As reviews pour out today for the Xbox One X and "The world's most powerful console," I can't help but sit here and be stumped about this transitional era of gaming we're currently in. Next Tuesday, gamers will line up at midnight, miss work/class, and sit with glee as they shell out over $500 for a console that is going to be as obsolete as quickly as its past predecessors, and frankly, already comes with a much larger price tag.
But Terraflops, but 4K, but enhanced games.
Yeah, I know. The Xbox One X is the most powerful CONSOLE in gaming, but what does that really mean? For starters, it means you need a 4K TV to get any enjoyment out of it. At its cheapest, you're spending about an additional $249 on that alone, and the buck continues well past that.
Surely, many of you have already read about the abhorrent file sizes of Xbox One X games. Yeah, turns out it isn't just the PS4 Pro that has trouble optimizing 4k. Halo V soars past 100 GB's for it's enhancement, and newer games like Quantum Break hit 150 GBs like it's nothing. Current speculation is that the average Xbox One X will hold 9 games digitally before the Terrabyte Hard Drive is full, which means you're going to need something much bigger to keep any library of games on this console. That's another $79.99 for two more TB's of data, which isn't wallet breaking, but still not ideal.
So say you buy all that, and hell, it's a new console release so why not throw a new game on top of it, we're talking all in price of 4K on console is about $930. At that point, you can throw an extra $70 down on that value and build yourself a pretty awesome gaming PC with one monitor and it'll last you a whole hell of a lot longer than the Xbox One X. That's not starting a flame war, spouting fake news, or whatever you want to call it...that's a fact.
And really, I'm just taking aim at Xbox One X because it's the new kid on the block. I had the same gripe with the PS4 Pro, and so did several others who suddenly have rose colored glasses on now that Microsoft is attempting the exact same thing. There's certainly a justification to buy an Xbox One X provided you already have the 4K setup and just want a console that will optimize it, but if you're planning on building your entertainment setup strictly around this console, that's a terrible idea.
Truth be told, this isn't the next era of gaming, it's the gaming industry seeing if they can push consoles like tech companies do phone upgrades. The next era of gaming should be transformative, not slightly shinier with an increased file size. This is why I'm adamant on the fact that 4K isn't really worth buying into on console.
That's just my two cents though, and I've ranted long enough. Let me know what you think about the Xbox One X, PS4 Pro, and this movement to create a low rent gaming PC on television below.
