Project Scorpio was easily one of gaming's worst-kept secrets, but most knew that once E3 hit, it was going to bring with it plenty of news about the actual status of this system. It was supposed to be impressive. It was supposed to put Sony in its place.

It was now to be known as the Xbox One X.

Huh.

Well, that's not so great. That's actually a pretty weak sauce name. Thankfully, Microsoft promptly recovered by showing off what was under the X's hood, and there's more than enough for anyone going on there.

The biggest news here is that we're talking about a system that not only offers 4K UHD Blu-ray playback--great for those 4K movies you've had your eye on--but it also brings that same 4K to games. Good so far, and it gets better. There's to be full backward compatibility--with reports saying even backward compatibility for the ORIGINAL Xbox, a report that makes me cheerful because I've still got a copy of Morrowind out here--and even a general cosmetic improvement for games that aren't running on a 4K television.

Thus, you'll still have reason to buy that awesome 4K television, but you won't necessarily have to have one in place to enjoy the Xbox One X.

The overall system itself has retained much of the new Xbox One dynamic, looking sharp in black, and even the controller doesn't look much different. Perhaps a little flatter, maybe, but almost the same from the early images.

Early reports suggested fully forty two games would be shown at Microsoft's event, including some thoroughly impressive pieces like Assassin's Creed Origins, which not only looked beautiful but had some noteworthy play mechanics involved. I'm not much of an Assassin's Creed buff, but man, that was a thing of beauty that even made me sit up and take notice.Those interested, take note: the Xbox One X comes out November 7 worldwide, and will drop for $499, a bit pricey, but not without its appeal.

I'm quite impressed by what Microsoft had going on here, and this should be pretty impressive going forward. Will Sony be able to match or exceed this? Microsoft needs an out-of-the-park win to keep it from being stuck in second for another console generation. This could be that winner...or it may be another false hope.