Microsoft had a shaky start to this generation with a less than stellar Xbox One reveal. The misinformation followed the company through the whole generation, though the company did a lot to salvage the console. With the Xbox Series X, the company is looking to get off on the right foot, and fans are excited to get their hands on the new hardware.
The Series X is shaping up to be one sick beast, as evidenced by several capabilities which the Xbox One simply cannot hope to accomplish. As awesome as new games are, it is nice to know the actual user experience is significantly improving too.
10 Suspend Multiple Applications At Once
Suspending applications is incredibly useful, and it is difficult to imagine playing games in prior generations without the ability. Instead of having to shut down a game to use a different application, it can simply be kept running in the background. On the Series X, players will be able to suspend several games at the same time, and resuming the title takes just a few seconds.
9 Run Xbox One X Games At Sixty Frames Per Second
As beautiful as some games looked this generation, few of them ran smoothly. Save for certain franchises like Call of Duty and Resident Evil, the most one could reasonably ask for is a smooth thirty frames per second or an uncapped frame rate floating between thirty and sixty. However, Microsoft has already shown through backward compatibility that many Xbox One X games will run significantly smoother on the new console. Even the less powerful Xbox Series S takes advantage of this feature.
8 Super Fast Loading
One of the biggest advancements of this upcoming generation is the inclusion an SSD, or solid state drive, within each console. This new storage device decreases load time exponentially. The only kicker is people will need to buy specific storage expansions to take advantage of these features while adding more space, and they are pricey. However, one will still be able to use external hard drives, only without the SSD features.
7 One Hundred Twenty Frames Per Second
Up until now, sixty was the smoothest frame rate players could hope to achieve on consoles. With the Series S and X, select games will reach frame rates twice as fast. As of now, titles like Call of Duty: Black Ops Cold War and Ori and Will of the Wisps will run this smoothly on the new consoles. FPS games in particular look to benefit from this, since reflexes are extremely important.
6 Smart Delivery
When the Xbox One launched in 2013, cross-generation games had to be purchased separately. If one played Call of Duty: Ghosts or Metal Gear Solid V: The Phantom Pain on Xbox 360 and wanted to upgrade to the next-generation version, they had to pay at least a small fee, if not buy the whole game over again.
Thanks to what Microsoft is calling smart delivery, this is an issue of the past. Gamers only have to buy the game once to receive all versions, including the PC.
5 8K Resolution
The Xbox One X remains the most powerful console on the market until November 10th when the Series X launches. The One X served fans well with beautiful 4K resolutions when playing favorite titles. However, this will have to move over as certain games support astonishing 8K resolutions. Not every game will support this, but those that do will have gamers licking their lips with how good they look.
4 Auto HDR
With the mid-generation consoles like the PS4 Pro and Xbox One X appearing, so came the inclusion of HDR capabilities within console gaming. However, for it to work, a game had to be built with it in mind or updated at a later date to take advantage of the feature. The Xbox Series X features an auto HDR option which adds it to any game. Results vary, but it is sweet to know certain games can have a wider color palette that never had the possibility before.
3 Real-Time Ray Tracing
PC players have been enjoying the luxury of advanced lighting and reflections offered by Ray Tracing for some years now. Only with the next-generation consoles will all gamers be able to enjoy how much better it makes games look with the ability being built into the hardware. On current-gen consoles, only Crysis: Remastered uses it, but more games will take advantage of it in the future for sure on Series X.
2 Faster UI
The UI is one of the most important aspects of a console, and becomes more complicated as more features are added on to these multimedia centers. Xbox One's UI recently underwent an update to change it to how the Xbox Series X will appear when it finally releases.
Even though they will be uniform, the Series X will still run faster than its predecessor by virtue of having better and faster specs.
1 Resuming Suspended Games After Shutting The Console Down
This one seems downright impossible, yet players will be able to resume titles from where they were suspended even after the console has been shut down. Whatever witchcraft Microsoft employs to do this is simply miraculous. However, most gamers will probably at least make it a point to save when a gaming session ends for fear of something going wrong, and the title not suspending properly.