I got really lucky right before Memorial Day weekend and was able to purchase a new Xbox Series X from Best Buy. I also got $100 off because of a Best Buy gift card I received for Christmas. Although there haven’t been any major next-gen titles from Xbox since the console debuted, I was eagerly trying to get my hands on a Series X because I was playing on an original Xbox One that I purchased for $270 in 2016 while in college and the VCR-like console was struggling to keep up. It seemed to crap out on me in August 2020 when I had major problems starting it up and had to completely reset my console twice. I didn’t play it for almost two months before I just decided to boot it up to see if anything happened. Surprisingly, it turned on with no problems. However, I had to download my games again since resetting the console erased them.
I’m a casual gamer so I usually don’t pay attention to the tech advancements of each console beyond better graphics and more storage space, but the latest quality of life improvements for this ninth generation of video game consoles (PS5, Series X) are spectacular.
Loading Times
Thanks to the SSD inside the next-gen consoles, long loading times are a thing of the past. On my Xbox One, I would have to wait 2-3 minutes to load a game like GTA V, Destiny, or Red Dead Redemption 2. On the Series X, it’s less than thirty seconds. For less demanding games like Outriders, Wolfenstein, or Forza Horizon 4, it’s maybe 5-10 seconds. I used to scroll through Twitter while waiting for a game to load, but now I normally don’t have enough time to unlock my phone before the loading screen is gone.
4K, 60 FPS - I Once was Blind but Now I See
Technically speaking, console gaming has always lagged behind PC gaming and it still does, but the gap has gotten a little smaller. The original Xbox One was dragged through the mud (deservedly so) for running games at 900p compared to PS4 running games at 1080p. This had to be rectified with the release of the Xbox One S in 2016 which ran games at 1080p. Now, the Series X can run a lot of games at 4K resolution and 60 frames per second which makes gameplay ultra-smooth. I’ve seen huge improvements in performance for games like Titanfall 2, Outriders, and Forza. My Xbox One would experience crazy choppiness when debris/particles would appear during gameplay. That is not the case with the Series X where everything is steady.
Quick Resume
Quick Resume is a feature that is exclusive to the Series X and S and while not a drastic quality of life improvement, it is a rather nifty tool. With this feature, up to five games can be running at one time. So I could be playing A Plague Tale: Innocence, pause it, and switch to another game like NBA 2K21 to play a quick online match. Once I’m done with 2K, I can immediately switch back to A Plague Tale, resume the game, and pick up from where I left off. If I felt like it, I could add Mafia III, Fallout 4, and Control to the Quick Resume queue and switch between all five games. Now, it doesn’t work for online-only games because you will get kicked for being in a suspended state.
Betting on Game Pass and Value
Last summer, I was pretty set on getting a PS5 because of Xbox’s lack of enticing exclusives. Xbox had their showcase where they announced games that were mostly 2-3 years away and I still wasn’t convinced until they bought Bethesda. Sony’s announcement that first-party games would be $70 combined with the unparalleled value of Game Pass brought me back to Xbox. As good as Spider-Man, Horizon: Forbidden West, Ratchet & Clank, and God of War look, I can’t imagine paying $300 for video games in a year plus an online subscription. Game Pass is $15/month and I normally buy games on sale anyway. The only games I am guaranteed to buy the day they release are those from Rockstar Games. I’ll probably be paying $60 for Gotham Knights and Hogwarts Legacy depending on reviews but I’m not sure beyond that.
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