I like this post because it talks about a rumor regarding a rumor and compares it with a rumor about another rumor and does all that like its all facts.

And absolutely no talk about the Scorpio splitting the userbase even though it's said to be able to run Oculus. Amazing.

The problem with that is prematurely kickstarting 9th Gen will land them even more ire, since Sony will likely not play along. Considering the user base, PS4 will get the majority of exclusives, though maybe not the best console versions. For Scorpio to be successful, it'd have to stoop down to 8th Gen, which would defeat the purpose of such a beefy upgrade.

MS stands to split their already smaller userbase and then piss off a lot of people when 99% of their games don't have better engines than their PS4 counterparts. An early 9th Gen would be an early grave for Xbox.

Yes, that's true, plus there has been no indication at all that this new Xbox would be sharing the game library with the Xbox 1, so I tend to think it would actually be a new 'generation' and MS throwing in the towel earlier.

If the supposed 5.5 TFLOPs performance is true then it means they are done with esram completely (good for them, about time) which would mean a complete change in architecture.

The reason why not many seem to care is because afterall only 20M were sold so far and the initial vision has changed so much (mandatory kinect, always online drm, cloud computing processing graphics for games lol,etc) that pretty much everyone is quite jaded by now.

MS was caught with the pants down screwing the maid this generation and no matter what they would do it would still look stupid, probably they realized it's time to reset and get a fresh start. Too little too late? perhaps

No, he's still treating it as a hypothetical. 

Surely the Scorpio will share the same library as the XB1 though? I can't see MS doing that to be honest, especially when they've currently dropped the price and are pushing hard for sales. Wouldn't the XB1 userbase be pretty annoyed if they suddenly find their XB1 games don't run on the Scorpio and that console they just bought a year or a month ago is only good for 'last gen' games? The more I look at this (if you and others are right) the more I think MS really don't want to be in the console space any more and the Scorpio could well be PC in an Alienware like box.

I don't think it's a matter of 'want', but a question of 'can'. Remember that the current XB1 games are using a DDR3 + ESRAM memory architecture that is itself taking space on the APU. The only way they could get some type of APU that would match or overtake the PS4 (neo or otherwise) would be by ditching the ESRAM and going for GDDR5 like the PS4 did. This would mean that you couldn't simply plug and play the same games onto the new box without them being worked around the new architecture. This would take time and $ to do. When people were worried about the PS4 and Neo split, that would be the equivalent of moving a graphic setting slider from mid setting (PS4) to high/ultra (PS4 Neo). For the new Xbox it would be more like porting a game from Xbox 360 to Xbox 1 without emulation.

I'm sure some people will bring some crazy ideas like cloud computing and secret spicy sauce soon enough to explain it away.

I don't think it's a matter of 'want', but a question of 'can'. Remember that the current XB1 games are using a DDR3 + ESRAM memory architecture that is itself taking space on the APU. The only way they could get some type of APU that would match or overtake the PS4 (neo or otherwise) would be by ditching the ESRAM and going for GDDR5 like the PS4 did. This would mean that you couldn't simply plug and play the same games onto the new box without them being worked around the new architecture. This would take time and $ to do. When people were worried about the PS4 and Neo split, that would be the equivalent of moving a graphic setting slider from mid setting (PS4) to high/ultra (PS4 Neo). For the new Xbox it would be more like porting a game from Xbox 360 to Xbox 1 without emulation.

I'm sure some people will bring some crazy ideas like cloud computing and secret spicy sauce soon enough to explain it away.

Yeah, I was aware of the problems the design of the XB1 would engender but because I'm stupid when it comes to tech I didn't know if there would be a simple work around. To be honest, I'm still not convinced the Scorpio really exists and is simply a rumour leaked to stop more 360/XB1 owners buying a PS4/Neo. The biggest problem MS have is the online userbase, which of course is why they're now suddenly keen on having crossplay with the PS4. People gravitate towards the console their friends play games on and online is at the centre of that. Make it crossplay and that's no longer a problem.