/Mixed Reality, which the Xbox One won't.

New games developed for the Xbox One will not be the version the Scorpio will run the Scorpio will run the PC versions instead, when you look at the play anywhere initiative its supporting PC and Xbox One well basically the Scorpio will run (confirmed many times) the PC version instead of the Xbox One version of those games.

So in many ways the Xbox Scorpio is the first of many "Console-Pc's" altough it has all the benefits and features of a console it also has the benefits of the PC which is quite obviously easy since it uses Windows 10 and all the components of a gaming PC. Now the best part of this is that any future console will be very scalable, no patches needed to get higher resolutions or better graphics the settings can just be adjusted, like when you buy a new pc and download your old games.

Basically the Scorpio, like microsoft has stated, is the last generation for microsoft. Their next Console will again just support all the same stuff and continue this trend, eventually there might be a point where the original Xbox One won't be supported, maybe when the successor of the Scorpio is released, but the direction Microsoft is going in seems to be much different then sony.

the power difference at 4 tf to 6 tf has very diminishing returns unlike the jump from ps4 to pro or xbox to scorpio.. but the real problem is, is scorpio just an xbox one or a separate console. for e.g. PS4 Pro is recognized as just PS4 not a seprate console and hence this is where its held back, coz if devs are given the go ahead to use that extra power in their game, then multiplayer will go for a toss, Pro players will have an advantage with increase draw distance and IQ. same with scorpio MS just wouldnt want scorpio to ruin multiplayer for existing Xbox one owners, so they would either have a separate servers where only scorpio owners will play, or hold back the game graphically to xbox one specs and let scorpio mix in the pool.

That's a pretty niche list and reminds my why I'm not a playstation gamer.

Yeah, the brute force philosophy was Microsoft's strategy from the beginning when they released the original Xbox, they bragged about the CPU being over twice as fast and honestly seemed to think that this is what customers wanted to hear, and buy.
It won't matter much, console gamers don't generally care as much about power as they seem to imply, if they did, they wouldn't be gaming on consoles to begin with.

The difference between 8GB (or 9 in pro) to 12GB and a completely different CPU is a big difference...
The Power will be used effeciently because they develop games for XBox One and PC and will use the PC version and use the settings to scale with the Scorpio, 4k textures etc will automatically be available since they are created for the PC anyway.

6Tflops will be used better because the console won't run into bottlebecks, like Dark Souls III not being able to hit 60fps on PS4 pro isn't because of the speed of the GPU, a 470RX can easely hit 60fps, its most likely a memory or CPU bottleneck, many people making comparison video's like VGTech or Digital foundry have found multiple instances of memory or cpu bottlenecks on the Pro.

So the 6Tflops will be used much more favourable because of the extra memory speed, bigger memory bus and more available memory and if the rumours are true and the console uses a Ryzen architecture APU then you can take the "Tflops" fight with a grain of salt, the Scorpio will blow anything we've seen in the console space away

Hardly, PS4 is few times stronger than Switch, while Scorpio will hardly be twice stronger than PS4 Pro.

I'm pretty sure the Scorpio can't run BOTW or Horizon: Zero Dawn at 4k and 60fps

Gran Turismo sports, Uncharted the lost legacy, God of war, Detroit become human, The last of us part2, Days Gone, Spiderman, Death stranding, Final fantasy 7 remaster, shenmue 3,

Games that looks promising Wild,Dreams, Hellblade