After seven years of overcoming the disaster of the Xbox One, Microsoft is finally back on track with the new Series X. Photo by Luis Joshua Guiterrez.
By Luis Joshua Guiterrez, Staff Writer
After roughly eight years of the Xbox One being released, we finally stepped into the next generation with the launch of The Xbox Series: X and S. With a new range of consoles come a lot of new features and of course a jump in graphics. But even though the Xbox Series X does come with a lot of new features, it does also includes some faults too.
Right away from getting the box, the feeling is very similar to unboxing a brand new phone or opening a new box of expensive shoes. After all, it’s better too because you’ve just spent $500 on this new system. But as soon as you open it you’re greeted with the new slogan for the Xbox, “Power Your Dreams.” One thing the Xbox did right at the beginning of this generation was the presentation.
There are a few noticeable differences on the back end of the Xbox Series X and Xbox One. As somebody who owned the “Master Chief Collection” Xbox One, the power cable had the infamous brick attached to it, taking up a lot of space.
As well as a lot of input cables on the back because that’s when Xbox was trying to be an all in one entertainment system. But the Series X differs from that, for starters the power cable doesn’t have the brick to it anymore which is amazing, and the backend input cables only have the essentials to it such as a memory storage Card, 2 USB inputs, one HDMI slot, and internet input. As for the controller, not much was changed from the last generation. The only two noticeable differences are the D-Pad has more details to it on the sides just like the Xbox elite controller as well as a Microsoft Added a share button that’s right in the middle of the start and select.
Watch Dogs Legion runs incredibly smooth and fast on the Xbox Series X with little to no load time. Screen capture by Luis Joshua Guiterrez.
Once you get everything hooked up you’ll notice the dashboard is the exact same as the “Xbox One” which is sort of a letdown. However, one great thing I noticed was the really quick load times. It was able to load into huge games such as “Sea Of Thieves,” “Watch Dogs Legion,” “Grand Theft Auto 5” and “Call Of Duty Black Ops Cold War” in seconds. As opposed to the older generation that would sometimes take minutes to load into. For instance, I would be playing the campaign in “Black Ops Cold War” and whenever I would die, the game would take no longer than 5 seconds to restart prior to my death.
But the new system does have some faults too. One of the minor ones is the “Quick Resume” option for the system. It was a feature announced by Xbox developers that would allow you to jump in between games without restarting them. So in theory, I could be playing “Black Ops Cold War” and jump to “Minecraft” without either game shutting down. It would only take a few seconds to load wherever I last left off but it almost never works for me. The only time I was able to get the “Quick Resume” to work was when I was jumping in-between “Red Dead Redemption 2”, “Grand Theft Auto 5” and “Tetris Effect Connected”. When it did work it was really impressive to see my game pick up where I had left it off in only a matter of seconds.
Another big issue I’ve been facing is particularly odd is whenever I’m playing “Black Ops Cold War,” my Series X would just straight up shut off on me. It’s only happened a few times but enough for me to notice.
I would be in the middle of a mission in the story or a game online and BOOM my Xbox decides to turn off. It even got so bad to one point it straight up deleted my Xbox Account on my Series X and I was forced to log back into it on the Xbox. As for setbacks, that’s probably the biggest and although it hasn’t happened to me too often, but it was enough to notice
A big thing about the “Series X’ is the memory. Microsoft claims you’ll have 1 Terabyte of memory which is a lot but after the initial update, you’re left with 802 GB of memory. And d Depending on what you have, that can fill up fast with games like “Call of Duty Black Ops Cold War” which sits at 133.4 GB so you can only imagine what “Cyberpunk 2077” is going to eat up. The only option as of right now for more storage is to buy an expansion card that only Microsoft is currently making for a high price of $219.99 (USD) for an extra 1 Terabyte.
With that being said I’m still very much enjoying my “Series X” and do not regret my purchase at all. Being able to play my games in 4k and in 60Hz (My 4K TV doesn’t go up to 120Hz) is stunning.
Seeing my games fully optimized using the HDR feature and seeing things like ray tracing is insane. Even though there aren’t many games out right now that doesn’t mean Xbox isn’t going to have some great hits this generation and that makes me truly excited.
Be sure to check out our review on the Playstation 5 here as well as our unboxing on both consoles on our Instagram account embedded below.
