The next generation of games has finally arrived, as Microsoft has announced a brand new Xbox is on the way – the Series X.
We have the PlayStation 5 confirmed from Sony, we have the Google Stadia in our living rooms, but now we know what Microsoft is planning – and it looks like an absolute beast of a machine. Previously known as the cryptic "Project Scarlett", the new generation of Xbox looks to be a powerhouse of graphical fidelity hitherto unseen from a games console.
The world was exposed to the future console during the Xbox stage show at E3 2019, and we got a bunch of details, including a vague release date and some powerful specs to get excited about, at the Game Awards 2019. And now we're finally in 2020, details are starting to drop online to paint a better picture of this gaming monster, including just what we'll be playing and when we'll be playing it.
In fact, Microsoft has been forgoing the traditional annual E3 showroom to give us more details on its roster and has instead opted to give us monthly livestream updates, showing off gameplay trailers, big news announcements, and interviews with developers and big names in the gaming community to help paint a brighter picture of what we can expect from the new Xbox.
So read below to find out everything we know about Xbox Series X.
Xbox Series X release date – When is it coming out?
We still have the rest of the year to wait, but the Series X will be cosily nestled under our TVs very soon.
Microsoft initially told us to expect the console during the holidays of 2020, but they have now confirmed an exact month, November to be precise.
This date was revealed when 343 Industries unfortunately announced that Halo Infinite would be delayed until 2021, missing the November release window for the Series X, due to the ongoing Coronavirus pandemic.
We didn't get an exact day, but we would imagine it to be around the end of November to coincide with the hype of the build-up to Christmas. We do know that Sony is set to release the PS5 at roughly the same time as well to offer up some direct competition, so expect an official announcement from them sometime soon.
And if the recent rumours about Sony's PS5 price-tag are to be believed (seriously, it can't really be $500 can it?!), you might want to start to think about where your gaming allegiances lie until you can afford to pick one up each.
No details yet on a pre-order link or on just how expensive this futuristic new console will be, but we would start saving now as it won't come cheap. Keep a tab on Microsoft's official store page though to snag peek as soon as it arrives.
On September 8, Xbox surprised us all with an announcement confirming the poorly kept secret of the Xbox Series S budget console.
The S is smaller and slightly more restricted than the Series X, with limited graphics and a lower price-tag to boot. More leaks suggest that this console will release at the same time as the Series X on November 10, though this hasn't been confirmed by Microsoft yet.
However, we do think this sounds about right, as it would just be ahead of Cyberpunk 2077 release and gives Microsoft plenty of time to market the new console in time for Christmas.
Will coronavirus delay the release of the Xbox Series X?
There has been some suggestion that the current global crisis could delay the release of the console due to further development restrictions and the simple fact that some people around the world will be unable to go and actually buy a physical box because of self-isolation.
We haven't heard anything yet to make us think this will be the case, but the situation is ever-evolving, so it might just happen.
Xbox Series X price – How much will it cost?
Microsoft is wary of making the same mistake it made with the Xbox One and is likely to aim the price a little lower than you'd expect to entice you to buy its console over Sony's.
However, while Microsoft and Sony were busy playing the slowest and most boring game of chicken ever, waiting for the other one to announce the price for their top-end console, Microsoft just went and revealed the pricing for the Series S, which is their less powerful console.
The Series S will cost £249, which just so happens to be the same price the One S was back in 2016. If Microsoft follow the same pricing conventions as they did for the One S, that would mean the Series X will cost the same as the One X did back from its release, which was £499.
We think around £500 is the right price for Microsoft to aim for and we think Sony will roughly bring the PS5 to that similar price line too.
Xbox Series X specs – How powerful is it?
Looking at the spec of Series X, we can see it being one of the most powerful gaming platforms ever made – maybe even more powerful than the PS5...
Don't let the bulky design fool you, this console will be full of the latest tech to super-enhance your games and drag you, kicking and screaming, into the next generation.
Xbox Series X will have a super powerful AMD custom processor using architecture from Zen 2 and the Navi family, which will have comparable power to some of the most advanced PC set-ups on the market. This is no surprise when you look at the design as it looked pretty much like a PC tower at this point – less box and more fridge.
This means it will clock more power than two Xbox One X consoles strapped together, which was already a ridiculously good console in its own right.
"I think the area that we really want to focus on next generation is frame rate and playability of the games," Spencer explained in an interview with Gamespot. "Ensuring that the games load incredibly fast, ensuring that the game is running at the highest frame rate possible."
Basically what Xbox is looking at right now is 8K resolution at 120Hz frame rates at its peak and 4K in 60FPS as a "design goal", which is one hell of a claim.
To put this into context, the Xbox One X was hailed as a super-powerful console when it could process 4K games at an unsteady 60FPS. Series X will be able to handle that at baseline performance and double that at its maximum potential.
Load times will also be dramatically reduced on the new console thanks to a built-in Solid-State Drive (SSD). Most computers utilise an SSD to make pulling data from the hard drive much more efficient.
The SSD acts as an external organising assistant that will instantly recognise what data you need in the game at any given time, retrieve that data within miliseconds, and deliver it onto your screen at the same pace.
In the past, built-in hard drives had to also manage the general performance of the console, which takes up a lot of its processing bandwidth, ultimately resulting in significant slowdown as it had to do multiple jobs at once.
The PS5 is already going to have an SSD inside, which will improve load-times of games by up to 40x. We have seen examples on the PS4 exclusive game Marvel's Spider-Man, where loading screens taking 15 seconds on the PS4 will now take less than a second on the PS5, with Spidey thankfully not breaking his neck from the speed.
If Series X can manage this pace too, as well as native 8K resolution, it will be one hell of a machine.
Specs:
- CPU: 8x Zen 2 cores at 3.8GHz 7nm
- GPU: 12 Teraflops, 52 VUs at 1.825GHz
- 16GB GDDR6
- 1TV Custom NVMe SSD storage
- 120 FPS support
- Variable Rate Shading
- DirectX RayTracing (hardware)
- Quick resume for multiple games
- smart delivery
- next-gen SSD
- HDMI 2.1 support
- supports Xbox/360/One games
Digital Foundry got the chance to see the Series X well ahead of time and see how powerful it is, and the early reports suggest it could be a monstrous bit of kit.
They got to see an early port of Gears 5 running on the equivalent of "ultra" graphics on a top-end PC, and they report the game ran at a "flawless 60FPS" and had full ray-tracing and enhanced shadowing, which is good signs for gamers who are looking for the true immersive experience.
The Series X will also be able to adjust the speed and power of its CPU based on what you're playing, increasing or decreasing the the considerable strength of the CPU depending on what game you're playing and how much it demands of the processing power.
For example, if you're playing Viva Piñata we doubt it would need much power, so the CPU will slow right down to avoid the chip overheating and will just quietly chug along without really lifting its digital finger.
However, if you fired up something a bit more graphics-intensive, like Cyberpunk 2077, for example, the Xbox will boost the processing power to the CPU to handle the extra load of polygons and triangles on your screen.
We also got to see how the quick-resume feature will work in practice.
This YouTube video shows off the impressive speed at which you can hop around games on your console without having to basically reset to the home screen every time.
You can be playing Ori and the Will of the Wisps and just fancy making the switch to Forza, launching the game exactly where you last ended, with minimal load times, and jump straight into the action.
Xbox Series X games - What will I be able to play on it?
During the Xbox conference at E3, we discovered Halo Infinite, the latest edition in the wildly popular Halo series, will be a big title on Series X, though with a delay thanks to the ongoing coronavirus pandemic and the dreaded crunch of triple-A titles.
We don't know much more about the new game just yet, other than a brief trailer showing MasterChief back in action, but hopefully we will get more details and gameplay in the coming weeks.
Xbox head honcho Phil Spencer also announced Microsoft is working with 15 Xbox Game Studios, to deliver a large library of games on release for you to blitz through.
When the original Xbox One released, there was a pretty flat list of games (we are looking hard at you, Ryse: Son of Rome) so it's refreshing to see Microsoft putting the gamers first this time.
We also know that we will be able to pick up Hellblade II: Senua's Saga on the Series X, which looks incredibly gorgeous in the early trailers.
Thanks to the monthly streams though, we do have a list of games that will be available to play on the Microsoft XCloud within the first few months of launch.
If you're unaware of Microsoft's new subscription service, it works the same as Netflix but for games, giving you a library of games to download and play whenever you want for a monthly fee.
It's the kind of service gamers have been dreaming about for years (no more queuing up in your local games store for discs), and allows you to explore the wealth of great titles Microsoft has been gobbling up over the years without breaking the bank.
Full list of games available to play on the Xbox Series X on X-Cloud so far:
- Halo Infinite
- Fable
- Forza Motorsport
- State of Decay 3
- As Dusk Falls
- Avowed
- The Gunk
- Stalker 2
- Tetris Effect
- Warhammer Darktide
- Everwild
- Grounded
- The Medium
- Psychonauts 2
- Tell Me Why
- Peril on Gorgon
- Phantasy Star Online 2
As we said, these will all be available to download and play for the monthly fee, and you can see this is an incredibly impressive list of games that you will own immediately.
Xbox Series X Smart Delivery - How does the new feature work?
If you watched the Xbox 20/20 livestream you would have heard the words "Smart Delivery" quite a lot, and it might not have been explained to you particularly well.
The best way to think about Smart Delivery is to think of it like an advanced backwards compatibility. Many of you will likely own an Xbox One or even an X right now, and might not be thinking of picking up a Series X on release day.
If that's the case, you're likely still going to be picking up some of the latest games on your current console, including those that are released after the Series X comes out.
Microsoft has confirmed that many of the games slated for release in the first year of the new-gen world will be built for both old-gen and next-gen consoles, but the Smart Delivery system allows you to play that game across both consoles for one cost.
If you bought Halo Infinite on your Xbox One, played it on that console for six months but then jumped up to the Series X after that time, you can just transport your game files straight onto the Series X for no extra cost, receiving the graphical upgrade as soon as you boot it up.
This is a massive step for Xbox gamers in the right direction, and might encourage more gamers to make the switch to Microsoft if they can painlessly shift into the newer generation of games without paying more. And this works across every generation of Xbox, so if you still have the 360, you can still buy games on that console and make the upgrade for free.
What's more, there are *SO* many developers who are on board with Smart Delivery, meaning most of your favourite games will be part of this scheme.
for example, we already know that games like Cyberpunk 2077, GTA 5, and Call of Duty Modern Warfare will all be part of the Smart Delivery service, so you don't need to buy a second, next-gen disc in order to play these new games.
We are also getting a monthly livestream from Microsoft every month in the lead-up to the Series X release, which show off impressive, short trailers on some new games that will be releasing with the new console.
These are all confirmed, so let's go through a few now.
First off we have Bright Memory from Playism, which was the first game reveal from the Inside Xbox reveal stream.
It looks very "Crysis" like, but with influence from Sekiro or even Killzone by the looks of it, which we can totally get into.
Next, we saw Dirt 5, which we thought was an odd choice to start the stream off with, though it does look pretty interesting if you're into your arcade racers.
Next we saw a new IP in the form of Scorn which looked like a video game sequel to the Alien franchise, but is entirely in its own universe.
We have no idea what it is or what to expect from it, since it was just a cinematic trailer that showed off some strange, gothic creatures, so keep your eyes peeled on this one.
But the game you're all most interested in is the new Assassin's Creed Valhalla, which looks like an incredible new title from Ubisoft.
Other than that, we can make some educated guesses and wild speculation on other titles to launch sometime after the Series X is comfortably in our home.
We have Watch Dogs: Legion, Rainbow 6: Quarantine, and Gods and Monsters almost guaranteed to come out within the first 6 months of release, as well as a Battlefield 6 thrown into the mix too.
We are still patiently waiting for an Elder Scrolls sequel, GTA 6, and info about whatever Forza (both Horizon and MotorSport) are up to these days too, so the list grows stronger as we move into 2021.
And if that wasn't enough, the Series X will also be backwards compatible, so you can play all your favourites across four generations of Xbox with upgraded graphics on the new console *immediately fires up Minecraft*.
In some mildly irritating news, Xbox announces that the Xbox Series X won't be receiving any exclusive titles to that console until 2022.
Xbox Game Studios boss Matt Booty revealed no Microsoft-published Xbox Series X exclusives until at least a year after launch. Instead, games released after the Series X is out on shop shelves will be available on both the Xbox One X and the Series X.
The reason they have done this is to make sure they don't short-change anyone who buys an Xbox One X between now and Christmas.
"As our content comes out over the next year, two years, all of our games, sort of like PC, will play up and down that family of devices," Booty told MCV. "We want to make sure that if someone invests in Xbox between now and [Series X] that they feel that they made a good investment and that we’re committed to them with content."
Gamers are pretty annoyed at this, but it seems pretty reasonable to expect Microsoft to protect gamers who don't want to fork out a large chunk of cash in the next few years for the latest consoles and games, and would rather stick with the cheaper gaming machine. The only downside we can see is that developers will be splitting their time between making games for a next-gen Xbox and an older console.
Developing games takes a lot of time and resources for just one console – more than five years in the case of CDProjekt Red's new Cyberpunk 2077 game – let alone squeezing a top-end, triple-A game with super-powered graphics into a less powerful console. A prime example of this is the delay we were forced to endure during the release of GTA 5.
Standard Def versions of the game were smooth on the Xbox One and PS4, but it took almost a year to push up the graphical power for the One X and PS4 Pro, and don't even get us started on the wait for a PC port.
The decision to balance development for two different consoles with wildly differing capabilities might hamper the quality, but we honestly don't know how far the ripples will spread with this decision.
Presumably Microsoft has this all planned out, and games coming within the first year of the Series X release are well into development for both consoles. This also doesn't discount games from 3rd-party developers who want to make Xbox-exclusive titles that are locked to the Series X.
We haven't heard rumours of any devs who are looking to do that, but hope remains.
We will be updating this page with more details about Xbox Series X as we get them, so make sure you keep this page bookmarked.
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