Our review of the Xbox One X was as comprehensive as we could get at the time. Microsoft set our embargo roughly one week after our systems arrived, along with an assurance: the system’s “enhanced” catalog of major games, designed to tap into the X’s beefy, $ 500 spec, would be ready ahead of the embargo.
That wasn’t quite the case. We tested roughly a dozen enhanced games (and whether older games benefited from X power) ahead of our deadline, which was enough to declare a few things: what the system is capable of, its general value, and the issue of relying on patches that only a fraction of Xbox owners will tap into. As we said, publishers barely touched Kinect, an add-on that used to ship with every Xbox One. It’s a bit apples-and-oranges, but we still have to ask: will developers devote more effort for something with less adoption?
More patches have rolled out in the days between our embargo lifted and the system’s public launch, and, after testing them, we wanted to give you a fuller sense of what to expect from Xbox One X. In short: after adding impressions of another dozen high-profile games on Xbox One X, our system review is unchanged. Some games get incredible, obviously apparent boosts on 4K sets. Others don’t. And while the console is great—and sometimes stronger than PS4 Pro—your purchase decision should probably hinge more on the games you already own, the games you’d like to own, and whether you own a 4K TV.