- [Austin] Nearly five years later,
the Xbox One has seen some major improvements.
And here are five reasons why
you should buy one in 2018.
Hey guys, this is Austin, Reason number one!
The Xbox One has seen some massive improvements.
Think back to 2013, at E3 that year,
both the PS4 and Xbox One was officially announced.
And the Xbox had some serious flaws to make up for.
Not only was the PS4 a more powerful console,
but the Xbox was $100 more expensive.
It came bundled with Kinect which, at the end of the day,
ended up being canceled a few years later.
It had a bigger, uglier design, and to top it all off,
Microsoft had all kinds of terrible misinformation
on whether or not it would actually support used games.
Whereas Sony had a slightly more elegant plan.
- Thanks.
- Since that moment though, Microsoft
has essentially been playing catch up,
and I think that's a good thing for all gamers.
So think of some of the things that have changed
since the original Xbox One launched.
Not only have they seen some major updates to the software,
where you've seen three full revisions
of the entire Xbox interface, but they also did a lot
to improve the hardware.
So not only did they stop bundling Kinect,
and eventually kill it off all together,
but when they brought out the Xbox One S,
the hardware pretty much got rid of all the
major problems that I had with the original Xbox One.
Namely, the giant power break,
the ugly VCR styling, and they even added
some features like an ultra HD Blu-Ray player.
Then came the Xbox One X last year.
Not only did this completely blow away
the original Xbox One, but even the PS4 Pro and performance.
But for the first time in over five years,
Microsoft could confidently claim
that they have the most powerful console you could buy.
Don't get me wrong, I don't mean to say the PS4
has stood still in that same period of time,
but when you look back at the launch Xbox One
compared to what we have today,
it's clear that Microsoft has done a lot of catching up.
That brings us to reason number two: Exclusives.
So Sony's early sales lead gave them
a massive edge in a lot of really cool exclusive titles
for the actual PlayStation four.
The idea that it was a more powerful console
definitely didn't hurt things.
But over the last couple of years,
and especially in 2017, the Xbox teams stepped it up.
PubG is one of the most popular games
in the entire world right now, and the only
way to play on console is on the Xbox One.
Now yes, it's an early access game,
yes it does not quite match up to the PC
as far as features and especially performance.
However the idea that this is a game
that you can play on even a $200 Xbox One S
is pretty impressive, and as an early access game,
it actually has continued to get a lot better over time.
The Forza series has also been one of my personal favorites,
so I grew up playing Grand Turismo,
however the yearly releases have not only
mainlined Forza Motorsport games,
but especially the really fun Horizon games,
have actually kept me locked on the Xbox One
ever since the beginning.
Cuphead definitely took a few years to come out,
but the hand drawn art style, and especially
the incredibly tight gameplay,
does a good job of making this not only a Xbox exclusive,
but something that really does stand out on the platform.
Other games are also on the way this year,
including CrackDown Three, Sea of Thieves,
and hopefully we get a glimpse at the next Halo game.
Now of course, the PS4 does have
a huge library of exclusives, but there's
still plenty of games that are exclusive to the Xbox One,
especially if you've never played it,
makes now a great time to pick one up.
Reason number three is performance.
So for the first few years, the Xbox One,
while a decent upgrade from the 360,
stood no chance at all compared to the PS4
as far as performance goes.
It was significantly less powerful,
which meant that many games ran at a low resolution,
lower settings, or both.
However all this changed when the Xbox One X
came out late last year.
For $500, you are getting the most
powerful console you can buy period.
Not even the PS4 Pro comes close.
Now sure, the PS4 Pro does do a good job
of using checkerboard rendering
to upscale images up to 4K, but for the most part,
this does not look as good as the Xbox One X,
which will often run games at a close to,
if not a full 4K resolution, you can see the difference.
This makes an interesting change.
So on the base end, the PS4 games
do look better than standard Xbox One,
but if you jump up to the One X and PS4 Pro,
usually the One X looks better.
It's especially noticeable when it comes to
big multi platform games.
Now this isn't always the case.
Sometimes PS4 Pro games can actually look very close
to their Xbox One X counterparts,
but with more memory, and more graphics horsepower,
it's really hard to argue that the Xbox One X
is not the most powerful console you can buy today.
Reason number four has to do with price.
While in the early days the Xbox One
was a lot more expensive, that is just not the case anymore.
Take a quick look through Amazon, and you'll find
that the Nintendo Switch is around $300 still,
where the PS4 Slim is around $280,
but the Xbox One S is available as low as $220,
and they're even some pretty decent game bundles
for $230 to $240.
Now mind you, the Xbox has a smaller 500GB hard drive,
compared to one terabyte on the PS4,
but it is really simple to upgrade your storage
later on down the line with an USB based SSD or hard drive.
Now things do change when you jump up to the pro versions.
So the PS4 Pro is pretty steady at $400,
whereas the One X is an additional $100, at $500.
The $500 One X looks even better
when you compare it to the PC market right now.
Now to be fair, gaming PC's have had a hard year,
considering how expensive memory and graphics card are.
But right now, it is just not possible
for you to build a more powerful computer
than the Xbox One X for less than $500.
And that brings us to reason number five.
Backward compatibility.
Now back in the old days, pretty much
all consoles would at least be able
to play the last generation's games.
However, the last few years, in fact the last 10 years or so
very few consoles have done it,
with the exception of Xbox One.
Now Sony does have PlayStation Now for the PS4,
which will allow you to play a lot of PS3 games
on your PS4, but the issue is,
is that it is entirely reliant on streaming.
So what you're going to have to do
is not only hope the game you want to play is available
in their catalog, but you're going to have to pay for it.
Either by purchasing the game again,
or paying to rent it, whereas on the Xbox side,
you can not only just re-download games
from the 360 you just already purchased,
but you can just put the Xbox 360 disk in,
let it take a quick download, and you're good to play.
From a technical point of view,
it was really impressive what Microsoft
was able to pull off here.
They've essentially built an entire Xbox 360 emulator,
that runs on the Xbox One.
So once you jump into a 360 game,
it pretty much is like you're playing on an actual 360.
It reboots into a 360 mode, and you're gonna get
pretty much all of the features and the games to run,
almost the same if not even slightly better
than they did on the original hardware.
What's even cooler is that if you have a Xbox One X,
you can play some 360 games in full 4K.
Now this doesn't work for all titles,
when you consider that you're getting a resolution boost
pretty much nine time the original hardware,
titles like Fallout three and Halo three
really do look incredible.
Now not all Xbox 360 games are supported on the One,
but there's actually a surprisingly large library,
and Microsoft continues to add games on a regular basis.
What's also cool is that the Xbox One
can now play original Xbox games.
Admittedly, this game library is a lot smaller
than the 360 titles, but it's a nice addition,
and all of these are totally usable with the original disc.
So, unlike a lot of the other options out there,
you don't have to re-buy anything,
you can just take your current disc,
drop it in your Xbox, and you're good to go.
I think Microsoft deserves some serious props
for making that happen.
The Xbox One is definitely not perfect,
but if you never gave it a shot,
now is a great time to get into the Xbox One.
Now, I'm curious.
What do you guys think about the One?
And what do you wanna see me take a look at
next time on five reasons?
Let me know in the comments below,
and I will catch you on the next one.