As expected, Microsoft's Xbox E3 2019 press conference brought with it one particular piece of news that was bigger than everything else: official announcement of the next generation of Xbox. For the time being, the project is codenamed "Scarlett," (and now officially called Xbox Series X) and it has a release window of Holiday 2020. Launching alongside the system will be the latest entry in the Halo franchise, Halo Infinite, which got a new trailer during the press conference. Unfortunately, we won't hear much more about that game until 2020.

Lots of details about Scarlett still remain unclear: We didn't see what the system looks like or find out how much it will cost, among many other things. Instead, Microsoft talked up Scarlett's incredible specs and hardware capabilities, and it sounds like a big step up from the current Xbox One systems. The company says it's four times as powerful as the Xbox One X as a point of reference. Scarlett comes equipped with an SSD and components capable of 8K resolution and 120 FPS. Load times should be much faster, on top of the myriad other improvements made possible by this next-gen hardware.

The original story follows.

It's no secret that Microsoft is at work on a next-generation Xbox console. Just when that system will be revealed is the big question, but signs have been pointing to the Xbox E3 2019 press conference as the likely time and place. Microsoft has been known to drop a cheeky message or hint at a big console announcement, and it seems like there's precisely what it's doing in the lead up to E3 2019. Ahead of Sunday's Xbox briefing--the Xbox stream is now live if you want to watch--Microsoft has dropped a subtle but clear hint at a new console showing up.

Within its daily countdown videos for the Xbox press conference are RGB color codes for the specific color scarlet. For some time, rumors have suggested one of the next-gen Xbox systems is codenamed "Scarlet(t)." There are rumors of other Xbox consoles under the codenames "Anaconda" and "Lockhart" as well, which could pave the way for Microsoft to mimic the Xbox One S and X setup of the current generation.

Back to the tease: In the "3 Days To E3" video, the background had the text "R 255," and the next day had "G 36," and Saturday showed "B 0"--this turns out to be 255, 36, 0, or scarlet. You can see screen caps of this in the tweet below.

In the past, there were hidden messages in pre-E3 videos that teased Project Scorpio, which turned out to be the Xbox One X. And in the lead up to Microsoft's press conference this year, we expected news of new console hardware at the show given that head of Xbox Phil Spencer made mention of it last year.

If Microsoft is indeed announcing a next-gen Xbox at E3, it will be doing so during its press conference on Sunday, June 9. It begins at 1 PM PT / 4 PM ET / 9 PM BST (6 AM AET on June 10). You can watch the event live here on GameSpot or follow our Xbox liveblog.

For all things E3 2019, check out all our coverage of the latest announcements and news; catch up on all the Xbox One games we'll see at the show, the details on Star Wars Jedi: Fallen Order gameplay, and everything that happened at EA Play.

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