The Xbox Series X recently revealed a teaser at The Game Awards. That teaser included the look of the system as well as a preview for a now Xbox-owned first party studio, Ninja Theory’s Hellblade 2. The head of Xbox, Phil Spencer, has taken to the web and wrote a blog post about what to expect from the next generation Xbox and has even revealed some of the hardware that will support it.
The Xbox Series X will feature a next generation custom processor and will be their most powerful console ever. It’s a custom designed processor leveraging AMD’s latest Zen 2 and RDNA 2 architectures, while delivering four times the processing power of an Xbox One at 12 Teraflops of Graphics Processing Unit (GPU) performance. That’s twice the flops of an Xbox One X which was at six Teraflops. That means higher framerates, larger and more sophisticated game worlds, and an immersive experience! With that, the Variable Rate Shading (VRS) will provide developers a more efficient way to utilize the full power of the Xbox Series X. Instead of spending GPU cycles on every pixel on screen, they can prioritize individual effects on specific game characters or important environment objects. This will result in stable frame rates and higher resolution. Players can expect dynamic and realistic environments powered by the hardware-accelerated DirectX Raytracing, which is a first for console gaming. This means true-to-life lighting, accurate reflections, and realistic acoustics in real time as you explore the game world.
“Immersion in an instant
The next console generation will be defined by more playing and less waiting. And when play begins, we know many gamers demand ultra-low latency to be as immersed and precise as possible. To this end, the team analyzed every step between player and game, from controller to console to display, and asked how we could make it faster.”
The upcoming console will feature a next generation Solid State Drive (SSD) which will improve gameplay with larger dynamic game worlds that will load in a flash, even with fast traveling. A new feature called “Quick Resume” will let players continue multiple games playing from a suspended state almost instantly, thus letting players jump right into gameplay without waiting through the load screens. The Xbox Series X will also feature Dynamic Latency Input (DLI) to optimize latency from player to console with the controller. With DLI, it will synchronize input immediately making the controls feel more precise and responsive. The Xbox team has partnered with the HDMI forum and TV manufacturers to enable the best gaming experience from low latency and refresh rates with HDMI 2.1 Innovation. It will support up to 120 frames per second (fps) which will allow developers to exceed the standard 60fps output.
“The next generation of game compatibility
The benefits of the next console generation extend in every direction, bringing greater visual fidelity and improved loading speeds to your existing gaming legacy, in addition to new games. We’re continuing our commitment to compatibility with Xbox Series X and investing in technology that makes game ownership easier across generations.”
The latest entry of the Xbox will be backwards compatible to support Xbox 360 games as well as the original Xbox. It will look and play better with steadier framerates, faster load times, and improved resolution. Game Pass will still be a great asset for all four generations of consoles. Xbox’s first party games, like Halo Infinite, will be included at launch. Xbox will also provide a Smart Delivery system to allow players to buy a game only once and know whether they are playing it on Xbox One or on the Xbox Series X. The team over at Xbox is making a commitment to use this system with all their exclusive titles (including Halo Infinite) to ensure that gamers will only have to purchase a title once to play on the best available version for whichever console they choose to play on. The Smart Delivery will be available to all developers and publishers to choose and use for titles they wish to utilize for Xbox One first and then to the Xbox Series X later. Recently, the developers of Cyberpunk 2077, CD Projekt Red tweeted out: “Gamers should never be forced to purchase the same game twice or pay for upgrades. Owners of #Cyberpunk2077 for Xbox One will receive the Xbox Series X upgrade for free when available.”
“A generation with players at the center
Xbox Series X is our fastest, most powerful console ever, designed for a console generation that has you at its center. This means a high-fidelity gaming experience enclosed in a quiet and bold design, with the ability to discover thousands of games across four generations, all with more playing and less waiting.”
The Xbox Series X is expected to launch Holiday 2020. The official reveal of the console will be announced and shown-off later this year so be sure to follow GamingLyfe for the latest updates on the upcoming next generation consoles. It hasn’t been determined when Microsoft will provide more details, but they have been releasing information out of the wild. You can be sure we will cover that as the news comes!
