Microsoft today revealed yet more technical details about its upcoming Xbox Series X console — a veritable treasure trove of hardware details, along with a few details salient to the average gamer. What it hasn’t revealed, what it’s stubbornly keeping under wraps, is how much this technical marvel is going to cost.
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The company released the latest tech details in several new press releases, mostly pertaining to the console’s hardware. It even published this handy guide for all the fancy terms you’re going to hear with regards to the XSX, like Smart Delivery and Variable Rate Shading. But let’s be honest: all that under-the-hood stuff will really only be interesting to the technically-minded among us. Most gamers will only care about it insofar as it makes their games look prettier.
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So what features of the new Xbox console actually matter to the gamer? I think the most immediately useful thing to know is the console is said to be ridiculously fast, able to cut loading times down to almost nothing. We know from Digital Foundry’s deep dive into the console that the Quick Resume feature — in which you can keep games suspended on a pause even if you unplug the console — will support up to 3 games. And finally, the console will ship with a pretty new controller that will supposedly have much less latency than its predecessors.
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Microsoft is basically telling us everything about the Xbox Series X except for one of the most crucial details, namely the price.
I don’t know if this is more of its game of chicken with Sony — which, I’ll remind you, hasn’t even shown us a render of the PlayStation 5 — or if it’s playing it coy now that there’s a chance the company could delay production over the current coronavirus outbreak. Either way, I’m starting to lose feeling in this particular limb, Microsoft. I’m sure the big reveal was planned for E3, but since that particular event isn’t happening this year, we might as well hear it now.
Either way, the XSX is looking pretty good — or at least as good as anything can look with a couple of games upon which it can demonstrate itself. I’m waiting for the big, splashy reveal of Halo Infinite gameplay before I really start salivating.
At the time of writing, the XSX is still set to launch in the holiday season later this year.
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