Microsoft has given us a lot of information about the Xbox Series X and S over the last several months, but just in case you feel like you still don’t have a handle on what the hardware is all about, the company has dropped a new in-depth “walkthrough” video. Over the course of 15 minutes, the video details pretty much everything you need to know about the new consoles – their design and UI, next-gen game features, backward compatibility, the new controller and accessories like the SSD expansion card, and more. You can check it all out for yourself, below.
Definitely liking how responsive everything appears to be! That said, despite the video being in 4K, this does seem to confirm that the Xbox Series X/S UI is only 1080p – the text definitely isn’t quite as sharp as it could be. Ultimately though, that isn’t a huge concern, and it looks like Xbox Series X owners are in for a good user experience (we’ll see if the Series S is as responsive). Somehow haven’t been keeping up with Microsoft’s next-gen consoles? Here’s everything you need to know, as well as a few details about the Xbox Series X’s tech…
The Xbox Series X will use the so-called Xbox Velocity Architecture, which is comprised of four components: the dedicated hardware decompression block, the custom NVMe SSD, Sampler Feedback Streaming, and the brand new DirectStorage API. Its goal will be to 'radically improve asset streaming' and 'effectively multiply available system memory', which is going to be important since the jump in available RAM is the smallest in the entire spec sheet.
The Xbox Series X hardware is also fully DirectX 12 Ultimate compliant. Its raytracing support is based on the latest version of Microsoft's DXR API, as you would expect; then there's the already mentioned Sampler Feedback Streaming, Variable Rate Shading (VRS) support to save performance where the shading rate can be reduced in a game's scene, and lastly Mesh Shading, which promises to allow game developers to dramatically improve the number of objects that can be displayed in a scene.
The Xbox Series X and S launch on November 10.
