Microsoft will unveil the next Xbox's specs on Thursday

Last fall, Sony outraced the competition in releasing the PS4 Pro, their half-step improvement on current consoles that includes better tech to handle VR gaming. Microsoft's mid-generation successor to the Xbox One, known as Project Scorpio, was in no shape to try beating Sony's to market, but it's rumored to be a far more powerful system. Just how much beefier has been confined to rumor and isolated reports, but soon we'll have the official word on Scorpio's technical guts ahead of its planned full reveal at E3 2017. On Thursday at 9AM ET, Microsoft is releasing the specs for its upcoming system.

Microsoft has already revealed that Scorpio's GPU will be capable of 6 teraflops (TF) , dwarfing the Xbox One's 1.3 TF and the PS4 Pro's 4.2 TF. According to Windows Central, Scorpio will have a "compact" design thanks to improvements in cooling, hopefully reducing the size of the console below its current VCR-level of girth. It's also killing the power brick in favor of an internal power supply. That's all the new information we have until Microsoft pulls the rug out Thursday morning.