What you need to know about the Xbox One X

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1.Supporting the Xbox One X is completely optional for developers
After having been direct competitors for so many years, it’s only natural that both Sony and Microsoft have started to look very similar. Microsoft introduced Achievements, so Sony brought out Trophies, Microsoft asked gamers to pay to play games online, and now so does Sony. The list goes on and on.
Sony has been very clear from the start that developers have to support the PS4 Pro if they want to release a game on the PS4. That doesn’t mean every game has to display in native 4K, but they’ll all have to be able to support the new hardware in some fashion.

But for many smaller developers the extra effort and expense might end up just not being worth the effort, especially while the install base for the Xbox One X remains small in comparison to the total amount of Xbox Ones (which themselves pale in significance to the amount of PS4s out in the wild).
This certainly makes it harder to work out if the X is worth your money right now especially since…

2. You don’t need an X to get lots of its most interesting features
Surprising though it may be, a lot of this $500 console’s features are available on last year’s Xbox One S, which retails for as little as half the price.
Now, to be clear, the headline 4K feature isn’t available on the cheaper console, which is unsurprising given the massive difference in power between the two machines. But buying yourself the cheaper console still gets you an Ultra HD Blu-ray player as well as HDR and Dolby Atmos.
The catch, of course, is that these features are only available in certain games (are you noticing a running theme here yet?). Gears of War 4 will support both, and Forza Motorsport 7 and Forza Horizon 3 support HDR.
However, while the exact nature of the enhancements might be unclear going forward, it’s not all doom and gloom since..

3. Non-enhanced games will still play better
Even if a game has not received an Xbox One X patch, it will still play better on the new console, Microsoft claims.
The data is certainly in its favor on this one. For starters the hard disk drive speed on the new console is much faster (50% faster according to Microsoft), which should result in faster load times.
But Microsoft goes even further with its claims. Because of the increased power inside the console, it says that texture filtering will be improved, framerates will be more steady and dynamic resolutions.
While theoretically we’d love every game to receive an Xbox One X enhancement patch, in reality we’d be ok if some of our favorites didn’t since…