When the head of Xbox - Phil Spencer - stands on stage and confirms that the next generation console is in development, there's going to be a lot of debate and speculation that follows. 

Thurrott was quick off the mark with details of "Scarlett" and now fleshes out a few more details it has picked up on the plans for the next-gen Xbox devices, specifically, the streaming device. 

While there will be a traditional Xbox console released in 2020 (a replacement for the Xbox One X), there also seem to be plans for a device that's designed to deliver streaming games. Rather than running the game locally, with powerful CPUs and GPUs in the console itself, it will be the end point for the Xbox cloud gaming service, piping it into your TV. 

This service is currently dubbed "Scarlett Cloud" and it's something that's been talked about for a long time. Of course, the biggest concern for gamers is going to be latency and ensuring lag-free performance.

As cloud services grow in popularity and broadband connections get faster, it seems that Xbox is now confident that it can deliver this type of service. Much of this will come down to synchronisation across the Microsoft cloud platform that's hosting it all to ensure that there's a smooth user experience.

The Thurrott report outlines that there won't be different games; like the Xbox One strategy, Scarlett devices games will play across all Scarlett devices - and we expect that any Xbox cloud gaming service will also extend itself to Windows devices too. Without the need for local hardware, what's to stop you playing on your notebook?

Actual technical details of what the Scarlett cloud gaming device might offer remains a mystery for now, but Thurrott does suggest it will be a cheaper console device, with most of the revenue for Microsoft coming from ongoing subscriptions and services - like Xbox Live and Game Pass

Xbox has already created an affordable and premium Xbox One experience, but we suspect that in 2020, we'll be looking at two very different devices. Watch this space.