- I don't always have two OLED TVs in my living room.
But when I do,
it's for a side by side comparison
between the last generation Xbox One X,
and the brand new Xbox Series X.
Yes, my friends,
we're gonna be taking a look
at the backwards compatibility of the Xbox Series X,
and its performance in a variety of
last generation Xbox games.
After all, one of the main selling points
of the Xbox Series X,
since it doesn't have a ton of launch games,
is its intergenerational compatibility
going all the way back, not to the 360,
but even to the original Xbox.
This gonna be fun.
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(upbeat music)
Before we start,
I talked about this in the Short Circuit video,
but one of the things I like so much about the Series X,
is how, even if you've got
like a media console that's not designed for
standard home theater-width devices, for example,
this thing is gonna fit perfectly.
Like here, lemme get my VR,
like boom,
easy peasy.
All you gotta do is pull a Linus and
put like ventilation fans into your cabinet.
If you wanna see impressions of the console physically,
go check out our Short Circuit channel.
Today, is all about that gaming experience.
So both consoles are often,
of course our first test is gonna be to see
if that brand new super fast SSD velocity architecture
helps it boot up faster.
- [Both] Three, two, one go.
- [James] Oh, I totally schooled you.
- [Linus] Oh wow.
- [James] I was way ahead of you.
- [Linus] Yeah, but we don't have a signal yet, smart guy.
Oh, who's got a signal now.
- [James] But did you press the same time?
- [Linus] Oh yeah.
Look at that last generation 4K marketing.
Oh yeah, tip's only!
53.35, 'sup L?
Although we did discover that when the console is sleeping
it's actually almost the same.
So this is only gonna be applicable
when you're booting cold.
Oh, I'm in game, damn!
- Wow, did that just quick resume?
- [David] Yeah.
- From cold off? - [David] Yeah.
- Wow. - This is, freaking.
This actually looks really good.
Okay, let's see how many kills I get
by the time you're in game.
You know, what's pretty cool?
Even though I'm, as you guys know
kind of more of a, I usually I play games on PC,
when I'm gonna play games type of guy,
that was a lot faster than any gaming PC that I've ever used
to go from, not playing a game to playing a game.
Oh, you're so looks like dog crap.
- [James] Why? - [Linus] Are you sure you're
even running it 4K?
I think it is very fair to say that that is PC quality.
I don't feel like this is a
compromised experience right now.
I mean, other than this, but
like, look how squishy that is--
- [James] I'm in 4K. - That is disgusting.
Like, who can game like that?
All right, so let's see it then.
Apparently this is, in fact 4K.
It's just gross roadie 4K.
Because everything looks not just soft but less defined.
When we look at them side by side, holding still like this
the differences in image quality are
kind of subtle, I guess.
Like it's mostly down to the
lower rendering resolution on the Xbox One X.
Where you really notice it
is when you're running and gunning around
because this is a dynamic resolution game.
So what it means is that
the render quality can actually go up and down
depending on the intensity of the action.
That's why,
from the couch, I wouldn't be able to tell
the difference between these two now.
But when we're running around,
it's a night and day difference.
We're not gonna focus too much
on the differences in the interface,
just 'cause this is not final software.
So it wouldn't be fully representative
of what you guys are gonna get at home.
Wait for the full review of the Xbox Series X for that.
Not every game like DOOM Eternal on the One X,
is going to, you know
run smoothly, but just dynamically change the quality.
Monster Hunter World, for example here
does not run smoothly on the Xbox One X.
The difference between them side by side,
in terms of image quality,
I wouldn't say is that big.
But it's actually-- - [James] Actually, I think
there's some auto HDR happening on the Series
that makes it look a way nicer.
- Do we have variable refresh rate enabled on here?
Lemme just have a quick look at the settings.
Allow variable refresh rate.
No, variable refresh rate is not enabled.
So what that means then
is that that smoothness that I'm experiencing
is definitely just the Series X being
that much more fricking powerful,
than the Xbox One X.
I think a lot of people
are gonna be replaying their favorites on the new console.
This is a totally different experience
from just a
I don't know, just my state of mind.
- [James] Well, it gives you a reason to buy it at launch.
There may not be new games that you're excited about.
It just makes your other games better, so why wait?
- Backwards compatibility was a really good move.
- Let's go to an old Xbox 360 game,
to see how the auto HDR feature works.
Well, the other thing is,
Microsoft has said it's gonna work in all games,
except games that they deliberately take off the list
because they don't think it looks good.
- [Linus] To their credit,
they didn't overdo it.
I can definitely see some mistakes,
like where the HDR effect is too strong
and you end up blowing out the details a little bit.
But what's interesting is that
those same details are blown out for you as well.
So that seems to be an artistic choice
that just has an aged well,
as opposed to a flaw in the HDR conversion.
Nvidia recently has made a ton of noise
as part of their push for ray tracing in their marketing,
about how lighting can make such a big difference
to the perceived realism of an image.
And this doesn't have ray traced lighting,
or anything like that.
But HDR really is all about
the perceived lighting of a scene.
And you can really see a difference in our character here.
This one looks more lifelike.
And this one looks flatter and more video game charactery.
You can really see it on the metal, hey?
Of course, quick resume is only a factor,
if it's a game you played relatively recently.
So, I intentionally fully closed Final Fantasy 15
before this test.
Ready, and...
Hey, we managed to press it at exactly the same time
this time and you're already behind.
Oh, okay.
Hold on, so my bar is like (grunts)
- [James] Oh man, you're already 30% there.
- James' bar's like
- [James] Man, you're done.
- Wow.
- [James] I'm not even where of your bar started.
- You know what I'm really excited about, though?
Is now that consoles have fast storage,
game developers are gonna be like, "Oh yeah, hmm.
Maybe we could wake up and make loading times faster.
That would be..."
If you have a fast CPU
and you can decompress everything real fast.
It's gonna be great.
- [David] It's gonna make waiting for that dude who has a
hard drive when you play online, play worse.
- Oh totally, you know what?
I mean, do you remember when mini games,
while you were loading applications used to be a thing?
They might return!
Now, in this particular game,
I am not having the 60 FPS experience.
That is terrible.
Why would they do that?
- [David] Because locked 30 is better than like,
jumping between 35 and 40.
- Oh, not if you have variable refresh rate.
- [James] Oh my God,
look what's going on around my hair.
Is that happening on yours?
- [Linus] I think so, I think this just
- [David] That's just the (beep) about the transparency.
- Yeah, that's not very good.
You know what, this is the least impressive demo
I've seen so far.
- [James] It just goes to show how
the difference between the two consoles
really is gonna depend on which game.
Alright, now that you've opened up a bunch of games,
give us the demo of quick resume.
- [Linus] Let's go back to DOOM Eternal.
Boop!
Got the icon.
12, 13, 14, 15, 16.
That's pretty cool, less than 20 seconds.
Hold on a minute.
We've only got nine games installed and we're using
pardon me, 28% of our storage.
Is that with the extra one terabyte storage stick in it?
- [David] Oh, yeah.
- Wow, and most of these games aren't even next gen games.
People are gonna be upgrading
to those two terabytes storage units like
real quick styles.
So yes,
then the next gen consoles are priced very reasonably.
But, at the capacities that we're gonna need
for next gen games,
storage has become not only the central component of
the performance and the story from both Sony and Microsoft.
It's, by the time you're done,
it's gonna be half the price of your console.
In fairness, next gen games
aren't supposed to have to optimize for super slow media.
So they don't have to have multiple versions of an asset for
you know, every level, for example, like the same dumpster.
What did Mark Sonny referred to as,
like a stop sign or a garbage can or something like that?
Something like that.
So they should be smaller in that sense.
But knowing game developers,
the projects are gonna continue to get more ambitious.
So that's not gonna,
that's not gonna save us for long.
Are PC users all of a sudden then
gonna be bragging about like our hybrid storage?
Like tiered storage?
- Well, you already can just grab even a hard drive,
an external hard drive,
and just dump all your old games on there.
The loading times won't be as fast,
but you can run them off of there.
And just plug it into USB port on the back.
- That's a very manual process though,
compared to what you can do with something like
Primo cash, for example,
where you've got an SSD and a hard drive layer
and it just automatically elevates or
promotes or de-promotes
whatever you're using most frequently, so.
Then again, I mean, there's no reason these are just PCs.
There's no reason Sony and Microsoft
couldn't build such functionality
with an external USB drive.
Hint, hint, wink, wink, nudge, nudge, so.
I'm impressed 'cause this is a total experience changer,
even if the games don't look that different.
Although it's not gonna be for everyone.
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If you guys enjoyed this video, maybe check out,
Oh, go check out our impressions
of the Xbox Series controller.
It's well, it's slightly different.