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ORSo far, everything has been marketing. Every feature, every technological advance, promised for PlayStation 5 and Xbox Series X, has not been tested. But for the past three weeks, Microsoft has been shipping Series X preview units to journalists around the world. Just as the company blinked first and announced the price and release date of its next machine before Sony, it now allows proper scrutiny of the hardware before its competitor.
The console that we have been testing for the past week is not the final product and its user interface is apparently not what we will see at launch; this is typical for the initial launch of the review consoles, which tend to be debug-based. units used by game developers. Consequently, we are limited in terms of what we can cover. But even at this stage, and with these limitations, this is an impressive and exciting console. This is what we found.
Design
When I first took the X Series out of its box, it was smaller than I expected; I’d been bracing myself for something the size of a tower PC, and while its stark, minimal design is reminiscent of an office computer, it’s not. quite as tall or thick (dimensions are 12 “x 6” x 6 “, weighing 4.45kg). Yet it is twice as wide as the Xbox One X at 6 inches and is a commanding presence under your TV. Design-wise, it’s certainly not a statement in the same way as the PlayStation 5, but it’s sleek, smart, and monolithic, like a really expensive piece of home theater gear. The only flourish is the slightly concave top, with its array of circular airflow holes, which are colored green on the inside to provide a hint of Xbox’s signature color – a nice, subtle touch. You can also place it horizontally instead of vertically and this way it should still fit in most media drives.
On the front, there’s the Blu-ray disc slot, plus a single USB port and a button to sync your controller. At the rear, you have a single HDMI slot, which is compatible with the new HDMI 2.1 cable standard allowing frame rates of up to 120hz, although you will need an HDMI 2.1 compatible TV to take advantage of that. You will also find two more USB slots, a power cord port, and an ethernet port. There’s no room for the Kinect, so goodbye to the strange motion control experiment!
Finally, there is an expansion slot, which currently supports a Seagate 1TB dedicated expansion card. This will cost you another £ 220, but it is the only SSD expansion product supported by the machine at the moment (Microsoft’s Jason Ronald has explained why in a blog post), and you can load games directly from it. Other expansion cards should come out later. You’ll also be able to plug in a USB 3.1 hard drive for additional game storage, but you don’t want to run anything directly from them as you’ll lose the speed benefits of SSDs.
The new controller looks a lot like previous models, with a couple of key changes. The grips and triggers have a more pronounced textured surface, which feels nice and should aid grip in longer gaming sessions. The D-pad is now circular rather than cross-shaped, potentially making combos more accessible in fighting games. It feels like the haptic feedback engines have been updated – there’s a nice little physical “dink” you get from hovering over menu options in some games that feels very accurate, like a phone’s touchscreen intelligent. There’s also a new Share button right in the center, which mimics the PlayStation DualShock 4 pad, allowing you to quickly take and share screenshots and video clips. Add the USB-C port to connect to your console and this is a subtle evolution rather than something entirely new.
Games
We are currently unable to play any Xbox Series X launch titles, nor are we able to play any of the current generation titles that have been specifically enhanced for the new machine. However, we had access to the growing catalog of unenhanced Xbox One games that will be playable on the new system. Right now, the X Series supports a thousand titles, including proprietary titles such as Forza Motorsport, Sea of Thieves, Gears of War 4, as well as large third-party titles Rise of Tomb Raider, Assassin’s Creed Odyssey, Sekiro, and Hitman.
What we’re finding is that games that struggled with slowdown on Xbox One, especially in hectic times, or that used dynamic resolution to reduce visual details when needed, now run at smooth and consistent frame rates at high resolutions in Series X. discovered this with Doom Eternal, Monster Hunter World, and Modern Warfare 2019, while Gamespot was impressed with Final Fantasy XV. From these early tests, it appears that we can expect that most Xbox One X enhanced titles that support 4K and up to 60fps through dynamic resolution will perform at full frame rate and high visual fidelity on the X Series. .
There is also perfect intergenerational compatibility, so I could play Apex Legends and Fortnite in Series X against my friends on Xbox One without a problem. This will be really important considering that comparatively few next-gen consoles will be available in the first few weeks.
Loading times
Thanks to the SSD and Microsoft’s Xbox Velocity Architecture technology, loading times are significantly reduced in the X Series, both when starting a game and loading levels and areas of the map while playing. Red Dead Redemption 2 boots to the main menu in 30 seconds compared to a minute and a half on Xbox One; Apex Legends loaded into the menu in 25 seconds compared to 50 for its predecessor. (Tech site The Verge has a long list of titles and load times to compare, with most showing great improvements.) However, it will be interesting to see how quickly native Xbox Series X titles start up and load, considering that more stress will be placed on the hardware.
noise
My God, it’s calm. It’s so, so quiet. While idle, all you get from the console is the barely audible hum of the machine’s only cooling fan. It is like a very new and expensive refrigerator. Even during busy and graphically demanding clashes in Red Dead, Hitman, and Assassin’s Creed Origins, it barely rises above a whisper, and of course with the SSD, we also save on the noises of a hard drive. Again, none of these titles challenge the CPU and graphics processor as much as Xbox Series X titles will, so we’ll see if this impressive near-silence can be maintained.
Quick summary
When Microsoft announced this new feature, the promise was that you could run multiple games at once and then instantly switch between them whenever you wanted (unlike Xbox One and PS4, which require you to save and exit previous titles in order to start a new one. ). We can confirm that it works very well, although the exchange process is not entirely immediate. When you exit a game, it takes about 10 seconds to start another, but then, sure enough, you’re back in action where you left off.
For gamers with short attention spans, this will open up a whole new world of channel surfing video games. It will also allow you to mix up your game very easily, allowing you to, say, fit into the strange Fortnite session between Sekiro’s punishment missions.
Verdict so far
At this early stage, with no access to new games, we are limited as to what we can conclude about the X Series. Right now, the quick resume feature and faster load times are the most impressive new additions to have a Real effect on how we play, and from the hardware to the smoother performance of the titles in the previous catalog, it all feels really solid. There’s a lot to build from here, but the next generation of Xbox hardware has a very, very strong foundation.
