XBOX SERIES X: Game Pass is the secret weapon!

 Microsoft's new black box wants you to play, share, stream and shop.

The Microsoft Xbox Series X is a console without surprises. Some of that comes from the steady stream of details, tech specs and game lists that have kept potential buyers well informed since it was first teased under the codename Project Scarlett more than two years ago. But much of it also comes from Microsoft's determination not to fix what wasn't broken. 

Just the name itself, Xbox Series X -- following Xbox One X and Xbox One -- points towards steady progress as opposed to a grand leap into uncharted territory. But the $500 (£450, AU$749) Xbox Series X is also a different beast at launch, compared to its 2013 predecessor, the Xbox One. There's no more Kinect camera and no HDMI-in port right next to the usual HDMI-out port, back when the Xbox One wanted to be your cable box. Gone are gimmicks and extras (except for a semiproprietary slot for an expensive Seagate expansion drive). The one loss I'm lamenting is the optical audio jack, an Xbox One feature missing here. Yes, it's not for everyone, but AV people want what they want.

If anything, Microsoft's Xbox Series X is a reductive evolution, fine-tuning and perfecting what worked so well in the Xbox One line. 

If the PlayStation 5 is a games-at-heart machine, flexing its classic gamepad prowess at the expense of all else, then the Xbox Series X is a more well-rounded console-as-ecosystem, leaning into multimedia, community, cloud gaming and cross-platform continuity. 

The $499 Xbox Series X is available starting Nov. 10, although preorders sold out quickly, and finding one online or in a store may be difficult for some time. 

Muscle for gaming

The Xbox Series X and PlayStation 5 cost the same (in their top-end configurations), they're arriving within days of each other and they play a lot of the same games. They're also very similar on the inside, each with a custom AMD Zen 2 CPU and a GPU based on AMD's RDNA 2 graphics architecture. You can read a much deeper dive into the components of both new game consoles here, but the key takeaway is both the new PlayStation and Xbox are built around the same hardware. Both also greatly benefit from having solid-state drives for storage, which lets games load faster than old spinning-platter hard drives. 

I've been able to test a few older games optimized for Xbox Series X, including Gears 5 and Forza Horizon 4. Other games may benefit from faster load times and less slowdown, but you shouldn't look for a radically different experience from your back catalog just yet. That said, the loading time boost is a huge benefit and makes any game feel faster and newer. Since the very sparse pre-release period, I've been able to test a few more games, including Watch Dogs: Legion, which now appears to have been optimized for Series X/S use. It's reflection-filled London location shines and shimmers the the daylight, and it feels markedly different than the non-optimized version I tried a couple of weeks ago. 

Sources:Microsoft