My bullet point impressions of the Series X after the first 2 days.
For context, I came from PS4 (base), still owe a 1080p TV, and never had an Xbox One (owed X360 previously). So my views will be skewed from Xbox One / One X owners on 4K sets.
Love:
* Gamepass is worth every penny, especially for a guy like me who skipped the Xbox One. And double so doing the Live Gold -> Gamepass conversion. I basically paid R1950 for a R5400 3 year subscription. For R1950, you can not even buy 2 new games nowadays, but I'll be playing brand new MS (Halo Infinite) and Zenimax games "free" for the next 3 years. This is by far the best special I have ever gotten. Also, current games on there are brand new games to me (Halo 5, Gears 5, Gears Tactics, Ori, Forza Horizon 4) but even gives access to other titles I haven't played yet like Jedi Order, Rage 2 etc, so to me the launch lineup is just fantastic. I'll have enough games to keep me busy for months. Gamepass is a next gen feature no matter how you cut it, and great value.
* Backwards compatibility. I'm sure some would becry this as just "replaying old games", but fact is MS has a real sleek solution here. Not only do they upgrade graphics or FPS, but the new loading time really makes this a pleasant experience. I was shocked to find some of my old X360 games available on the store to play as well. This is the new gold standard for compatibility in future.
* The quick resume is really great. I no longer have to actually quit a game or even go back to its main menu. Just stop right where you are, even if you are dangling with one hand gripping a lose rock above a cliff, and just press the home button and forget about it. Next time you enter the game, in only a few seconds you are back to your acrophobic scenario. Best of all, quick resume even even survives a restart of the console.
Like:
* It's black. I'm sorry Sony, but in the end this actually added some weight to my decision to go with the Series X. I don't owe a modern, minimalistic, slick white IKEA cabinet in my house. I'm all about the dark wood, black appliances vibe in my entertainment centre. The Series X fits my audio receiver, my X360, my decoder and yes, even my PS4. I'll grab the PS5 when a black slim edition comes out. I just can't do white.
* Controller. I know this is not the PS5 haptic feedback amazeballs controller for this gen, but my favourite shape for a controller has always remained the X360. The Series Controller, although nearly identical to Xbox One, is like coming home to your labrador waiving his tail at you. Who's a good boy?
Loathe:
* This is really no fault of the console itself, but losing all my cosmetics of a year and a half of playing Apex Legends, really stings. The Battlepass skins are just gone forever. I just don't understand why EA could not centralise your account. I mention this because I am sure other games probably suffer the same fate if you jump from the Sony side or vice versa. This really stings more than anything else, and it's not really MS' fault.
* The UI. *Rant warning*.
I might just be struggling with the newness of it all, but oh, Microsoft. A massive software house that goes out of their way to make things complex. Just like replacing the control panel in Win10 has created a mess of settings that literally needs more clicks to accomplish the same thing, and most people are forced to use the search to even find things - I feel that same spirit carries over to the Xbox UI and this irritates me more than it should. On the console, the focus should first and foremost be games. It's not.
The Home page consist of 6 tiles of your most recent games/apps, and a shortcut to your Games and Apps menu. The rest of the screen is wasted on "showcase" items that they hope you buy, and I could not care any less about it. Spam me with a showcase when I go into the Shop, not on the Home page. Now, the most recent items should not be a problem in most scenarios, but the 6 tiles is just not enough, especially if it gets cluttered with every single thing you do like go into settings, or launch apps like Youtube or Netflix, or setup your new Xbox causing you to explore all kinds of things. Now your "most recent" is utterly unusable for launching a game - on a GAMES CONSOLE! I can't launch a game, on a games console, on its home screen!!! What are they thinking? Let the recent apps scroll to the right, or split games and apps, or instead of wasting space on the spotlight items, let me create my own shortcuts then. Now I have to open the Games and Apps, scroll down to games, filter it by most recent, and find my title there. Its a mess. Even the old "Blades" system at least isolated my games in one place.
Thank goodness for quick resume! On the guide button I can find the games in "paused" state an launch from there, but there should really never be a scenario where I don't see at least a handful of games on the home screen.
I can write an entire other paragraph on how my MIC refused to work in-game, because of a Win10-like Microphone security in my profile that I had to dig through menus to find; I can mention how I need to tap 7 times just to get to the setting to adjust volume on my mic, or how adding a game to home does nothing but clutter up the interface even more with a total seperate page for the one game.
I'm sure I will get "better" at navigating the console efficient and fast, but for now I've gone and deleted all the cluttered rubbish I could. I just want to launch a bunch of games. It's should really not try to wrestle me for it.
* Lastly, I miss the real next-gen launch titles. There are some great optimised for Series X titles (like Gears 5), but I really feel that it lacks that "This is why you buy a Series X" moment, like Ryse:Son of Rome or Forza 5 did. I haven't tried AC:Valhalla or Watchdogs, so can't comment on those, but for first pary, it feels like MS was putting all their eggs in the one Halo Infinite basket. By next-year this will, of course, be a non-issue.