So, I bought a Xbox Series X...
...on launch, to prepare myself for the new generation of consoles. With a few months behind me now I can look at the beginning of this new generation and look back a little. Going up against Sony's new PlayStation 5, Microsoft have launched two consoles at once. The Series X, which I bought, and the Series S.
The latter is a cheaper and digital-only alternative into the new generation. Aiming at 1080p TV owner, for those who yet have not purchased a 4K TV or have no interest in paying for a high powered console, when they aren't really looking for that visual top-end experience.
Here are some neat size comparison pics from the arstechnica.com website of all the new consoles lined up from left to right. Series X, PS5 and Series S:
I went for the Series X, as I wanted the most powerful Xbox, where most of my library of last generation games are. Currently, the most powerful console on the market. I could talk about the speed of the CPU, GPU and memory size, but all that technical data can be found online elsewhere.
Bottom line, it's a super powerful console in a compact size. Setting the console up is a breeze and the box includes a proper HDMI 2.1 cable required for new features like VRR and 120fps. All your saves from previous Xbox consoles are stored in the cloud and download the moment you boot up a game you've already played.
Design
Opening the rather beautiful package, with it's cool lid and carefully wrapped console, complete with the "Power Your Dreams" catchphrase, you are presented with a fairly modest and minimalist design. I like the idea of going for something radically different to the previous generations One X and One S. Series X, with a vertical tower design, is indeed a box, an Xbox!
Sporting a modest looking design, yet eye catching when standing vertically. Although, if you have a typical TV bench like me, you'll end up placing it on it's side, which it perfectly caters for with rubber feet on the sides. Air is transferred through the tower and hot air is blown out on the top through a massive and extremely quiet fan. The vents are completed with some neat green colour beneath, making it look like it's green inside and a perfect nod to the colour scheme of the original Xbox back in 2001. I have yet to hear the actual console make any noise.
Size comparison? Two GameCubes stacked on top of each other is a good one, a vastly smaller approach when compared to the massive PS5. It's incredible they have stuffed so much tech into such a small shell, yet keeping it so insanely quiet. When you pick it up you'll find it heavier than expected, clearly jam packed with tech!
The tech inside
There are some cool technical aspects we need to address though, outside of the raw numbers of machine power, making your games look graphically incredible.
First off, is the transition from typical mechanical HDDs to SSDs for storage, for all of these new generation of consoles. Perhaps the most significant one when it comes to a very noticeable change for any gamer, regardless of technical knowledge. My Series X has a 1TB SSD, while the Series S has a 512GB one. This fundamental change from ordinary hard drives of last gen over to SSD has made loading incredibly fast.
Take Forza Horizon 4 for instance, which got updated for Series X/S on launch, now lets you fast travel around the map almost instantly. It's a real help in making games seem snappier, new and old titles. Loading gets vastly reduced, often throwing you seconds later into the gameplay. An important change from the extremely slow loading generation of XB1 and PS4.
This fast SSD loading is combined with a clever "quick resume" feature. So, when you wake your console up from sleep, you can jump into where you last played in seconds. It even allows you to do so with multiple games, so you can fairly instantly jump back and forth between games like Fallout 4, Witcher 3 and Forza Horizon 4 without having to load up the entire game again. A very cool and impressive feature on the Series X/S, taking full potential of the SSD.
Another tech I've enjoyed is the Velocity Architecture, which basically is about engineering the hardware all the way from input of the controller to the output on your TV as lag free as possible. Helping the travel from button press, to what actually happens on screen super quick.
Just like on the Xbox One X, VRR (Variable Refresh Rate) is available, altering your TVs refresh rate on the fly with potential drops in the framerate. Keeping away framerate drops and inconsistent picture movement.
The combination of Velocity Architecture, VRR and heavier focus on 60fps, or even 120fps, gives an instantaneous and precise feeling to controller input and a consistent smoothness to everything going on screen. It's something that has to be felt by trying yourself. Seeing casuals grinding away on TVs with horrible movie modes and off-putting 30fps on their TVs, thinking that this is how good it gets, are in for a massive jump in quality! Going back to 30fps, after trying these new features, feels sluggish and far from smooth to play.
Just like the X and S models of the Xbox One family, the new Series X features a UHD drive, allowing you to watch UHD movies with sound support for Dolby Atmos and DTS:X. The smaller Series S is all digital, catering more towards the modern way of purchasing games and watching streaming movies and TV shows.
Automatic HDR and the newly introduced FPS boost, are super neat. software related upgrades for old games. Not only does the Series X/S consoles automatically put 16xAF on all your old XB1 and XB1X enhanced games, it also features Auto HDR for most games that didn't have HDR. The effect makes colours pop and lighting stand out, especially night time scenes. Bringing older titles forward in both lighting and colour quality, even though the original game didn't feature HDR.
FPS boost, doubles the framerates of 30 fps locked games. Getting a 60fps boost to your old titles is super neat, even bringing some titles up to 120fps! I recently played through Sniper Elite 4 and Fallout 4 with this and the move to 60fps made them feel like a entirely new games control wise.
Seeing all these automatic upgrades really shows how far ahead the Xbox development team are in offering and upgrading your old titles with merely software innovation. It's incredible work done by the engineers behind it and a stark contrast to Sony and Nintendo shutting down their old game services and abandoning older titles. Preservation and upgrades helps keep older titles from disappearing forever and modernises them with better performance.
Other new stuff
The Series X/S controller is actually a tad smaller than the XB1 pad, with a long awaited, dedicated sharing button. Alike what the PS4 and Switch controllers already have. The d-pad is also vastly improved, with a very precise and satisfying clicky feel to it's button presses. It will surely be appreciated by people playing fighting and 2D games.
The more arcade styled button feedback, with very distinct click sounding presses, makes the controllers a little noisy when pushing buttons fast. Arcade stick players are long acquainted to this sound however. Small evolutions all round, on an already fantastic controller, but perhaps we would have liked some even more fancy innovations to it?
Otherwise as pictured above, what I'm guessing is the first year or so, physical games will be marked with a Series X sticker if they have dedicated Series X improvements. On the online Xbox store, all games utilising new hardware have a clearly marked X/S logo.
There's also a marking called Smart Delivery on a lot of titles. This new feature lets you install the game on whatever Xbox One or Series X/S device you desire. Buying a Smart Delivery title for any of your last gen XB1 family consoles will allow you to freely upgrade it to the Series X/S version when you later purchase one of these consoles. Sadly, we are seeing a few games like Call of Duty Black Ops opting out of this, forcing players to pay for a X/S upgrade visually. Still, Smart Delivery is miles ahead of PS5, which makes you buy either PS4 or PS5 games individually.
Summary
I'm happy so far with my purchase, seeing old games benefit from better framerates, but also bonuses like auto HDR and FPS boosts make it a likeable console for smart backwards compatible benefits. New games for the system are dripping in slowly, so if you actually needed one of these consoles on launch last year is another matter.
I'd say at the time of writing though, there's coming in more and more X/S patched games and new releases all seem to have been optimised for them, it's definitely worth an upgrade if you're still on the previous generation. I have hardly played any 30fps games since I got the system and I'm pleased to see even older titles running at 60fps.
For my interest and excitement in more powerful hardware it's been well worth the upgrade, but as it stands it's a little difficult to get hold of in this annoying pandemic. If you're a more casual player and still own a 1080p TV, I'd strongly recommend looking into the impressively small and very reasonably priced Series S as an alternative. It's an all-digital console and combined with a monthly Gamepass subscription, you are set for hours and hours of a massive game library to download and play instantly.
Series X has delivered on my expectations, and even more so as it continues with software innovation on the hardware, bringing amazing tech like framerate boost for already released titles. The hardware is super powerful and should help keep the games looking amazing for the years ahead.
Now we can hope for the 2020 delay to start releasing new and cool titles through 2021!