Poll: *** Xbox Series X|S - General Discussion Thread ***

[ricky1981]

No smell from mine and it's in a small room.

 

[Zatoichi.uK]

Any tried the dolby atmos app with headphones and is it worth it?

 

[Kreeeee]

Any tried the dolby atmos app with headphones and is it worth it?

There’s a 7 day trial.

 

[BlizzardX]

Its really annoying to find that the Xbox Console Companion will not stream from the Series S/X and the only way is android currently. Huge oversight from MS here to not have this sorted in the apps prior to release in my opinion, let alone the problem of not supporting Android TV.

 

[CaptainRAVE]

Well overnight FH4 has finished downloading along with Valhalla and Gears 4.

I must say coming from a high end PC I'm more impressed than I expected. The feedback from the controller is so many times better than the 360 controller I'm using, 4K HDR is absolutely glorious (next gen titles are going to be very impressive) and the audio with Dolby Atmos is ridiculously good (for some reason better than my PC setup, even factoring in my DT990s). I would actually say this, for the time being, has refreshed my joy of gaming. Last night I probably wouldn't have had a gaming session having had such a long day, but being able to lay back on the sofa was just great.

Does it auto upscale and auto hdr all 360 games? So if I download new vegas or fable it's already enhanced?
Is there a way to tell if a game has sx enhancements? So I'm downloading ace combat and don't know if I'm playing the original or one at 60fps with upgrades.

Did anyone answer this? The game 'box' logos will have the S/X enhanced logo. You can also search for S/X enhanced titles in the MS store - if you have game pass it'll tell you which are free for you anyway. Its quite handy. There were a few on there that I didn't know were enhanced.

Glad I got an extra 1TB storage, I'm already filling up the internal drive.

Once I've finished downloading the majority of games I think I may switch 'instant on', off. It seems to spin the fan up permanently, that can't be hugely great for it in the long run?

Any tried the dolby atmos app with headphones and is it worth it?

With a decent headset (TB 700 Gen 2s here) I'm actually very impressed with it. I tried it on PC and it was 'OK', but for some reason its just better on the Xbox. As above, there is a trial. Its worth watching some of the demos in the app, they give you a good flavour.

I truly think pc gaming has all but died for me personally with this gen of consoles - and that started already with ps4 pro a bit

I'll keep an ok graphics card for some older titles (mostly for accelerating apps)

Can't wait to see what we get next couple of years

I didn't think I'd be in the same boat as you, but yes, I am over PC gaming now that this gen of consoles looks as good, but also has features the PC doesn't. Quick resume, obviously still being optimised, is a huge benefit too. When I think of the cost of the X vs the money I've spent on my PC it blows my mind.

 

[pcfarrar]

The one I’ve opened works fine as far as I can tell, but it has a strange smell wafting out of it, it smells slightly like burnt capacitors, not full on, but a faint whiff.. in a small room it’s definitely noticeable.

There’s a video of one on Reddit with smoke coming out the top. Also a guy in the UK who was woken at 6am to a sizzling sound with smoke. I’d return your machine as that smell can be a warning of failure.

 

[dink]

Very impressed! Doom Eternal plays and looks as good as my gaming machine, controller isn’t amazing although I don’t mind it (gonna get the Elite 2 I think), box is dead quiet and very good build quality.

If shooters can remain a constant 60fps at 1080p, then I can see me moving away from PC gaming.

PS5 next....

 

[Mark1989]

Had a brief go on mine last night after setting it up.

Plugged in my external HDD and set the console up via the app. It was a breeze.

All my games and saves from the 1x were instantly available.

The series x is very well built. It doesent fit where I wanted it to go in my TV stand but fortunately there is a perfect spot just to the side of it.

I like the feel of the pad but the clicky dpad is super annoying. The tactile feel is nice but the click it too loud in my view.

So from the external HDD the first game I played was AC Odyssey. Didn't feel like any improvement at all. I'm guessing because there's no patch.

I then tried witcher 3. Again no improvement at all. So.I decided to move it to internal storage and do a fast travel test. The screen went black for the merest of moments and I was back into the game. Very clear improvement on load times but still no improvement on frames in my view.

I left the console copying a few select titles to internal storage and went to bed.

Anthem.
AC Odyssey.
Destiny 2.
Gears 5.

I also set the Medium to download too.

I will have a proper play over the coming days but so far for me there's nothing that's wowed me but I'm confident it will come with some of the imminent new titles.

I thought medium was delayed to December?

 

[Zatoichi.uK]

There’s a 7 day trial.

Will give it a shot just wondered if it was worth it. No idea how much it costs. Cant be more than a few quid i hope!

 

[Matson]

Controller impressions are interesting. Doesn't seem to be much enthusiasm for it here but on another forum there loving it and many are saying they prefer it to there elite 2. For me it feels muchly improved over the Xbox one controller. I was very surprised how good it felt. Love the Dpad and the clickyness it has and the controller just feels more compact and comfortable in the hands.

 

[Buckster]

My controller seems great too - better than my several One ones

Left X downloading a load of games - set off to 5 hours and it had managed to download Jedi and 99% of BFV - only another 8 or 9 to go lol

 

[CaptainRAVE]

Will give it a shot just wondered if it was worth it. No idea how much it costs. Cant be more than a few quid i hope!

£14 roughly.

My controller seems great too - better than my several One ones

Left X downloading a load of games - set off to 5 hours and it had managed to download Jedi and 99% of BFV - only another 8 or 9 to go lol

The servers are very slow, they aren’t maximising my quite limited connection.

 

[rickjames]

RDR2 still installing overnight, which isn't particularly surprising, ha.

Decided I'm probably going to look at a 4k monitor at 60fps, 2.1 seems a million miles away and too expensive for my liking...

 

[RedStarRiot]

Yeah, only managed to get Gears downloaded so far. Network is so slow.....

I kinda wish it was a staggered release rather than world wide as it might have resulted in less concurrent users.

Initial thoughts:

Console looks far nicer in real life, quite premium looking.

Controller, feels good and like the new dpad. I don't notice the clicks noise most folk are mentioning when in game really

Shame there isn't a really nice exclusive to showcase the power

The box it came in is a pain! Not worked out how to close it again!

 

[Kreeeee]

Will give it a shot just wondered if it was worth it. No idea how much it costs. Cant be more than a few quid i hope!

It’s £14 for a permanent licence for 10 devices. I bought mine the same day as trying the trial, I found it that impressive.

 

[chrcoluk]

Mini review.

I am surprised how limited the dashboard, is, simple options in the ps4 pro, such as how long the controller stays on for, dimming of controller light are missing. On the other the xbox UI allows you to store clips on external storage, move xbox series games to external storage, and has the popular 1440p resolution.

Controller feels cheap, and noisy, I expect over time, the changes I am not liking can be gotten used to although the noise would be something that will never sit right with me. One thing I will say though is that the share and options buttons on ps4 pro controllers are stupid, it takes considerable effort to press them, the buttons are raised easy enough on the xbox controller and are better positioned. I do wonder if the X controller is of higher quality, but I expect this would have been revealed in reviews if that was the case.

No optical out is a problem for people who capture content from the console or for whatever reason want to route its sound via something like a soundcard, hdmi audio is of much lower quality, especially on my capture device. I did eventually get round the problem though, an option is to use a cable from headphone sockewt on monitor to line in on soundcard which is an improvement from the sound on the capture device.

I feel the UI has usability issues, e.g. if you have several errors on network tests, in stead of pressing back once to go back to where you were, you have to do it multiple times for each error, which seems a bit odd and it may well even be a bug.

On networking, my Series S refuses to bring up a password prompt for my hidden SSID, and as such fails, all my other wifi devices, work fine with it, the xbox series S is the outlier, so its using my walled garden public SSID. In addition teredo IP doesnt work, which means I cannot pass the NAT test, I rarely play online gaming so not a huge deal for me personally but is a potential banana skin for others. (it still fails if I disable the walled garden). I also am not sure the reasoning behind using that service, especially for users who have native ipv6.

I find the store less intuitive than the PSN store, however the security features are superior, microsoft allows adding a short passcode for store authorisation, on sony its the full password that needs to be entered, and recently on my ps4 pro there seems to be a bug that even when I try to grab free content I get a message saying I signed in on another console and need to do a full security check. So a + here for xbox.

No themes to download that I can see, which is a disappointment, but also I observe much of the screen is nearly always covered which would block themes anyway whilst I see on the PS5 sony have put effort in reducing clutter on the dash so themes are visible.

The hardware in the machine is a slam dunk good deal type of thing, cannot complain for what you get for the money. The storage will be an issue for many people, but the solution for that is buy an external spindle, hook it up, and keep inactive games, clips, BC games on there, and it should be quite manageable. How much use I get out of this console during the lifetime will depend if microsoft pull out any classics like they had in the 360 era.

Also there is a 7 day trial for the ultimate pass, my plan is to stack that with the 3 month discounted code, and then review the situation after then.

 

[CaptainRAVE]

Mini review.

I am surprised how limited the dashboard, is, simple options in the ps4 pro, such as how long the controller stays on for, dimming of controller light are missing. On the other the xbox UI allows you to store clips on external storage, move xbox series games to external storage, and has the popular 1440p resolution.

Controller feels cheap, and noisy, I expect over time, the changes I am not liking can be gotten used to although the noise would be something that will never sit right with me. One thing I will say though is that the share and options buttons on ps4 pro controllers are stupid, it takes considerable effort to press them, the buttons are raised easy enough on the xbox controller and are better positioned. I do wonder if the X controller is of higher quality, but I expect this would have been revealed in reviews if that was the case.

No optical out is a problem for people who capture content from the console or for whatever reason want to route its sound via something like a soundcard, hdmi audio is of much lower quality, especially on my capture device. I did eventually get round the problem though, an option is to use a cable from headphone sockewt on monitor to line in on soundcard which is an improvement from the sound on the capture device.

I feel the UI has usability issues, e.g. if you have several errors on network tests, in stead of pressing back once to go back to where you were, you have to do it multiple times for each error, which seems a bit odd and it may well even be a bug.

On networking, my Series S refuses to bring up a password prompt for my hidden SSID, and as such fails, all my other wifi devices, work fine with it, the xbox series S is the outlier, so its using my walled garden public SSID. In addition teredo IP doesnt work, which means I cannot pass the NAT test, I rarely play online gaming so not a huge deal for me personally but is a potential banana skin for others. (it still fails if I disable the walled garden). I also am not sure the reasoning behind using that service, especially for users who have native ipv6.

I find the store less intuitive than the PSN store, however the security features are superior, microsoft allows adding a short passcode for store authorisation, on sony its the full password that needs to be entered, and recently on my ps4 pro there seems to be a bug that even when I try to grab free content I get a message saying I signed in on another console and need to do a full security check. So a + here for xbox.

No themes to download that I can see, which is a disappointment, but also I observe much of the screen is nearly always covered which would block themes anyway whilst I see on the PS5 sony have put effort in reducing clutter on the dash so themes are visible.

The hardware in the machine is a slam dunk good deal type of thing, cannot complain for what you get for the money. The storage will be an issue for many people, but the solution for that is buy an external spindle, hook it up, and keep inactive games, clips, BC games on there, and it should be quite manageable. How much use I get out of this console during the lifetime will depend if microsoft pull out any classics like they had in the 360 era.

Also there is a 7 day trial for the ultimate pass, my plan is to stack that with the 3 month discounted code, and then review the situation after then.

I mean that’s an excellent review of the UI

 

[BuffetSlayer]

I thought medium was delayed to December?

Hmmm. Don't know. I'm downloading something from gamepass.

Maybe demo then?

 

[pioneer2000]

There’s a video of one on Reddit with smoke coming out the top. Also a guy in the UK who was woken at 6am to a sizzling sound with smoke. I’d return your machine as that smell can be a warning of failure.

That is very alarmist. Mine also smells of electrical burning, but appears to be functioning perfectly. I imagine it will wear off in time.

lol you do realise in that Reddit video the Xbox isn’t even turned on?

 

[chrcoluk]

When mine got hot it was sitting on lost oddysey title screen, a xbox 360 game. But to be fair after I gave the right side vent some breathing room, it seems to have a measurable impact. These consoles need airflow.