Xbox One X (the hands-off review)

We may not have received one for review but when has that ever stopped anyone from giving their opinion?!

The Xbox One X may very well be “the most powerful console ever” but that really doesn’t mean much when there’s nothing to play on it, which largely seems to be Xbox’s issue with their new console.

Yes there are a handful of new release and older “Xbox One X Enhanced” titles to enjoy but the majority are listed as “Coming Soon” or “In Development”.

The only Xbox’s exclusive title that is ready to take advantage of the full power of the One X is Forza 7, released just a month ago. Their others, State of Decay 2, Sea of Thieves and Crackdown 3 are all set to debut in 2018 missing their launch window and the all important holiday season.

https://youtu.be/AVpSlqJDFZg

So who is the Xbox One X for? And why would anyone buy one now?

For starters if you don’t own a 4K TV (or you’re not looking for an excuse to invest in one) then you can stop right here. The Xbox One X’s biggest selling point is its crazy hardware that easily eclipses Sony’s PS4 Pro to push their version of “true 4K gaming”. I say their version because developers will use a variety of techniques to scale up and down the resolution of the image meaning that it will sometimes be 4K but then others most definitely not. The reason for this being in order to maintain a locked rate of 60 FPS in a game the console may need to scale back the displayed resolution. This is to be expected, as mind blowing its hardware specs are with it’s six-teraflop AMD Radeon GPU, it’s not going to compare to a PC running a GeForce 1080Ti at 4K nor is it designed to.

The Xbox One X is also includes a 4K Blu-ray player, just like the Xbox One S did before it. This is a really nice addition and could be another reason for people to invest. Similar to the original PS3 being the cheapest way of getting a Blu-ray player, the Xbox One X does similar and allows you to play games in true 4K. The console also supports Dolby Atmos and HDR 10 but sadly no Dolby Vision.

Beyond it’s hardware the Xbox One X is the same as your regular Xbox. It’s awful, awful UI and options are basically the same as it’s other iterations as are it’s connectivity and accessory options too. With a severe lack of exclusives to push the new hardware the console will appeal to those heavily invested in the Xbox ecosystem with the display hardware to support it but, I feel, do very little to entice others to switch.

It’s price point wont help it either. At A$649 the One X isn’t the cheapest console on the market, in fact it’s the most expensive, a good $100 more than it’s main rival. It’s not priced ridiculously by any means, it’s just not competitive. Regardless of it’s better spec’d hardware and the inclusion of a 4K Blu-ray player people unaware of its internals will compare apples with oranges based on their price tag.