Xbox Series X Thoughts and Impressions

The eagerly anticipated launch of the Xbox Series X|S — as well as its competitor, Sony’s PlayStation 5 — has not exactly been ideal.

Releasing in the middle of a global pandemic, there were going to be hurdles. Neither platform has had ready a launch lineup that really shows what the new system can do, outside of showing what the new horsepower can do for games from last generation. And yet, the sense of “FOMO” (Fear Of Missing Out) that normally accompanies a new product launch has been quite subdued as a result.

In a way, this turns out to be a good thing, as scalpers have seen to it that you aren’t getting one. At least, odds are that you aren’t getting one unless you’re either ready to shell out a king’s ransom in order to procure the object of your desires on the aftermarket, or very lucky.

Me? Somehow, I’m in the latter category. Doubly so, because it was my wife who managed to snag the system.

It was touch and go for a bit there. She managed to make the purchase from Walmart’s website, they took the money out, and all seemed well. Until they refunded the money, that is. Suffice to say, we weren’t pleased. But then a strange thing happened — they took out the money, again. And it turned out to be for real this time.

I don’t know what happened, and I’ve decided not to ask questions. I’ll not praise Walmart for his emotional roller coaster, but nor will I condemn them. Bygones shall remain bygones on this matter.

But yeah, I still can’t believe it. This entire time, I wasn’t sure when I’d ever get one of these things. What’s funny is, I was ready to settle for an Xbox Series S if I needed to, but between writing this and now, things changed a little bit, thanks to a Black Friday sale and a 4K television. Now, it kind of had to be a Series X if I was to get the most I could out of it.

Anyway, I’ve had the console for a couple of weeks now, so here’s what I think of it so far.

First, can I just take a moment or two to talk about the packaging? I feel like not enough people are giving it its due.

I’ve been collecting video game consoles for the last… while (okay, since 1988, so around 34 years, give or take), and for the most part, they’ve all been pretty similar: Cardboard box sleeve on the outside, with Styrofoam and/or cardboard inserts holding everything in just such a way that you’d better have been paying attention to how it arrived if you ever decide you want to pack it back up again for some reason.

The Xbox Series X is not like that at all. The Xbox Series X is special.

Before I get right into that: Yes, my box came a bit dinged up. That’s Walmart’s shipping for you — I’ve seen Pixel Dan and others lament this many a time as they’ve received figures sold exclusively through the retailer that were given “meet me at the playground after school” treatment, rather than any sort of priority or care.

At the same time, I’m sort of okay with it. This is still my Xbox Series X, dinged box and all.

But I digress.

Opening the box, you’re going to want to place it on its back, and find a way to negate the pairs of stickers on the corner edges. I just peeled mine back.

From there, you’ll basically lift the cardboard top/front/sides up, opening it in a way much akin to how one would a treasure chest — an analogy which I’m sure is not lost on the designers of this packaging.

Inside, the console is nestled in place by three foam inserts, two loose ones on the bottom and a third glued to the lid. Removing it is as simple as lifting it out (not shown is the black foam sheet covering).

A paper band wrapped around the console sports its logo, “Power Your Dreams.”

But behind the console is a cardboard compartment. Lift the lid, and you’ll find the documentation, cords, Xbox Series X|S controller, and batteries. Handy!

The packaging is a rather impressive piece of work, at least as far as video game consoles go. In truth, I’m a little disappointed they didn’t go just a bit further and add some latches and a handle, effectively allowing it to double as a carrying case! Alas, it still does the job as intended quite well. You can tell that Microsoft is especially proud of this little beauty.

Incidentally, I have no idea as of this writing how the Xbox Series S or PlayStation 5 packaging compares.

Here’s the console itself. It stands fairly tall — tall enough that the new lightbox I got for photography couldn’t really contain it without my disassembling it.

One thing you’ll notice immediately in the picture on the left, though, is that it is a total fingerprint/smudge magnet. However, this is pretty easily dealt with.

All you really need to do is rub a paper towel (not even a damp one, dry works) or a cleaning cloth over it, and it’s pretty much fine, as seen in the picture on the right.

For fun and a sense of scale, here’s a picture I took of the Series X with some other Xbox stuff I have around — my Banjo-Kazooie and Conker figures from the amiibo-sized Totaku line, a pack of Halo Mega Construx figures I just received for Christmas (“X-mas”?), and the Ori and Ku plushes I received from my wife, also for Christmas.

Given the rather unorthodox dimensions of the console, finding a place for it presented a small challenge. While the console can be turned to sit on its side (no disassembly required), the space in my entertainment center occupied by the Xbox One is just too short for it to fit. (If you have a GameCube, it’s a quick and handy way to check your space situation.)

Incidentally, the unique footprint of the Xbox Series X has made it one of the easiest consoles I’ve ever had to deal with reaching around back to plug and unplug things from.

Fortunately for me, a little rearranging (including the removal of Kinect) allotted a comfortable amount of space for it next to the television. Unfortunately, it had to go on the side opposite of my Xbox One, as the power cord included with the console was surprisingly short. According to Polygon, the cord is right at five feet long, which is nine inches shorter than the AC power supply for the Xbox One, according to Xbox’s own given measurements. So close, and yet so far.

It’s probably for the best, given that the cat tree is on the left, and the top-mounted exhaust would probably not do well with the threat of cat hair nearby.

Setting up the console upon the initial startup was really easy, thanks to the Xbox app on my phone. Once I connected that and confirmed a few things, it basically carried things over from the Xbox One — no fuss, no muss. Still had to log my wife’s account in separately, but that was a minor thing. The rest was a simple matter of moving my games over by just plugging in my external drive (prepped ahead of time) to the back of the unit, then choosing which games I wanted to move to the 1TB (well, 802GB, accounting for OS) internal memory.

While more than the Xbox One had, it’s not a whole lot in the face of games with higher resolution assets that take up more room. I generally keep the small stuff — a couple of GB or less — on there, as well as a few games that are optimized for the Series X, like Forza Horizon 4, The Tetris Effect: Connected, and Mortal Kombat 11 Ultimate. Everything else goes on the external, and so far runs fine from there.

A while ago, before the console launched, I wrote about five things I wanted to see in the Xbox Series X|S, and that’s been hit and miss. There’s no HDMI in (so now my cable box shares a splitter with the Nintendo Switch), no external drive for the Series S (irrelevant to me now, anyway), no new backwards compatible titles have been announced or released, and apparently voice commands are an option, but you need something like Amazon’s Alexa or Google Assistant for it to work (I currently have neither).

But at least I got my chime! It seems a touch quieter than the Xbox One version, but at least it’s there.

Getting into the system for the first time is really easy — particularly if you have an Xbox One already, as the latest dashboard revision is nigh-identical to what you’ll find here. It’s easy to navigate and bookmark games, apps, or whatever you’re likely to frequent. There might be some minor differences, though; the one I’m most aware of is that the Series X (and I believe S) allow for dynamic backgrounds on your dashboard. They aren’t quite as cool as the themes from the days of the 360, but I think generally preferable to the options available on the Xbox One. As to why they aren’t available on the Xbox One? Your guess is as good as mine. It’s a nice perk, don’t get me wrong, but hardly a reason to buy a new console.

One thing I haven’t been able to take advantage of, unfortunately, is the recently-added FPS Boost — at least, not to its full potential. I was eager to see how New Super Lucky’s Tale ran at 120FPS, but it seems that my newly-bought TV doesn’t have the proper HDMI setup to support it. If you’re looking at getting a new TV to go with your new Xbox Series X, this is something to research and keep in mind. Samsung recently renewed their partnership with Xbox to make the most of what the console can do, so that would be a good place to start looking. Still, everything looks really good in 4K, even without everything operating at peak performance.

I think what blows me away more than that, though, is the speed of the console. Games tend to just load up so much quicker now, as well as the console itself. I’m still used to turning on my console so it can warm up before I turn the TV to the right input, so it’s often surprising when I do that now and find the Xbox Series X just waiting for me, like an impatient Sonic the Hedgehog telling me “I’m too slow”.

Performance-wise, I’m no Digital Foundry (who have some great videos about this machine), but I can tell you this: I recently played the demo of Balan Wonderworld for Mega Visions, and one issue I kept encountering on the Xbox One was that the game would just freeze every now and then. It didn’t crash, it just simply stopped as the music continued, until it was somehow ready to proceed. I lost track of how many times it happened.

When I tried the demo on Xbox Series X, though? It ran perfectly. Say what you want about design choices (plenty have), but at least the game now seemed to be running as intended, which to me is as good a testament to the machine’s capabilities as anything.

While a catalogue of new, made-for-Series X|S titles may not be there just yet, it is presently a great way to play your existing catalogue and Game Pass, and shines an optimistic light towards the future.

For whatever it’s worth, I think that’s about all I have to say about the console at this point in time.

“But wait, what about the controller? You didn’t say anything about the new controller!”

Indeed I didn’t… because I fully intend on giving that its own spotlight soon. (And why not? You don’t need the new console to use one, after all.)

Thanks for reading!

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David Oxford is a freelance writer of many varied interests. If you’re interested in hiring him, please drop him a line at david.oxford (at) nyteworks.net.