So let me lay out my night yesterday after work. I leave work around 5:15pm, worn down and defeated, per usual. Nothing out of the ordinary here. I proceed to trudge to my car, blindly walking through traffic hoping maybe I’ll be struck by a port authority vehicle and never have to work another day in my life. Didn’t happen, no big deal nothing out of the ordinary still. I get in my car, suffer through traffic to get to my beautiful boi Deke’s house, for the greatest podcast in the world “Two Beers Deep”. I remember hearing something about a HOTO or HODO or something I dunno, doesn’t exist probably.
This podcast was great, we were all there, having a good time. We all introduced some content ideas on the podcast, it was insane. I suggested I’d fight Vo, easy content for SURE, I sat painfully through Austin attempting to say Rudolph isn’t a christmas movie. That’s fine, I’ll just put Austin in the clown car with Mayor Pete. Everything went great, went home, took the little pupper out and sat down to put some Twitch on and fall asleep. Me, being the non-intellectual that I am, completely forgot that the Game Awards were going to be on! Pleasantly surprised, I turn them on and bunker down. Awards are given out, SOMEHOW Bugha won esports player of the year over Faker, even though Fortnite is a joke, but I digress. Next thing I see, it’s a world premiere. COOL! There are numerous tonight so let’s see what it is.
It starts out as a like a little atom exploding and a world being created. Seems nifty, might be interested. Eventually, a supercar comes out of nowhere and I’m sitting there like, “Okay, plot twist, didn’t see this coming.” Then comes a soccer pitch and a soccer player, and THEN……MY BOY. The Master Chief out of nowhere, and I’m HELLA confused but also super intrigued. Next thing I know they pan out and it’s a little tall box, and BOOM.
MICROSOFT WITH THE SURPRISE OF THE NIGHT. They unveiled their next gen console for the whole world to see, all 900,000 concurrent viewers:
The Xbox Series X.
Let me be the first to tell you, this thing is a gorgeous piece of technology. It’s a tall rectangle, vastly different from most consoles, looking like it’s built to stand. It’s a rather simple design, but still quite aesthetically pleasing. I’m a fan of the design, but what’s inside is truly what’s remarkable. It LOOKS like a compact gaming PC. What’s inside is a large upgrade from what was inside the Xbox One X.
According to Microsoft, the Series X is targeting 4K 60FPS performance. The architecture comes from AMD in the form of Zen 2 and RDNA, with the addition of hardware-accelerated ray tracing, incredibly fast GDDR6 memory and lightning quick NVMe solid-state storage. If you’ve ever used a solid state drive in a computer, you’ll understand just how quickly it is. Like seconds to turn on quickly.
Ray tracing is sort of becoming a big deal in gaming, making things appear MUCH more realistic. As an example, they added ray tracing to Minecraft (not a graphically intensive game, but is arguably the best way to show the difference):
For comparison, the Series X is projected to have 4x the CPU performance of the regular Xbox One and 2x the GPU power of the One X, looking at about 12 teraflops of graphical performance. That’s on par with some of the top notch GPUs for PCs out there. I don’t know about you, but I will HAPPILY take the large bulky box to get this type of power.
To make it easier to understand, the Series X is essentially aiming to be a high-end gaming PC, in console form, without any of the hassle that comes with a gaming PC. Being that I’ve always been a console first kinda guy, this is music to my ears. I have my hesitance, especially when it comes to their projected 4K/60FPS stance, but I’m hopeful. I think they can do it, I’ve seen the leaps and bounds they’ve made from the OG Xbox One to the One X, it’s possible.
I personally can’t wait to see what Halo Infinite looks like and runs like on the Series X, and this will FOR SURE be a day one purchase for me. Without a doubt in my mind.
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I SWEAR TO GOD though, if someone comes up to me and just says, “It is a giant cube”, you will be exiled from my life. I exiled my girlfriend last night, NO ONE is safe. That being said, GET HYPED PEOPLE. Console gaming is on the RISE once again!
thoughtsfromthebench.com 