The Xbox One is an easier sell than the Xbox One S, but is it worth the price?
The Xbox One X is an easier sell, or at least an easier pitch, than 2016’s Xbox One S.
The Xbox One S was a slightly improved Xbox One that supported UHD Blu-ray playback and HDR support for games but was more or less the same experience as the Xbox One that launched in 2013. It was pretty, sure, but unremarkable, a nicer, «Slim» style release.
The Xbox One X is not that. Instead, with the Xbox One X Microsoft has aggressively leaned into the idea of «true 4K» with a console that is closer to a generational leap in power than not. Microsoft has promised a system more powerful in every way than the competition. And not to ruin the suspense, it’s succeeded. The Xbox One X is a more capable piece of hardware than Sony’s premium alternative, the PlayStation 4 Pro, in every regard.
The price is, well, the price. At a suggested retail price of $499.99, the Xbox One X is an expensive piece of hardware. The Xbox One X is new hardware, but it’s not a new platform. It’s getting and playing the same games that the Xbox One is. It’s not offering you more experiences than its cheaper predecessors. Instead, it’s offering improved ones. But in the process, Microsoft has also laid the groundwork for a truly exciting, legacy driven vision for their platform — and some of the biggest surprises of the Xbox One X launch are in experiences that are well-worn memories.
The question then is whether that’s worth the price. Hopefully, we can help you figure that out.
The Hardware Aesthetically, the Xbox One X straddles a line between stylish and minimalist. It bears a fair bit of resemblance to the Xbox One S, save that it’s a carbon black, rather than «Robot White.» Their size footprint is roughly the same, and their cable layout is basically mirrored, meaning you can disconnect an Xbox One S and connect an Xbox One X in its place quickly.
Microsoft has stated the Xbox One X is the smallest console they’ve ever produced, which is technically true, though I really have to squint to see how it takes up less space than the One S model. On the other hand, the Xbox One X is remarkably heavy, coming in at around 8 pounds. I don’t have acoustic measurements for the system, though I found it quiet enough in a living room environment (and absent the mild rattle of the Xbox One S’s internal fan). Other users have reported increased volume playing Xbox One X enhanced titles.
On the back of the console, you’ll find a gigabit ethernet port, an optical audio jack, an IR blaster extension port, two USB ports, an HDMI in for Oneguide TV playback and an HDMI out — all of which are, as mentioned before, in the same location as they were on the Xbox One S. There’s also a USB port on the front of the console at near the power supply, ostensibly for connecting and/or charging controllers. The Xbox One X can rest either horizontally or vertically, like the Xbox One S, and Microsoft sells a stand for the latter, should you be so inclined.
In the box, you’ll find one of the modern generation Xbox One gamepads, which now include a headphone jack built into the unit and a textured grip on the back of the controller. Each console comes with a certified, Microsoft-manufactured HDMI cable. This might sound like a bizarre disclosure, but 4K/HDR video actually pushes HDMI cable transmission rates much harder than 1080p, and a number of cables, even those marketed as 4K compliant, are not reliable (so buyer beware).
Setting up the Xbox One X is relatively painless, especially if you have an Xbox One already, along with an external hard drive. The most recent Xbox One system update added a network data transfer option from the settings menu, which allows you to pick and choose what games you’d like to copy to the new system. You can also back up your profile and settings on an external hard drive, and the new system will automatically detect this backup when booted for the first time.
If you’re planning on purchasing an Xbox One X, I would strongly advise you to begin transferring your games to an external hard drive as soon as possible, as it’s the fastest way I’ve found to transfer them from one console to another.
Performance It’s a reasonably attractive console, with a lot of complicated engineering inside, including a custom cooling system using something called a vapor chamber. But the Xbox One X is appealing because of what it can do, not what it looks like.
Microsoft’s marketing for the Xbox One X has leaned heavily on «Six Teraflops,» which sounds a little goofy. There is a method to it — namely that this number is much higher than the competition.
Teraflops are a measure of graphical processing capability. More is better here. The Xbox One launched in 2013 with a performance number around 1.3 TF, while the PS4 hovered around 1.8 TF. This difference was big enough to ensure that the Xbox One versions of games routinely ran at lower resolutions and PS4 versions of the same games, sometimes with worse framerates. 2016’s PS4 Pro provided a major bump over the launch consoles, with graphics hardware capable of 4.2 TF. So you probably see where this is going. The Xbox One X’s custom graphics chipset hits that 6 TF number that Microsoft has been bludgeoning everyone over the head with.
This is not the only way that the Xbox One X is an improvement over not only the Xbox One but, most importantly to Microsoft and its marketing, the PlayStation 4 Pro. The Xbox One’s CPU ran at 1.75GHz, the PS4 at 1.6 (which very occasionally yielded benefits to Xbox One titles over their counterparts), and the PS4 Pro is clocked at 2.1 GHz. Xbox One X runs at 2.3.
The biggest improvement in the Xbox One X other than its raw graphical horsepower, however, is its system memory. Both the Xbox One and the PS4 launched in 2013 with 8GB of onboard RAM, each with 5GB of that available to games (each system’s respective operating systems needed around 3GB to work with at all times). However, the PS4’s memory was nearly three times as fast as the kind found in the Xbox One, offering it additional advantages in graphics processing over Microsoft’s system. The PS4 Pro increased its memory speed from the original system’s 176GB/s to 218GB/s (more here is better), but only provided 512MB of additional memory to developers on the console.
Xbox One X has 12GB of 326GB/s RAM, with 9GB available to developers for games. This is extremely important.
What 6TF gets you The PlayStation 4 Pro has consistently provided a better experience for PS4 games, often at much higher resolutions than the base model of the system. But developers have so far struggled to reach resolutions near 4K on the system, particularly with graphically intense titles from third-party developers. For PC games, video memory has a dramatic effect on performance at resolutions above 1080p, and the same seems to be true for consoles as well.
The practical result of this power differential so far seems to be that developers are capable of getting much higher resolutions on Xbox One X with good performance and improved visual quality over the PlayStation 4 Pro. You can see one particularly stark example in video game tech-oriented site Digital Foundry’s coverage of September’s Middle-Earth: Shadow of War. The pre-release Xbox One X version ran at much higher resolution, with better textures and better effects quality, than it did on the PS4 Pro.
More bluntly: The Xbox One X appears to be much more clearly suited to approaching 4K resolutions in games than the PS4 Pro, with enough room to spare to offer additional visual improvements.
Not everyone has a 4K television, of course. In fact, most players don’t. 1080p television owners will not get native 4K presentation on games that support those higher resolutions, though it’s incorrect to say there’s no benefit there. Games with a higher resolution will have their picture shrunk down by the Xbox One X’s scaling hardware to 1080p, which loses fine detail but adds incredible anti-aliasing. In layman’s terms, the jagged edges on diagonal and curved surfaces in computer-generated imagery are referred to as aliasing, and the Xbox One X removes much of that distortion through brute force when reducing higher resolution imagery to lower resolutions.
Some of this is also offered by the PlayStation 4 Pro. But the execution on Xbox One X is more elegant, with less micromanagement of settings. The downsampling of the 4K signal to 1080p is handled automatically by the console.
HDR is another oft-touted feature of recent console upgrades, and the Xbox One X also supports this feature. HDR is a feature that remaps the idea of bright lights and deep shadows in a game and can lead to startling improvements in perceived picture quality, adding a brilliant improvement to contrast and image vibrance. This requires compatible televisions, and not even every 4K television supports the standard. However, thus far, while it does offer quite a lot of visual oomph in the titles that take advantage of it, it’s still fairly uncommon in games even on Microsoft’s new hardware.
Meanwhile, every display connected to an Xbox One X will benefit from the visual enhancements some games offer, like better, more realistic shadows, more complicated scenery, more elaborate special effects, and the like, regardless of resolution. And some titles offer players a choice between modes favoring resolution, overall image and effects quality, or framerate.
The best example of this currently is Rise of the Tomb Raider, which offers three image quality settings: Native 4K, which offers a full 4K presentation as well as some minor graphical improvements at 30 frames per second, an image quality mode that runs close to 4K with a number of significant visual improvements at 30FPS, and a framerate priority mode, which targets 60 frames per second at 1080p. This is more complicated than many console players are accustomed to, but it feels like a good middle ground that allows players to leverage the Xbox One X’s massive power increase per their preference. Gears of War 4 offers the option to play through its campaign at a dynamic 4K resolution at 30FPS or 1080p at 60FPS… ish. Both modes feature improved image quality.
I find myself selecting the middle ground when given the option. I want higher resolution and more effects, and I’m willing to trade a native 4K presentation and/or 60FPS to get it.
The Games As of publish, I have spent time with the following Xbox One X updated titles: Dishonored 2, Gears of War 4, Halo 5, Assassin’s Creed Origins, and Titanfall 2 (along with a few others that I’ll get to in a few minutes). Each of these titles showed significant improvements on the Xbox One X after receiving their patches.
Dishonored 2 launched at 900p on Xbox One in November of 2016; on Xbox One X, it’s difficult to tell if the resolution is 4K, whether native or using rendering tricks like checkerboarding, but the end result is much, much clearer and sharper, with a consistent, impressive level of performance.
