It’s amazing how time flies. Only four years ago, Microsoft launched the Xbox One, its successor to the Xbox 360, but the Xbox One was a strategic departure from the Xbox 360 in many ways. Microsoft bet big on a couple of key features, and while some of them were successful, others were not. The Xbox team has some very clear goals for their latest console, the Xbox One X, with arguably the biggest goal being true 4K gaming support. The idea of console generations is being expunged from our memory, with a new, more powerful console, but one that plays all of the previous model's games without emulation, and is a clear win for users.

E3 2017

First announced at E3 way back in 2016, "Project Scorpio" was the code name for what is now launching as Xbox One X. Microsoft, by announcing very early, set expectations very high for their new console, and we don't normally see these kinds of announcements, with as much detail, so early. But in the time since they first announced the new console, they've only provided more and more information on what is inside, to a level that we are not used to seeing in the industry. As an enthusiast of gaming, consoles, and general technology, it's been a refreshing take on what is normally a black box (pun intended) to most of us.

By Evan-Amos (Own work) [Public domain], via Wikimedia Commons

We can't ignore the present, either. After jumping on the scene with the original Xbox, Microsoft was a bit of a surprise in the console space, bringing new ideas to the industry which have been emulated across other products as well. Network gaming with Xbox Live, and copying game data to device storage for faster access were just some of the ideas pioneered with the original Xbox. When the Xbox 360 launched, it was very successful thanks to a combination of price, features, and lack of initial competition.

When the Xbox One launched, there was likely a feeling in the development team that they had an established user base now, so the majority of that user base would transition to the new console, but the Xbox One has struggled to compete against Sony's PlayStation 4 in terms of unit sales right from the start. It was a tough lesson to learn, but brand loyalty was clearly not as strong in consoles as it is in other areas.

That's not to say the Xbox One has been a failure. Sales have been strong, and sometimes stronger than the Xbox 360 at the same point in its lifecycle. Still, with this generation, Sony has had the upper hand, and last year, around this time, they launched their own upgraded console, the PlayStation 4 Pro.

The Xbox One X is an evolution of the Xbox One, which itself had already evolved into the Xbox One S last year, gaining 4K support for media, and HDR support for media and games, as well as a small performance boost. But the Xbox One X is not a replacement for the Xbox One S, which is still going to occupy the lower end of the price spectrum. The X is meant to be the high end, competing directly against the PlayStation 4 Pro.

But before we look into what's new with the Xbox One X, it's important to dig into the history of the Xbox One, because unlike the Xbox One S, this is a much different system inside.

Going back four years, it’s kind of amazing to see how much the original Xbox One, and its philosophies, have changed. When the console launched, Microsoft went all-in on Kinect, bundling a Kinect motion capture device with every console. At the time, they had big hopes for this technology, and by including it with every console, developers could guarantee they could target it. It was a big gamble, but one that ultimately failed. Microsoft eventually offered a console without Kinect, and the accessory has slowly died away. It is honestly for the best too, since Kinect did not work as well as promised, and it was seldom targeted by developers regardless.

The original Xbox One with Kinect

The Kinect was arguably the highest profile mistake of the Xbox One, but it was far from the mistake with the biggest impact. Microsoft played it safe in the design of the Xbox One, including 8 GB of DDR3 RAM. This might not seem like a huge deal, but in fact, this was arguably the single biggest mistake made with the original Xbox One. It had a cascade of repercussions in the entire Xbox design, which ultimately resulted in Microsoft releasing a console that had about 33% less performance than the competition. Let’s dig into why that change had such an impact, so we can see what’s changed with the Xbox One X.

The decision to go with DDR3 over GDDR5 memory was likely due to a worry from the Xbox designers that they would not be able to source enough GDDR5. At the time, there were real concerns about whether enough GDDR5 would be available, and when Sony put all their eggs in the GDDR5 basket, there was a chance that they would be limited in production because of this. Once again, with history behind us, we know that wasn’t the case, but that’s not to say that if Microsoft had also chosen GDDR5 that there would not be supply shortages which could drive up the costs significantly, as well as limit production.

The decision to go with DDR3, which was implemented with a 256-bit bus, limited the Xbox One’s system memory bandwidth to 68.3 GB/s, compared to the PS4 which had 176 GB/s with its GDDR5. To help make up the difference, Microsoft implemented 32 MB of eSRAM on the SoC itself, which was an addressable section of memory with up to 204 GB/s of bandwidth (102 GB/s each direction) where developers could target specific assets. It wasn’t a cache, to be clear, and required extra work by the game developers to take advantage of this.

The eSRAM ate up a lot of space on the SoC, meaning Microsoft had to cut back on other components in order to keep their APU within their size budget. That meant cutting down to 12 compute units (CUs), compared to 18 in the PlayStation 4, and likely more importantly, cutting down to 16 raster operations pipelines (ROPs), compared to 32 in the PS4. As much as the CUs get the headlines, it’s likely the ROP total that impacted the ability of the Xbox One to target 1080p the most. But, this all stems from the decision to leverage DDR3.

Partially because of Kinect, Microsoft targeted a $499 price point for the original Xbox One, which was $100 higher than the more powerful PlayStation 4. With the benefit of hindsight, it was clear that Microsoft made some poor decisions when designing the original Xbox One. The question is, what have they learned from those mistakes?

Gaming First

When the Xbox One first launched in 2013, the marketing message around the console was decidedly mixed, with Microsoft promoting the media capabilities of the device to a strong degree. With some management changes, the new Xbox team is decidedly gaming first. The new console is designed for gamers, and the marketing and messaging around it targets gamers. That can be seen specifically around the introduction of Xbox backwards compatibility, which first brought Xbox 360 games to the Xbox One, and has just recently been extended to some original Xbox titles as well.

Xbox One Specification Comparison
	Xbox One (Original)	Xbox One S	Xbox One X
CPU Cores	8	8	8
CPU Frequency	1.75 GHz	1.75 GHz	2.3 GHz
CPU µArch	AMD Jaguar	AMD Jaguar	"Custom CPU" (AMD Jaguar Variant)
GPU Cores	12 CUs 768 SPs 853 MHz	12 CUs 768 SPs 914 MHz	40 CUs 2560 SPs 1172 MHz
Peak Shader Throughput	1.31 TFLOPS	1.4 TFLOPS	6 TFLOPS
Embedded Memory	32MB eSRAM	32MB eSRAM	None
Embedded Memory Bandwidth	204 GB/s	218 GB/s	None
System Memory	8GB DDR3-2133	8GB DDR3-2133	12GB GDDR5 (6.8 Gbps)
System Memory Bus	256-bits	256-bits	384-bit
System Memory Bandwidth	68.3 GB/s	68.3 GB/s	326 GB/s
Manufacturing Process	TSMC 28nm	TSMC 16nm	TSMC 16nm
Dimensions	343mm x 263mm x 80mm	295mm x 230mm x 65mm	300mm x 240mm x 60mm
Weight	3.54kg	2.9kg	3.81kg
PSU	220W (External)	120W (Internal)	245W (Internal)
Optical Drive	Blu-Ray	UHD Blu-Ray	UHD Blu-Ray
Wireless	802.11n (Dual Band)	2x2 802.11ac	2x2 802.11ac
Launch Price	$499 w/Kinect	$299	$499
Launch Date	11/23/2013	08/02/2016	11/07/2017

Microsoft now knows that performance is critical. You could easily argue that both the PlayStation 4 and Xbox One both launched with hardware that could struggle with 1080p gaming, but the Xbox One felt that impact sooner, meaning games had to be scaled back on the Xbox One to avoid hiccups during game play. Microsoft wants to avoid that with this round of console updates by offering 6 TFLOPS of peak shader throughput, compared to 1.31 TFLOPS in the original console. This is almost five times the shader performance of the original Xbox One, and 1.42 times the peak shader throughput of the PlayStation 4 Pro.

You can see the gaming focus in other areas as well. Microsoft launched the Xbox One Elite controller back in 2015, and they added the Xbox Design Labs shortly after where you can create your own custom controller design. They’ve added the Xbox Game Pass subscription service, and partnered with EA on the EA Access as well. In short, after some missteps, the Xbox team is focusing on gaming again, and it shows.

The Xbox One X Design

Small. Sleek. Refined. All are words that can easily describe the latest Xbox console. Despite having almost five times the performance of the original, the new console is only 60% of the volume of the Xbox One. And that’s before you factor in the Xbox One X has a built-in power supply, while the original had a huge external power brick. Clearly Microsoft is pretty happy with the design of the Xbox One S, because the new console takes most of its styling cues from the mid-cycle refresh of the original Xbox One, except they’ve moved back to black. The black certainly blends in better with A/V equipment, so it should please most people. Without doubt, there will be special editions of the console later with all sorts of color options. Maybe Microsoft should just add the Xbox itself to the Xbox Design Labs so you can create your own?

Picking up the Xbox One X, it feels incredibly dense. The new console is less than 300 grams heavier than the original, but the smaller chassis makes it feel even heavier.

Evolving the design of the Xbox One S

The front design is very sleek. Like the Xbox One S, Microsoft has ditched the capacitive power button and gone with a much better feeling physical switch. The USB port is now on the front, as well as the controller pairing button, and the disc drive and eject button are on the left. It really does look great, and it feels like a solidly built device, despite that fact that the importance of materials and design isn’t as necessary as it would be on a device you carry with you.

The only small quibble with the design is that all of the buttons, other than the Xbox power button, are color matched to the console, making them difficult to see in a dim TV room. Plus, the UHD Blu-Ray drive slot is also hidden, which aesthetically looks great, but does kind of make you fumble a bit with where to put the disc in, although certainly that will get more familiar over time. This can be compounded if the Xbox One X is mounted low on a shelf under the TV. If that's the case, looking down at the console, the overhang of the top obscures the buttons and USB ports.

The back features the HDMI input and output ports, so Microsoft has kept the TV input capabilities intact. There’s also two USB 3.0 Type-A ports, along with S/PDIF, Ethernet, and an IR output, which would need to be paired with an IR cable if you want the Xbox to control your TV or cable box.

The back of the device gives a hint at what’s inside. Cooling is one of the most important aspects to the design of the Xbox One X, and not only for product longevity. No one wants a loud cooling system. The original Xbox One was decent in this regard, but was definitely audible, even across the room. Despite the increased performance, and smaller chassis, the Xbox One X is practically silent, even at load.

At idle, with a SPL meter about 6-inches in front of the Xbox One X, the SPL reading was just around 38 dB(A). Considering the 36 dB(A) sound floor in the room, that’s pretty good. It’s not silent, but across the room, it’s practically silent. Under the load of Gears of War 4, which is a 4K title, the Xbox One X only went up to 41 dB(A) which is fantastic.

The move to put the power supply inside the console also adds to the thermal load that the Xbox One X has to deal with, compared to the original where the power supply was an external brick attached to the power cord. But the benefits to the user are a much neater package, without having to deal with finding a place to hide the power supply. In the case of the Xbox One X, Microsoft has outfitted it with a 245-Watt universal voltage PSU, and the company claims it is the most efficient ever put into an Xbox. Also thanks to the internal power supply, the power cable itself is a standard cable as well, compared to the much larger cable on the original, since it won’t need to carry as many amps with the higher input voltage of a power outlet feeding directly into the console.

The Controller: Standard and Custom

The Xbox One X ships with the new standard Xbox controller. There’s a few changes from the launch device, but the overall design is very similar. The latest generation of controller from Microsoft incorporates a 3.5mm headset jack into the bottom of the controller, rather than requiring a proprietary headset connector. This alone is a big update. The other major change is that the new controllers also support Bluetooth, for connecting to PCs, in addition to the Wi-Fi Direct connection the controller still uses for connections to the Xbox and select PCs with Xbox Wireless built-in.

The top of the controller has been subtly changed as well, with the front face now enclosing the Xbox button at the top, rather than having it somewhat separated as it was when the console first launched. It’s a small styling cue, but it’s also an easy way to tell if your controller is the updated model offering Bluetooth.

It’s still powered by two AA batteries, although you can purchase the Play & Charge Kit, or third-party solutions as well, if you want a rechargeable solution.

As previously mentioned, Microsoft has really upped their game in terms of controllers, even though the standard model that comes with the Xbox One X hasn’t changed dramatically from the launch version.

First, you can visit the Xbox Design Lab to create your own controller. You can pick the body, back, bumpers, triggers, D-Pad, ABXY, and menu buttons from an array of colors and styles, including rubberized hand grips, and metallic triggers. You can also get it engraved with up to 16 characters, if you want to put your gamertag on the controller. It may sound a bit gimmicky to some, but it starts at just $20 more than the standard controller, and can be a great way to create an attachment between the device and the owner. If you're into the NFL, Xbox Design Labs now lets you add your team logo to your controller.

If you don’t want to design your own, Microsoft also offers a wide array of custom controller colors, including some with some very cool shadow effects.

Finally, Microsoft offers the Xbox One Elite Controller. Yes, it does have a $149.99 MSRP, but it has a very solid feel, on top of the interchangeable components included with it. It comes with three sets of thumb sticks, two D-pads, and rear paddles that can be mapped to any button. There’s hair-trigger locks for the triggers themselves, an app to customize it all, and a very nice carrying case for the controller and all of its accessories. If you’re an Xbox fan, and you haven’t tried this controller out, you should.

The Xbox One controller design has held up pretty well, and it’s great to see small tweaks to it over the years to make it even better. If you want something other than the included standard black model though, there’s plenty of first-party options.

Powering Xbox One X: The Scorpio Engine

The heart of the Xbox One X is a custom AMD APU, which Microsoft is dubbing the Scorpio Engine. This APU features eight CPU cores and forty GPU compute units, essentially making it a vastly more powerful version of the APU found in the original Xbox One. All of this is built on TSMC’s 16 nm fab process, packing seven billion transistors into 360 mm². Amazingly, that’s almost exactly the same size die as the original Xbox One, although quite a bit larger than the 240 mm² of the Xbox One S, which is also built on TSMC 16 nm. Thanks to quite a bit of disclosure from Microsoft between the time the Xbox Project Scorpio was announced, until the launch of the Xbox One X, we know quite a bit about what’s powering the latest console.

Image Source: Digital Foundry

Eight Custom CPU Cores

The original Xbox One featured eight CPU cores based on the AMD Jaguar microarchitecture, and the Xbox One X keeps that completely intact. There’s still eight cores, and they are still based on a slightly upgraded version of Jaguar. Microsoft stated the CPU performance increased 31% over the original console, and they achieved that with a frequency bump from 1.75 GHz to 2.3 GHz.

This likely came down to several factors. They may have been able to leverage Ryzen cores, but it would have been difficult to get Ryzen into the new APU on the timelines required. Jaguar is also going to take up less of their die space as well, which is important when you are limited by your total die budget, and as we saw with the Xbox One’s eSRAM, taking die space for non-GPU functions can be a problem. Finally, since the Xbox One X will be completely backwards compatible with the Xbox One, keeping the same CPU architecture likely makes this an easier transition.

Microsoft calls these custom CPU cores, and while we’ll likely never get all of the information on what’s custom on them, Microsoft has released a couple of details. In particular, these new CPU cores implement a page descriptor cache of nested translations, which is a fairly low level optimization to the cache design that allows Microsoft to offset some of the remaining overhead that comes from their use of virtual machines by better caching the VM's memory operations. This optimization gets the Scorpio Engine a few percent more in average CPU performance. But regardless, the custom x86 CPU is 31% faster than the original Xbox One thanks to a 31% higher frequency. Clearly the team’s testing and research showed that this was enough CPU for the expected requirements.

12 GB GDDR5 System Memory

Arguably the biggest change to the Xbox One X is the move from 8 GB of DDR3 with a 32 MB eSRAM buffer, to 12 GB of GDDR5 memory, clocked at 6.8 Gbps. This isn’t just because there’s more RAM, but more because it gets rid of the eSRAM. The Xbox One X has twelve 32-bit channels for the GDDR5, resulting in a 384-bit memory interface. Coupled with the 6.8 Gbps data rate, that provides 326 GB/s of system memory bandwidth. 9 GB of RAM is available to developers, with 3 GB reserved for the system to handle multi-tasking. The original plan for a 4K dashboard got dropped to provide more RAM to developers, so the 3 GB matches the same reservation as the original Xbox One console.

The original Xbox One had just 68.3 GB/s of system memory bandwidth, and compensated with a 102 GB/s bi-directional eSRAM buffer. The Xbox One X no longer requires that buffer, thanks to copious amounts of bandwidth for main memory, which frees up a lot of die space on the APU. I wonder what they’ll use that space for?

40 GPU Compute Units at 1172 MHz

Microsoft was able to invest almost all of the free die space from the removal of the eSRAM into improving the GPU. The Xbox One X ships with the most powerful GPU in any console, and features an AMD custom GPU.

The heart of the Xbox One X is a GPU that's roughly based on AMD’s GCN 4 (Polaris) architecture. It offers 40 compute units, 2560 stream processors, and 32 ROPs. For comparison, an AMD Radeon RX 480 offers 36 CUs, so the Xbox One X offers 11% more compute hardware than the RX 480. Compared to the PlayStation 4 Pro, the Xbox One X offers about 43% more shader throughput.

There’s of course more custom blocks here as well. A console designed for 4K and HDR still needs to work with SDR 1080p displays, and the Xbox display controller can supersample down from 4K to 1080p, or even 1440p, as needed. There’s media blocks for HEVC as well, to handle the 4K video requirements for Blu-Ray and streaming, and the Xbox Game Capture can also capture at 4K now.

Storage: SATA HDD

For those hoping for all flash based storage in their console, those days are still a long way off. The amount of storage needed for games, especially those with 4K assets, is copious, to say the least, so for now we’re stuck with spinning disks. Digital Foundry reports that the Xbox One X will have 50% more bandwidth to the hard drive, which likely means the latest model is finally SATA III, rather than SATA II, for the 2.5” HDD. Unlike the short lived Xbox One Elite, there doesn’t appear to be any SSHD options at this time.

If you need extra storage, the Xbox One supports external USB storage. It would be nice if Microsoft had made it possible to replace the internal storage easily, but so far, they don’t seem to want to do that. Adding external storage is pretty simple though.

UHD Blu-Ray

Like the Xbox One S, the Xbox One X ships with a UHD Blu-Ray drive, allowing you to play UHD/4K movies with HDR support. There’s no support for Dolby Vision currently.

Hardware Summary

There’s a lot of performance packed into the new Xbox One X. Microsoft was too conservative with the original Xbox One, and they seem to be out to prove that they won’t make that mistake again. This is a console designed to target 4K right from the start. As to how successful they will be, that will depend on the developers, and the ever-evolving trade-off between more complex scenes, and higher resolution, but with a GPU that is almost five times more powerful than the original Xbox One, coupled with 12 GB of 384-bit GDDR5, and a faster CPU, the aim looks like its on target.

Gaming at 4K

With only a few days to test out the console, and a selection of games which were ready before launch, there’s no way to do a full review of every game launching with the Xbox One X as an Xbox One X Enhanced title, but the list of titles already either in development, or available now as an Enhanced game is growing quickly. Check out the full list at Xbox.com to get the most up to date version.

So what does it mean when a game is titled as Xbox One X Enhanced? It means the developer has done work above and beyond the normal Xbox One title’s efforts to improve the experience for the Xbox One X. That doesn’t guarantee that the game will be rendered at 3840x2160 though. Despite the 4K target from Microsoft, the developer may want to put the extra GPU compute into more complex geometry and scenes. It may mean that the title is designed for a faster framerate. Maybe the Xbox One version launched at 30 fps, but the Enhanced version targets 60 fps, which may be the most important factor in a fast-paced shooter. There’s a lot of things that can be done with the extra power of the Xbox One X, other than pure resolution, but most games are going to target a higher resolution and HDR.

With only the chance to play a few titles, here are some initial thoughts on the Xbox One X gaming.

Overall, it’s much smoother

The extra 31% CPU power can easily be felt on the dashboard, where the Guide and navigation is finally as smooth as you’d expect. The latest Fall Update for Xbox helped out here as well, with overall better performance, especially in the Guide, but the original Xbox can still drop some frames here and there. The Xbox One X, even in the midst of gaming, pretty much always feels smooth.

In games, this can be noticed as well, with much more solid framerates on every title we tested. Certainly, there are going to be games where there’s a lot of on-screen action that can make the Xbox One X drop frames, but on the games tested, that wasn’t the case, at least while gaming. Forza 7 did suffer from some slowdowns, but only when new tracks were loading, and it doesn’t impact gameplay at all.

One game that really struggled on the Xbox One was The Wolf Among Us, from Telltale Games, and to see if the performance issues were solved, this game was loaded up on the Xbox One X. This game in particular still suffered from some framerate drops, although not as severely as on the original console, but it shows that just because there's more power, not every game is going to be perfect without some work by the developer to take advantage of it. It depends on what the bottlenecks were that were causing the performance degredation in the first place.

Loading times can still be an issue

This likely won’t be a shock to most people, but the loading times in games can still be quite long. The new, faster SATA III hard drive does likely help somewhat, but the benefits are likely eaten up by the fact that the 4K assets are generally quite a bit larger as well.

Image quality is far better on Enhanced games

It’s fair to say that the jump in image quality is not as dramatic as the early days of consoles, where new consoles would bring revolutionary updates to graphics, but the improvement from the Xbox One to the latest Xbox One X is very noticeable. If you’re lucky enough to own a 4K HDR television, gaming at higher resolutions means much better image clarity. HDR can have an even more dramatic effect to the overall scene, with deeper shadows, and richer colors.

Let’s take a look at some screenshots of Gears of War 4, which is one of the launch titles bearing the Enhanced logo.

Gears of War 4 on Xbox One

Gears of War 4 on Xbox One X in 4K HDR

First, you’ll likely immediately notice that one of the images seems to have a dull tone to it. This is because original image was in HDR, and it was then converted into a PNG file for sharing by the Xbox, but PNG doesn’t work for HDR images, so it’s poorly tone-mapped down to SDR into an odd color. A software update would be helpful here to add some more options on screenshot outputs, much like they do for the video captures. If you do need access to the original JXR image file which supports HDR, you’ll have to capture your screenshots to an external USB 3 drive formatted to NTFS. We’ll come back to the color part later, but the poorly tone-mapped HDR image helps identify which image is which when we zoom in.

Xbox One X (left) vs Xbox One (right)

Zooming in on the image in a couple of places, and it becomes readily apparent just how much sharper the image is with the higher resolution textures. Once again, this isn’t a big surprise, since this is one of the reasons the console was given an additional 4GB of RAM, but the extra power does result in a much cleaner image. The body armor on the original console is a much fuzzier texture, to stay within the constraints of that console, but the 4K assets on the X really sharpen everything up. If you were able to view this in proper HDR, the effects would be even more dramatic, with deeper shadows, but shadows that are still able to provide detail.

Xbox One X (left) vs Xbox One (right)

Here's another image from the same scene, but a part of the scene that is further away. The result is the same, with dramatically sharper images for the Xbox One X. This scene is in shadow as well, so HDR plays an even larger part in the effect on-screen.

Now, to provide a proper screenshot for this scene, HDR was disabled on the console and the game run again, in order to provide a properly tone-mapped SDR PNG file.

Having to disable HDR on the console in order to provide proper screenshots is a bit of a chore, and hopefully something that can be fixed in a future update.

What if I don’t own a 4K HDR TV yet

Not everyone owns a flashy, new 4K HDR TV yet, so are there any benefits to using this console on 1080p TVs? Yes. The Xbox One X will still render the game at the targeted resolution for the Enhanced title, but then apply supersampling to the output and scale it down to the lower resolution of the connected TV. The increased quality of the textures will still be a big improvement over the original Xbox One, even if all of the detail is not able to be saved. Plus, the extra performance will help in almost any title to prevent any frame rate drops.

But I like older games

Well if you like older games, the Xbox team has some good news for you. Not only will all existing Xbox One titles work, but so will any of the compatible Xbox 360 backwards compatible games, and just recently, original Xbox titles are now available in backwards compatibility. Hypervisors are amazing things.

Enjoying Media

Let’s face it, not everyone can game all the time. Sometimes you need to sit back and watch an episode of The Man in the High Castle, to get back to your center. When the original Xbox One was first launched, Microsoft was keen to display the media capabilities of the new console. There was even an announcement at one point that the Xbox One would gain the ability to function as a DVR for over-the-air broadcasts, although unfortunately that feature never made it to the console.

The Xbox One, and its successors, all include an HDMI input, as well as the ability for the Xbox to control your cable box with an IR blaster. The media capabilities are literally built right into the hardware.

The ability to watch TV through the Xbox is a nice bonus, since it doesn’t force you to change inputs on your television if you do all of your media consumption through the one box. You can set up the OneGuide in order to provide a channel lineup, or just control the cable box with your normal remote control. It works fine, and the new console doesn’t add or subtract anything from this experience.

Disc Playback

The Xbox One X, like the Xbox One S, offers the buyer a UHD Blu-Ray disc drive, which is a step up on the competition, which, as the name implies, allows you to watch UHD movies on disc. The Xbox team has improved the system capabilities with the latest update as well, and there’s now an option to allow your receiver to decode the audio, rather than passing uncompressed audio over HDMI. Some of us like to see the pretty lights on our receivers light up so we know everything is working, and this has been something that’s been missing since the Xbox One first launched.

Overall, there’s little to report here either good or bad. You’d expect a disc player to be able to play discs, and it does just fine with that, even if the movie offers HDR support. The one downside is that there’s no support for Dolby Vision, although that’s not available on every TV or disc.

Online Services

The world has changed, and with the rise in internet bandwidth, the way we consume media is changing rapidly. Online streaming of movies and music is now the norm, and if you have a good enough internet connection, you can pretty easily stream 4K HDR content as well.

Music

Let’s start with music. In a recent blog post, Microsoft announced that they are killing off their in-house music streaming service, Groove Music Pass. You’ll still be able to use Groove Music on your Xbox to listen to music you own, and have uploaded to OneDrive, but if you paid for the Groove Music Pass, subscription music is going away by the end of 2017. However, Spotify now has an app on the Xbox One, and you can port your playlists from Groove to Spotify until January 2018. Spotify doesn’t have all of the features of Groove, but it does get the job done. It even supports background music playback to stream while gaming.

If you subscribe to music through other services though, the results are spotty.

Amazon Prime

If you subscribe to Amazon Prime, Amazon does offer an Amazon Prime Video app on the Xbox One, and it offers 4K HDR content streaming as well at no extra charge. Fans of Amazon Prime original series such as The Grand Tour, or The Man in the High Castle, will be happy to know that this week the Amazon Prime video app is launching globally on Xbox.

Netflix

Netflix is of course on the Xbox One, and if you upgrade your subscription to premium, you can even enjoy the service in 4K HDR. Netflix recommends at least a 25 Mbps internet service for this, although when streaming 4K, the bandwidth Netflix uses is just over 15 Mpbs.

However, Netflix has a major flaw in their app, and this issue has been around since the Xbox One S launched over a year ago. As soon the Netflix app is started, the app switches immediately to HDR. This causes quite a few issues with the picture quality. All the menus have their color changed, and the entire app gets darker than normal. If you end up watching HDR content on Netflix, this is a temporary problem until you get to your content, but any SDR content you watch, which is most of the content on Netflix, has the colors completely destroyed by the Netflix app telling the TV that it’s HDR content.

Worse yet, in order to hit the high brightness levels required for HDR, some televisions have to crank up the backlight in order to display HDR content. If that’s the case, your TV could end up using far more power than it would need to be, and the result of all that extra power is a poor video experience.

It’s hard to believe that this issue has been around for over a year, but Netflix doesn’t seem to want to fix it. Amazingly, they’ve just added HDR support to the PlayStation 4 Pro, and they’ve built the PS4 Pro app with the exact same bug. But Netflix on a Roku, or even just the built-in Netflix on the LG TV used in the review, handles the scenario perfectly, only switching to HDR when HDR content is being displayed.

This one issue severely impacts the usability of either the Xbox One S, or the Xbox One X, as a media streaming device, since the only workaround is to disable HDR on the Xbox in settings before using the app. If it wasn’t Netflix, perhaps it would not be a huge deal, but when it’s the single largest streaming service, it’s a problem. This isn’t Microsoft’s problem per se, but regardless it’s a big strike against their new console for one of the most used media tasks.

YouTube TV

If you’re a fan of YouTube TV, you’ll want to know that just this week, YouTube has announced it’s going to be building a new YouTube TV app for the Xbox One lineup, which includes the new X model. Hopefully it also replaces the original YouTube app for the Xbox One, which hasn’t really changed since it was first brought to the console.

Microsoft Movies and TV

The built-in service for renting and buying movies is the Movies and TV app. The app works great, and there’s always access to the latest movies to buy or rent. However, the recent launch of Movies Anywhere, which allows you to watch purchased content on any supported device, mysteriously had no mention of Windows or the Xbox. This is a big deterrent to locking in your movies with the Xbox app, especially when Microsoft has only just killed their music streaming service.

Other services

Most other services also provide an app for Xbox One, such as HBO, MLB.TV, and more. MLB.TV’s app was refreshed for 2017 to provide 1080/60fps video on Xbox, so generally, the app can offer better baseball than cable. If you like to roll your own, there’s of course Plex support too.

Overall

The Xbox One X offers a lot for a media device, with a built-in UHD Blu-Ray player, and access to a decent selection of music and video streaming services. But, it suffers from a couple of issues that would make it difficult to recommend without any caveats.

First, the Netflix HDR bug makes the Xbox One a poor experience for the most popular streaming service. This bug has nothing to do with the Xbox, since Amazon Prime can correctly handle HDR, but Microsoft owns the user experience on Xbox, and the Netflix app is not up to par.

Second, the lack of Movies Anywhere is a worry for anyone wanting to purchase content on the Xbox One. If you buy a movie here, you can only watch it here, but if you buy a movie on any supported device for Movies Anywhere – which is a lot of devices now – you know you can still get access if you decide to switch your streaming device from a Roku to a Fire TV.

Third, the capabilities of Smart TVs now offer many of the apps, built right into the TV. Some are better than others, but the LG 55B7P television used for the review has some very high quality apps running on webOS, and has the benefit of even supporting Dolby Vision for Netflix. There’s less of a need for a big, powerful device to perform these tasks now.

Finally, the power usage of the Xbox is much higher than any dedicated streaming device, like a Roku, or Amazon FireTV, which we’ll see in detail on the next page.

Power Usage

There’s a lot of performance on tap in the Xbox One X, which never comes with no strings attached. Like the Xbox One S, the APU inside is built on TSMC’s 16 nm FinFET process, which should help keep power usage under control. In addition, the Xbox One X is outfitted with a power supply that Microsoft equates to an 80 Plus Gold unit, which means it should be 90% efficient at 50% load with a 115 V source, and there shouldn’t be too much extra power wasted from the PSU converting AC voltage.

There’s several scenarios we tested for power usage:

Off – Xbox One X is powered off in Energy Savings mode, which means standby mode is disabled.

Standby – Xbox One X is powered off in Instant-On mode, which allows background updating and voice activation enabled (if supported).

Idle – Ethernet connected, no disc in the drive, system idling at dashboard.

Load (UHD BD Playback) – Ethernet connected, UHD Blu-Ray disc in the drive playing Planet Earth II, compared to The Hobbit on Blu-Ray on the original Xbox One.

Load (GoW4) – Ethernet connected, no disc in the drive, playing Gears of War 4 in UHD/HDR.

Load (The Wolf Among Us) – Ethernet connected, no disc in the drive, playing The Wolf Among Us in FHD SDR.

We’ve been able to compare against the original Xbox One, although not the S model as we didn’t have one on hand. The Wolf Among Us was chosen as an older game which caps at 1080p and SDR, and Gears of War 4 shows the power draw at full 4K HDR rendering. The comparison against the original for this game will of course be for the 1080p version though, since that’s the max it supports.

Power Consumption Comparions
Total System Power	Energy-Saving	Instant-On	Idle	Load (UHD BD)	Load (GoW4)	Load (The Wolf Among Us)
Xbox One	< 2W	14.2W	53W	80W	107W	102W
Xbox One X	< 1W	10W	56W	64W	172W	101W

As with the original Xbox One, when Instant On is disabled, the console is practically fully off. There’s a small amount of draw, but overall, not very much. Most people that use the console are going to likely want it in Instant On mode though, so games and the console can update while the system is off, as well as to provide a much quicker startup time, and games can remain loaded in RAM. In Standby mode, power draw is reasonable at 10 W, which is lower than the original console when it first launched. It’s still a fair bit of power, but when you factor in that it needs to keep 12 GB of GDDR5 memory powered up (among other things), it is not unreasonable to expect this amount of power draw.

Idling at the dashboard draws around 55 W, and to add to that, most non-gaming tasks don’t add very much to this total, if any. If you’re using your Xbox to passthrough HDMI from a cable box, it will take this same power draw. Maybe this would be an impossible pipe dream, but it would be nice to see the Xbox One also pass through HDMI when it is in Standby mode.

Playing back a UHD Blu-Ray (standard Blu-Ray on the original Xbox One) was a tiny bit higher than idle, which is good to see. Some of the draw would be the disc drive itself, but a lot of the playback would be offloaded to fixed function hardware in the media block so it’s not surprising to see it so close to idle.

Clearly gaming on older Xbox One games is not much of a chore for the Xbox One X, since the power draw is only about 50 W over idle. But, when gaming with an Xbox One X Enhanced title, such as Gears of War 4, the power draw jumps significantly to 172 W as the peak observed. This is quite a jump over the original console, and makes the cooling system, which is barely audible even under these loads, even more impressive. Compared to a high-end gaming PC though, the power draw is quite a bit less.

User Interface

The User Interface (UI) for the Xbox One X is exactly the same as the original console, thanks to the shared platform underneath. In mid October, Microsoft released the Xbox One Fall Update, which made further changes to the UI. As with the Xbox 360, Microsoft is not content to leave the UI alone, but instead they are always trying to improve it. Whether they’ve succeeded in improving it is not always a clear cut answer, but after using the Fall Update for a few weeks, it is an overall nice update. Let’s go over some of the highlights and features.

The new Home screen offers a lot more selections without having to switch screens, but it’s nice to see the Games and Apps very quickly available. You can now pin games to Home, and they get their own home page directly below the main Home page. This does make it harder to get to your pins though, especially if you’ve pinned a couple of games to Home, since you have to scroll past them, so it is really only useful for the one or two games you are playing right now. Others may disagree of course.

What has improved a lot though is the Guide, which is the overlay from the left which pops up when you hit home. Here it’s very easy to get to pins, all games and apps, and your most recent apps, but it’s also easier to sign out, get to settings, or find your game captures. The Guide performance seems like they’ve finally got it where they want it, although the extra performance of the X likely helps a lot in this regard.

The new light theme is a nice touch for those that get tired of the standard dark theme, although the dark theme looks amazing on OLED.

Microsoft has added some features to the Fall Update specifically to get you set up for the Xbox One X upgrade too, which are worth discussing. First, you can backup your games, and your console settings, to a USB hard drive, to make it easy to transfer them to your new console. Or, if you are still going to have both consoles up and running, there’s also a new Network Transfer feature which lets you pull games from one Xbox where they are already downloaded, to the other. Since most people have a much faster network than internet connection, this is a great feature, even though we only saw about 300 Mbps maximum from it even over a wired gigabit Ethernet connection to both consoles. You can select some, or just transfer all of your games.

What would make this feature even better is if it would automatically do this for the user, much like the Branch Cache features of Windows, or even the new Windows Update functionality in Windows 10 where it can pull updates from another machine on the LAN. The method to do this currently is to go into settings, then network, and then start a network transfer, but this isn’t very obvious, and if the system would just pull the data from the other system when you select it in your “Ready to Install” list, that would make it easier.

In addition to the network transfer, if you have an Xbox One, and are upgrading to an Xbox One X, you can also set your Xbox One to download the 4K assets for games that are Xbox One Enhanced, but, like the Network Transfer feature, this is also buried in settings, and not obvious. You have to go to Settings, System, and then Backup & transfer, then check the box that says Download 4K game content. It’s nice to have, but it’s just not obvious to most users, and you pretty much have to know about it ahead of time to even know to look for it. If you are getting an Xbox One X, and you have an earlier model, it’s definitely worth your time though, since the 4K updates can be massive. The update for Gears of War 4 was something like 26 GB, making the game over 90 GB total.

Game DVR also got an update to allow 4K recordings up to 30 seconds max, and the system will automatically convert the videos to SDR for sharing, which is a nice touch. As we saw earlier in the 4K screenshots, they are just presented as PNG files with the HDR info stripped away, resulting in the wrong colors being displayed. It’s hopeful this will get fixed in the future.

The only downside with the UI is that it, once again, changed somewhat dramatically, meaning muscle memory may have to be re-learned. That’s not always ideal, but in this case, it does seem like the overall experience is better than before.

Discussing Xbox One X with Kevin Gammill, Xbox Partner Group Program Manager

When we got the chance to check out the new console, we also got the chance to ask some questions of the team that built it. This is not unusual, and often helps to get an understanding of the story behind the product. In this case, Kevin Gammill, Xbox Partner Group Program Manager, was able to provide us with some in-depth answers. Here is the Q&A in its entirety, with our questions lightly edited for conciseness. Thanks to Kevin for his time.

AnandTech: How has the design process evolved now that consoles appear to be more PC like, in the fact that the Xbox One X is not a replacement for the Xbox One S, but an evolution, which will still have compatibility with all Xbox One games. Has it made the process easier, since you have a known starting point, or more difficult, because you can’t just start completely over?

KG: A console is still fundamentally different from a PC, even if we’re using more common components. So we still take a console-centric approach to developing an integrated and balanced system. The difference with Xbox One X is that the goals of this program were unique - among our philosophies for Xbox One X has always been “no gamer left behind.” That means a lot to us. One thing that means is it doesn’t matter if its going to be harder or easier for us, we’re going to do it because it’s the right thing to do for our fans. And in some instances there were challenges, like ensuring all the existing apps, accessories and games not only worked but works better, particularly in the case of games. That philosophy also means we respect the investment gamers have made in the Xbox One platform and we’re going to give them every resource to bring that investment forward to Xbox One X. We saw that as an opportunity for the industry to move beyond console generations. Backward compatibility, for example, now for both Xbox 360 games and original Xbox games, is a critical, fans-first component of the Xbox One family of devices that brings gamers’ investments forward.

AnandTech: On that same note, have developers been happy to see a more consistent experience rather than having a whole new system to design for?

KG: I’d say so, absolutely. The discussions we’ve had with developers over the past few years have played an instrumental role in how we designed Xbox One X. The desire for more power, for more consistent framerates, for the truest 4K graphics, we heard these loud and clear and knew we had to build Xbox One X to meet and exceed those. But another critical element we knew was so important to gamers that was also of utmost importance to developers is compatibility. Carrying over games from one console to the next was table stakes – there would be no excuse if we got that wrong. The development tools and base system had to the be the same, but with more power. And everything I’ve seen, every developer I’ve talked to, and every Xbox One owner I’ve heard from has said we’ve done it right. And I agree!

AnandTech: How difficult was it to add the Xbox 360 backwards compatibility to the X?

KG: First, let me say that all Xbox One games and accessories are compatible with any member of the Xbox One family of devices – including Xbox One X – without emulation. To run Xbox 360 games and original Xbox games, Xbox One X uses emulation just like Xbox One and Xbox One S do today through backward compatibility. That said, backward compatibility was a huge win for us. Getting Xbox 360 games onto Xbox One was not an easy nut to crack. But we took on the challenge and learned how. Then, adding original Xbox games was just a blast, also a challenge, but so much fun and something we were 100 percent committed to solving for our fans. There’s a lot involved, obviously from a software development angle, but also things like copyright and licensing come into play. But for us, fans told us they wanted back compatibility, we committed to making it happen, and we have. I can’t wait to keep adding more games.

 

AnandTech: Clearly the target was 4K for the Xbox One X. Since performance versus cost is a moving target, how far back were the console specs locked in?

KG: Xbox One X has been something the team has been discussing and planning for since late 2012. Our goal was always to get existing Xbox One engines running in 4K with higher-resolution textures used on the PC. All of our modeling was done to determine the precise specifications needed, so every part of the spec was derived from those goals. As you know, we announced those specs back in E3 2016 so they were locked in some time ago.

AnandTech: “Microsoft's GPU command processor implementation of DX12 has provided big wins for Xbox One developers, and it's set for expansion in Scorpio" – can you go into more details on the expansion for Scorpio?

KG: We’re continually working to improve the Xbox One graphics driver to exploit the capabilities of the hardware and to support new rendering techniques. Microsoft's graphics driver implementation is split across the GPU's programmable Command Processor (CP) and the CPU, with both pieces updated as a pair. The improved CP of Xbox One X provides additional performance and functionality for the driver. This additional capability is in turn exposed to game developers to take advantage of via updated Xbox Software Development Kits.

 

AnandTech: How important was it to include the PSU inside the console, when you already knew you were going to be dealing with a lot of thermal load with the CPU/GPU? Was this an easy decision based on the Xbox One S, or was an external PSU debated to free up thermals and space?

KG: There were always these set table stakes that we had to hit when we started to plan out Xbox One X. We were thrilled to put the power supply inside the console with Xbox One S, and there was never a plan to remove it. The power supply inside the console was a must, that decision was made early and from there, it was all about precise development and fine tuning to complete the console. That’s exactly what we have at the end of the day, the most fine-tuned console we’ve ever made. I couldn’t be prouder of the craftsmanship that’s gone into Xbox One X.

 

AnandTech: Can you provide efficiency ratings for the PSU?

KG: 80 Plus Gold.

 

AnandTech: How does the Xbox One X compare to the Xbox One and Xbox One S in terms of power consumption when in Standby/On for Media/Gaming?

KG: Power is multi-faceted and consumption is impacted by various factors. Specific power consumption can vary significantly based on a number of variables including the specific game, current CPU and GPU workloads, the number and type of accessories attached, and other factors.

 

AnandTech: How does the Xbox One X handle HDR content? Does it support Dolby Vision? Does SDR content get displayed as HDR if viewed on an HDR TV or does it correctly switch from SDR to HDR?

KG: Xbox One X and Xbox One S support the HDR10 format. Both can output HDR10 for UHD Blu-ray discs, streaming video apps, video files played off of USB, and, of course, HDR games. Xbox enables apps to switch the TV back and forth between SDR to HDR, so it is up to the app developer how they want to implement their HDR app. Dolby Vision is not currently supported.

 

AnandTech: This will change over time, but at launch, are most developers targeting 4K, or are they going for lower resolutions but higher complexity of the scenes in your experience?

KG: Yes, we’re seeing tons of desire to target 4K, and are eager to continue seeing developers build new, fine-tuned experiences that take advantage of the power of Xbox One X in whatever ways are best for them and their games. What I love here is that it’s really all about individual developer choice and how they want to take advantage of the power. We’ve announced more than 130 games, and counting, will be enhanced for Xbox One X and that itself is a testament to the support we’re seeing from developers on bringing the best versions of games to Xbox One X.

Additional Gameplay Footage

We've only had a few days with the console, but we have had a chance to try out some of the games. Using the Xbox Game Capture features, some gameplay was captured to get a sample of some of the performance and quality gains could be made with the Xbox One X. The Game Capture does compress the video though, so it is not as pristine as it would be while playing, and it also converts the HDR video to SDR to allow for the proper colors to be seen when you share the clips, although if you look at the following clips, it doesn't do a great job with the transition to SDR from HDR.

Not all of the games are yet ready for the Xbox One X yet though, with only a handful that have the Xbox One X Enhanced logo ready to go for the review. Gears of War 4 was one of the games, which we showed some images of earlier, and there were a couple more ready as well, including Disneyland Adventures.

Although it may seem like a game that wouldn't stress a system, in 4K and HDR, the textures and high resolution made an impact. Here's a quick video of the intro of this game on both the Xbox One, and the Xbox One X.

Disneyland Adventures on Xbox One

Disneyland Adventures on Xbox One X in 4K HDR

One thing you notice playing the game is just how much more sharp everything is, especially things in the background. The castle comes into focus much earlier on the Xbox One X version of this video. As with Gears of War 4, there's still some issues with coloring on the HDR converted video. If you are doing a lot of gameplay capture, it may be best to set HDR to off. Also, there's a small hiccup at the start of the Xbox One X video, as the game is just finishing loading. This doesn't appear to happen once that load is complete.

Here's another clip from Forza Motorsports 7, which is one of the launch titles for 4K and HDR, but as of this review, the 4K support is not yet added, so this will be a demo of playing a title without the Enhanced option available. This is from the Autodromo Nazionale Monza, on the Curva Parabolica.

Forza Motorsports 7 on Xbox One

Forza Motorsports 7 on Xbox One X 

Even though the 4K support is not there, the game does support HDR, which improves the look of the game quite a bit, even though you can't see it in the SDR converted video. Forza is a pretty lean engine, so the developers are targetting 4K60 for this title. The aliasing of 1080p content in this game is pretty strong, so it will benefit a lot from the 4K update when it arrives. When it's available, we'll post another clip to show the differences.

Final Words

The Xbox One X is the third generation of the Xbox One, with the Xbox One S launching just over a year ago, but this is not just a smaller device. The X is a huge jump in performance over the original console, and if anyone doubted Microsoft’s commitment to the gaming console, this seems to answer it. When the original Xbox One launched against the PlayStation 4, it touted its media capabilities, but came out of the gate with less performance. PlayStation has taken advantage of that misstep, but Xbox is now answering back with a console that leaves no doubt about which one has the most gaming power inside.

Microsoft had some “table stakes” in their ambitions with the Xbox One X, which were no compromise decisions. Their strategy has become “no gamer left behind” and with the Xbox One X, they’ve succeeded. All of the games, apps, and accessories that work with the Xbox One and S will just work, and sometimes better, on the Xbox One X. Compared to the old console strategy of a new device every couple of years, this is a very welcome change. Add in all of the work Microsoft has done with backwards compatibility for the Xbox 360 games, and now even original Xbox games, and it seems like no gamer will be left behind.

With 6 TFLOPS of peak shader throughput, the Xbox One X truly can, and does, game at 4K. But, that doesn’t mean every Xbox One X Enhanced title is going to target 4K. There’s a lot you can do with the extra shader performance to increase visuals, and Microsoft has left it up to the developers to decide how they want to use the extra performance. From the Xbox side, their goal was to provide the same tools, which are already well known to developers, but with more performance available.

Impressively, Microsoft already has over 130 games announced which will offer an Xbox One X Enhanced mode. This is one of the best parts about getting rid of console generations, since there’s already a wide array of content available. Compare this to a new generational launch, when there’s always a slow ramp up of games and content, and it makes buying into the ecosystem a lot easier.

It’s also great to see that the Enhanced titles will offer gamers choice in how they want to utilize the extra performance, for at least a few titles. Choosing between higher framerates, or better visuals, is a great choice to give gamers.

Despite the added performance, the Xbox One X is actually slightly smaller overall than even the Xbox One S, and if you own the original console, it’s hard to believe how much smaller the new one is. This also includes the built-in power supply, which was external on the original console. The overall design of the Xbox One X is quite well done, and will easily blend into any A/V stand. The choice of black as the base color helps here as well, although there will almost certainly be special color versions of the console later on.

The excellent design also continues with a lot of work done on sound and cooling. As we saw in our power draw tests, the Xbox One X can draw up to about 170 Watts of power at full load, but the cooling system is more than up to the task of keeping everything working, without sounding like a leaf blower. The console is barely audible at idle, and we only recorded 41 dB (A) with a SPL meter six inches in front of the console at full load. The vapor chamber cooling system keeps everything in check.

On the gaming front, the Xbox One X does what it was set out to do. On the media side, there’s a lot to like as well, including a built-in UHD Blu-Ray player, support for Dolby Atmos, bitstream passthrough, and HDR 10. It doesn’t quite check all the boxes, since there’s no support for Dolby Vision, but that’s arguably not a huge deal for most people.

Really the only area where the Xbox One X is let down in terms of media playback is Netflix, which forces HDR on for all content when connected to an HDR TV, which plays havoc with the colors of SDR content, which, at the moment, is most of it. It’s a flaw that Amazon Prime avoids, so this is on Netflix, but because of this flaw it’s hard to recommend the Xbox One X as a primary media device. There’s also the fact that it draws 50-60 Watts when streaming video, of course.

Microsoft has also built up an impressive set of accessories for Xbox, including the fantastic Xbox One Elite Controller, and the Xbox Design Labs, where you can custom build your own controller. These are nice touches to the ecosystem. Xbox Live has also improved dramatically since the original One launched, and now includes Games with Gold which provide up to four games every month as part of the subscription. If you want to go all in on gaming subscriptions, there’s also the Xbox Game Pass which gives access to over 100 games for a monthly charge, and Xbox also offers EA Access as well, which provides access to over 50 games for a monthly subscription.

Xbox One Elite Controller (sold separately)

If you are a console gamer, there’s going to be little to not like about the Xbox One X, except maybe the price. It’s a steep jump, since the Xbox One S can usually be found for close to $250, and that generally includes a game, whereas the Xbox One X is $499 right now with no games included. But even if you don’t own a 4K TV, the Xbox One X is going to provide much better visuals than the S, even though both will output at 1080p, thanks to the downscaling of higher resolution graphics on the X.

Comparing to the PlayStation 4, and PlayStation 4 Pro, Microsoft can compete with both the Xbox One S, which offers a UHD Blu-Ray drive on top of 4K support for media, and HDR support for games, at a low entry level price, but the Xbox One X is priced about $100 higher than the PlayStation 4 Pro. This is the same price gap that existed when the Xbox One and Playstation 4 first launched. The difference is this time, the extra $100 gains you a lot of performance. Xbox isn't the market leader right now though, so this might be a gamble.

The Xbox One X sets a new bar for console performance. The team seems like they’ve gotten back to gaming as a focus, which is great to see. Gaming is always about more than just the hardware though, and any console needs a great set of exclusives to drive adoption. Microsoft has some of their own IP, such as Forza, Gears of War, and Halo, but they are still going to face some tough competition. They have the hardware now though, to drive console gaming to the next level.