The Xbox X Series is sneaking up on you. A powerful minimalist block with a precise curve throughout, ideal for the best experiences in maximum resolution. We share a review of the new Microsoft console that shows us that this is the next generation!
From the moment the Xbox Series X box is opened, it makes a great first impression with a presentation reminiscent of an Apple product. It’s clear that every aspect of that process has been carefully considered, including the central and isolated placement of the console in the box, making it feel like you’re opening a gift.
That “client first” thinking continues with an easy initial setup when you plug in the X-Series and turn it on. You can even use your smartphone to access your account and change your settings and preferences while the box downloads and installs an update.
Once it’s up and running, you’ll have multiple options to bring your existing library into the X-Series, the best of which doesn’t require you to download anything again. For example, if your current Xbox is still connected to the network when you bring the X Series home, simply plug in the X Series and transfer all your games directly over the network, which, as long as the network is ready, is quite fast. It’s as painless as updating a smartphone.
SIGHTS AND SOUNDS
Let’s talk about the design of the console itself. It’s minimalist, yes, but daring, it’s easily the best in the history of the Xbox, at least when it’s upright. On its side, it looks like a giant LEGO piece out of place, and you can’t remove the vertical support from the left side, which is uncomfortable. But when it’s upright, it’s big enough to stand out confidently from your entertainment center while being compact and subtle enough not to overpower it.
It is minimalist, yes, but daring.
The top of the X-Series is something of an industrial designer’s magic trick; the concave vent screen gives an attractive appearance of both depth and superior quality when viewed at eye level or higher, and the green color in the inner half of those vent holes appears with a much-needed accent that makes the inside of the X-Series appear to be lit up even when it’s turned off.
OLD AND NEW
In terms of power, this generation does not repeat the previous one, in which the Xbox One was surpassed by Sony’s PlayStation 4 in both power and price. This time, the main selling point of the Xbox X Series is that it has 12.1 teraflops of computing power on the tap for games. It’s not a perfect measure of speed, but on paper it’s twice as powerful as the Xbox One X and about 20% better than the PlayStation 5.
The 4K/60fps experiences are positioned to be the new normal.
In practice, that means that 4K/60fps experiences are positioned to be the new normal, and that increase in frame rate is a very noticeable improvement over the common 4K/30fps treatments on the Xbox One X and the augmented or framed 4K/30 that we usually see on the PS4 Pro. We still don’t know for sure how the X and PS5 series behave in the same third party head-to-head games, but remembering the difference between the Xbox One and PS4 in their launch, betting on the more powerful box seems like a good move.
FAST LIVING
The superstar feature of the X-Series is its 1 TB NVMe SSD. The games played from there, both new and old, show tremendously impressive charge time improvements. Red Dead Redemption 2, which takes 2:43 to switch from Dashboard to Xbox One X, does so in just 1:05 on the X Series. The SSD affects absolutely everything on this console in a life-changing way.
ALL DRESSED UP AND NOWHERE TO GO
Until now, the almost complete lack of exclusive games for the power-hungry next generation to test those teraflops is the millstone around the neck of the X-Series.
Not that it’s the console’s fault, but the delay of Halo Infinite means that there are hardly any exclusive games designed to take advantage of all this power until next year, and even then, Microsoft’s decision to support consoles until the launch of Xbox One for the next 1-2 years means that their exclusives probably won’t do anything that we haven’t seen before from a technological point of view; they will simply look prettier and/or work better on the X Series.
Fortunately, there is no shortage of things to play with thanks to full backwards compatibility. Almost everything on the Xbox One will work, and the substantial Xbox 360 game catalog and a handful of the original Xbox that predated the Xbox One will move to the X Series as well.
They also look and work better than previous Xbox systems, such as HDR enablement in Halo 5 or a frame rate approaching 60 fps in Grand Theft Auto IV. It’s not much different than upgrading your PC.
In some cases they benefit from Smart Delivery, the Microsoft platform-level system that encourages developers to give you the best version of their game depending on the Xbox you’re playing. So if you buy Assassin’s Creed Valhalla for Xbox One now but then get an X Series as a gift in December, your progress will run smoothly and your console will download any new technology or textures it needs to give you the X Series optimized edition of the new Ubisoft RPG.
Verdict
We can only assume that the Xbox X Series will surprise us with new and spectacular state-of-the-art games, because there is not much to judge it with at the moment. But in the meantime, no matter what current games you throw at it, your load times will be drastically reduced, your frames will be smoother and your resolutions will be higher. This bold, minimalist design box is quiet and compact, both in terms of the power it contains and in comparison to the PS5, capable and loaded with convenience features such as instant resume and toggle between any of your recent games. Compared directly to the PlayStation 5 specifications, it offers you more power for the same price. It’s going to be a pleasure to see what developers will do with it in the years to come.
@citilennial source: IGN
