Hello everyone it's SpawnPoiint and welcome back to another video. And this is my long-term review
of the Xbox Series X which launched at the end of 2020. I wanted to give you my updated thoughts,
covering what i like, dislike and any improvements i would like to see. Now over the last year we
have seen some new updates to the user interface, new controllers and accessories, as well as
incredible new games. We've even seen the release of the expansion card if you want to increase your
available storage. So if you're still looking for a Series X, hopefully today's video will
give you an idea of what it's like. But if you've got an Xbox already, drop a comment below telling
me your favorite game that you're playing right now, or what you're looking forward to this year.
OK, first up let's talk about games, and more importantly game pass! Now we know most of the
games available on the Series X can also be played on the Series S, the older Xbox One and PX. But
don't underestimate how good they look on here, especially the games that have been optimized
for the Series X. We've seen a few Xbox releases throughout the last year including Forza Horizon
5, Halo and Flight Simulator, which all look incredible. With Forza, whether you're playing in
quality mode running at 4K30 or performance mode which runs at a lower resolution but 60 frames
per second, it just looks incredible. This game for me is one of, if not, the best game on the
Xbox right now. The car sounds, the open world, the visuals and the story mode are all decent.
One of the biggest advantages of the series x over the series s is the support for 4k games like back
for blood halo dirt 5 and forza horizon 5 all look incredible in 4k and the fact that the series x is
capable of running games at 4k and it supports 120 frames is insanely good now although a lot
of games do hit that 4k resolution on the series x not all of these games will support 120 frames
some of the games that i've tested that do support 120 frames have included dirt 5
gears 5 and warzone there is a drop in resolution when using this mode as you're not getting 4k
unfortunately but it still doesn't look bad on the whole we've not really seen that many
exclusive games for xbox in the last year but that doesn't matter because we've got game pass
so over the last year i've been paying for game pass ultimate which basically means for about 11
pounds or 15 dollars per month you get access to the entire game pass library now i actually
spend quite a lot of time playing games on the playstation 5. but you'll probably know every
new ps5 game that launches you need to pay for and at about 50 to 70 pounds ago it soon adds up
now with game pass though every new xbox game is added at no additional cost on day one
so forza horizon 5 which would normally cost what 50 to 60 pounds nothing extra halo and
flight simulator the same again but it's not just xbox exclusive games either we've seen new games
added that i would normally have bought on the playstation 5 and the fact that i get to play them
kind of for free on the xbox is incredible games like rainbow six extraction this game is available
on the playstation 5 2 but the fact that i can play it on day one via game pass is a game changer
now obviously game pass isn't actually free so these games aren't free as such but once
you've downloaded what two to three decent games you've pretty much paid for it that's without
even considering the ea play access that's also included so games like need for speed heat dirt
5 mass effect and loads more and then with the recent use of the activision blizzard acquisition
this will be massive for xbox now what that means moving forwards for exclusive games on xbox or day
1 releases on game pass who really knows at this stage but either way the fact that xbox could
potentially have a whole library of existing and future games on their platform is just going to
be awesome hopefully this doesn't have a negative impact on playstation but i guess only time will
tell can we actually assume that games like call of duty will be released on game pass for day one
but it's not just about the new or optimized games it's also about how well the xbox can play older
games too the fact that this series x can play almost every previous game for the xbox xbox 360
and xbox one is insane not only from a game pass perspective but from a physical library point of
view now i sold most of my old games years ago but just last weekend my son wanted to buy a physical
360 game for about five pounds it's awesome that we're still able to buy install and play
these older games without the need to keep those consoles just pop the disc in download the game
file and updates and it's good to go as far as the look and design of the xbox series x goes it's not
a bad looking console i've said this before but with its clean and minimal design it means it
can be placed pretty much anywhere whether i'm using it on my shelves and plugged into my tv
or on my desk setup it looks pretty good i think it looks better stood up rather than lying down
but the fact that you can decide and you can flip it either way without the need for a
stand or additional mount is awesome the vent on the top has a little pop of green which i think
adds a nice color to the overall dark design i also like the fact that it came in black as
standard so it means i didn't need to wrap it or change the color it actually looks good as
it is the performance of the series x has been absolutely awesome it's rapid not only if games
looked insanely good at either 4k or 120 frames everything just runs silky smooth whether it's
booting it up navigating the menus or jumping between games it really has been effortless
now the fact that it supports a vrr or the variable refresh rate means that if you're using
a tv or monitor that can handle this you're going to get a near perfect tear-free gaming experience
i don't think i've ever seen a frame drop while playing or at least not enough to remember
but it's not just the overall running of the games that's impressed me this year it's the
quick resume feature i've said it before but this is a true next-gen feature being able
to jump from one game to the next in a matter of seconds is awesome it doesn't just load the game
up though it resumes exactly where you were last playing now this might not sound like a big deal
but if you are jumping between multiple games you don't need to worry about loading the game save
over the last year we've already seen a handful of new controllers released including the pulse
red and the shock blue i think these were the first two that i bought after that i've got the
scoff instinct pro controller with the removable faceplates then later we saw the 20th anniversary
controller and the forza horizon 5 edition i actually did dedicated videos on both the scoff
and the 20th anniversary controllers which i have linked to below as for the controllers themselves
they still feel great and i'm a huge fan of the triggers and even after a year i can say
i've had no issues with any of the controllers there's no stick drift now my children use the
xbox a lot more than i do and the pulse red one is used by my son practically every day and the
fact that it still looks and works like new says a lot about how well they're made when it comes
to charging the controllers i'm still using the power a dock and battery packs these are
perfect as that means i've always got one or two controllers docked and ready to go now these are
all the controllers i've got so far but i'm still really tempted to pick up an elite controller
not only to do a hands-on review but to compare it to the scuff if you're interested in knowing
my thoughts on the elite controller drop those in the comments and i might pick one up next month
when it comes to the available storage on the xbox series x it's not bad it has a one
terabyte drive of which around 800 gigabytes are usable now in the first few months this wasn't
really an issue as there weren't that many games i needed or wanted to install but as my children
and i have started to download more i found myself needing to delete games more frequently
now although you can actually use an external drive to store your games on you cannot play
games from that drive if they're optimized for the series x or s so games like forza horizon 5
i'm back for blood the only external drive at the moment that is supported is the seagate expansion
card i'm using the one terabyte option but it's also available in a 5 12 and a 2 terabyte too
but these are not cheap but if you need to expand the storage on your console these are very useful
plus these are stupidly small and they won't take up any usb ports on the back of the console
by adding this card it has more than doubled my available storage which
hopefully should mean i won't need to delete any more games this year
if you are interested in knowing more about these i have linked to these in the description
now as much as i would like to have seen a new dashboard or a completely new design i have
gotten used to it now it doesn't feel next-gen to me but it is functional it's fast snappy and feels
fluid when navigating around one of my biggest criticisms i had last year was the resolution of
the dashboard it looked terrible the images and the text looked blurry as they were not running
at 4k now this meant as you were jumping between games and the dashboard it looked pretty jarring
but in october or november last year we did see the 4k updates to most this might not seem like
a big deal but to me this was a very noticeable and decent update everything now looks cleaner
and sharper especially the text the quick menus and the additional settings all look nice and i'd
say everything feels user-friendly another new feature that we saw is being able to adjust the
brightness of the controller and the console light so if you're using your xbox at night to watch
movies you don't need to worry about having the lights on you can actually turn it completely off
now the series x does have a disk drive on the front it's not something that i use that often
as i buy and play my games and movies digitally but i do have a handful of movies i have played
on here it will play dvds blu-rays and ultra hd blu-rays as well as games so if you all plan on
using it for movies the disk drive is incredibly quiet the xbox app has definitely gotten better
over the last year it's also been able to see who's online just by glancing at your friends
list or your notifications you can see things like your friends requests or any updates now
to get the most out of the app you definitely want to link it to your console and once you've
done that you're able to view your game capture straight from the console via the app you can also
see all of the games you've got installed how much storage they're taking up and you can manage them
from within the app on top of that if you wanted to download a new game from game pass or the store
just search for it and you can download it straight to the console within a few clicks
i'd actually go as far to say that the mobile app is easier to use in the console especially when
it comes to searching for games or viewing your library i actually really like the app
so during the earlier months i had an issue where my controllers would randomly disconnect
i had to then reboot the xbox entirely for them to start working this only happened in the first
few months and it must have been fixed via an update but other than that i've had no
other problems with the series x it loads up first time every time it's never crashed on me
and it's been pretty easy to use now there's only one single improvement that i would like to see
but it's more of a ui thing than anything else so your most recently used games or apps show
up across the top and that's absolutely fine but if someone else logs into their account on
your xbox and plays a game it still shows up on your recently played list it means every time
that my children use the sierra's axe any games that they play including roadblocks or minecraft
it would then show up across the top even though i've never played these
games i know it's only a very minor request but that's pretty much it
right so these are my final thoughts on the xbox series x over the last year is really shown just
how capable this console is and we've not really even scratched the surface games like forza
and even flight simulator have looked very very impressive and run incredibly smoothly it's quiet
fast and the quick resume feature is a literal game changer but what really amazes me is game
pass and what the future holds for xbox being able to get a huge library of games on day
one as well as the possibility of cross plat games especially at no extra cost
is awesome so the bottom line is if you're looking for a new xbox and you want that 4k
or 120 hertz the series x is definitely the way to go but if you're not sure whether to go for
the series x or the series s i actually did a review on the series s a few months ago so you
can check that out next well that was my long term review on the xbox series x thank you for watching
and if you drop a "Series X" with a little green heart in the comments i will give you a thumbs up.
And here's another couple of videos you might be interested in watching next.
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