In exactly 14 days on November 10, the Xbox Series X and Xbox Series S will launch worldwide. Seven years after the release of the Xbox One, gamers will be jumping into a continued evolution of the Xbox ecosystem, once that promises to truly revolutionise the gaming and console UI experience.
A lot has change for Xbox since the Xbox One was first unveiled back in 2013. The history of the Xbox One isn’t a pretty memory, but with time it’s made amends, on the way towards large acquisitions, evolving gaming experiences including cloud-based and console streaming, and a seamless, accessible next-gen transition for gamers. These just didn’t exist leading into the Xbox One.
A gamer-centric focus is clearly on the cards here, perhaps no more evident than in the latest walkthrough for the console. Recent Xbox Series X hands-on offerings detailed a number of great new features on offer for the console, predominately focusing on Quick Resume and overall loading performance. The video does much of the same, but of course with a far more refined and slick overview, directly out of Xbox HQ.
The extensive walkthrough features Malic Prince and Harrison Hoffman, and they start things off by jumping into Gears 5 and showing the game’s pristine and upgrade performance on the console. Unfortunately, Xbox Series X has always appeared to be a console the best experienced in person, and so what they appear to want to portray, while impressive, isn’t anywhere near as effective as the real thing is likely to be.
Also on display is the console Quick Resume feature, with Harrison jumping in and out of multiple games in quick succession to show gamers how it works. The Quick Resume features is a huge factor for me: as a player that frequently jumps between NBA 2K21, Overwatch and Call of Duty, being able to seamlessly move in and out of games without much of a hiccup will save a lot of time, and also just make for an easier and more pleasing gaming experience. I’m very keen to see how it functions for online-only games like Overwatch and Destiny 2.
Accompanying Quick Resume is a slick new in-game guide that has been refined and cleaned up for more recent iterations on Xbox One. Everything from your most recently played, to your friends list and Achievements will be on display here.
Importantly — and something that hasn’t really been spoken about in pre-launch previews — is that of the game’s share button and functionality. The button will automatically share a screenshot with a quick press, while a hold of the button will take a video clip. This content is then uploaded automatically straight to your Xbox account, much like how it is done now (but hopefully faster).
If you own an Android device, I highly recommend jumping into the Xbox beta app: it gives great insight into the functionality of the Xbox ecosystem on mobile, and the app is primed to communicate extensively with the console upon launch. They dive into this in the video, and it was great to get some insight into how it all worked.
