So when Forza Horizon 4 came out and then just now with Red Dead 2, I almost pulled the trigger on buying those games and then wimped out when I asked myself, "Would I have a better experience if I had an Xbox One X?" So, now that the console has been out for a while, how do people who own it feel about it? Was the upgrade worth the cost or do you regret it?

(I would ask that you leave the Xbox's game selection out of that consideration)

Yes. Since I don't play on the PC, I'm buying all my third party games on the X and feel pretty good about playing the best console versions available.

I don't regret the purchase at all, and I did upgrade (as opposed to buying the X and it being my first time with an Xbox One). I love playing on all consoles I can get my hands on, so while the PS4 was largely the console I played on for most third-party titles unless my brother bought it on the base Xbox One, Xbox One X is largely the platform I play on now. I don't play on the PS4 that much now unless there are first party titles, like the latest Spider-Man. I've been hesitant about getting a PS4 Pro because I'd still be in the same position: getting it for first-party titles. Plus, you the fact that we may not be too far off for next-gen. I bought the system before I had a 4K TV and it was fine. That said, you should have or get a 4K TV if you don't already to get the most out of it. Before, I thought 'eh, I'm alright with 1080p' but now I'm not so sure.

Also, when it comes to game selection (I know you said not to mention it), while there are more and arguably better first party titles on the PS4, there are many cross-platform titles, and I think the X is a better buy than the Pro if what you're looking for is power and better visuals for those games. I am not someone that buys PC parts and puts them together (I've heard it's easy, but I've never tried to do it), but if that's a route you'd like to go in, you can probably get a much better PC than an Xbox One X for the price. I don't know. I can only say that I didn't regret it. It seems people do react differently to visuals, frame rate and what have you, so it may or may not be as impressive to you as it might be to another.

That said, if you do notice improvements, go for it if you have the money to spend on it. To me, it's all about playing the version that can get across best what the developers were trying to achieve, and the Xbox One X is the best place for that (aside from PC obviously). Oh, I also use Xbox One X as the multi-media system now too. I used to use PS4 for YouTube and Amazon Prime Video sometimes, but now it's all on the X. The only issues I have right now is that still, the dashboard can get a little slow from time to time, and Dolby Vision for Netflix doesn't work despite my TV supporting Dolby Vision, so either TCL and/or Microsoft have to fix it. I'm also waiting for the console to allow for HDR on YouTube.

Double oh, playing back-compat games on the X is great, be it enhanced or not (but especially enhanced).

If you want a console thats capable of pushing out Native 4k. The X is the only way to go.

While it's not as huge of a difference as a full console generation leap, it's definitely noticable if you have any 4K TV. I go back and forth between playing on my boyfriend's One S my One X (both connected to budget 4K sets) and I can easily tell the difference. It's even more prominent in newer games like AC Odyssey where the X is pushing close to native 4K and the S is sub 1080p. The games tend to just look clearer and just overall more polished (Less pop in, more consistent frame rate etc).

If you have a 4k TV then it's 100% absolutely worth it. I have an ok pc but I spend most of my time on my Xbox just because games look so much better with the 4k enhancements and HDR.

If you have the tv that can take advantage of the HDR and 4k then its the best game console out there. I dont know how much id need to spend to get a pc able to push pixels out the rate this thing does but i dread tot hink. I thought we were years off of native 4k/30 on triple a games but i was proven wrong, RDR 2 has exposed the PS4 pros upscaling somewhat as being suboptimal, I cannot stress how jaw droppingly beautiful and crisp rdr2 and forza horizon 4 look on the One X. Nye on photo realism

I also dont know how a box that small can do it, and to it so quietly... witch craft. Its the only console this generation that gave me the wow factor.

Yeah, it’s pretty great. I had one with a 1080p Bravia, at first. Games ran better and looked nicer. It was noticable.

After getting an LG OLED, and getting the settings to where I want them, some games will melt my fucking face. Witcher, for example, the open world in that game, the lighting and weather effects, everytime the sun plays off of something in any way, it looks unbelievable.

Thanks for your answers, folks, sounds like a unanimous opinion.

I got to use a co-workers X1x while cat sitting for him and I was impressed by how small it was, but I'm still happy with my X1s.

It’s real good. You can also offset the cost by selling your other Xbox. Look for Game Stop trade in deals. I traded in my launch XB1 for a $250 credit towards a Switch (which was $300) I then sold the Switch on Craigslist for $280 and bought the XB1X for $435 at Costco. Definitely worth the $175 or so for upgrading.

It's a huge upgrade over the Xbox One. Red Dead in particular feels like it was made for the X.

I got one recently after being tempted by Forza Horizon 4 on Game Pass.

I've always been a PlayStation gamer and still play on my PS4 Pro, but I really love my OneX.

Red Dead Redemption 2 looks stunning on it, and there is no fan noise at all, while my PS4 sounds awful while playing Spider-Man.

So if you can afford it and want to play Red Dead at its best, I say go for it.

I dont have a 4k TV but games still look noticably crisper on the X. (something about supersampling?) I only got it because it was on sale with 3 games. (including RDR2)

I'm not sure if the upgrade is worth the cost but you can always sell your old one and make some money back which is nice, and compared to PC componants it isnt that expensive.

That Digital Foundry report on Red Dead Redemption 2 finally made me cave in and upgrade to an X. I'm still using a 1080p TV, but the upgrade only ended up costing me around €200 and I will be getting a 4K TV once I move to a new place this winter.

I can't wait to see what the X has to offer at 4K HDR, but even at 1080p the results are impressive. RDR2 looks leaps and bounds better on the X than on a regular Xbox or PS4. In games like Halo 5 you can see quite a difference in the resolution and anti-aliasing thanks to super-sampling and draw distances are much improved. The Witcher 3 on the other hand gets those visual enhancements and also runs a whole lot smoother than before. Instead of buying Fallout 76 I think I'll just get the Fallout 4 Season Pass and going through all that DLC with a fresh outlook.

Also, backwards compatible games seem to get a big boost on the X. The original Red Dead Redemption and Halo 3 both look almost like current gen titles with all the graphical enhancements in play.

While the upgrade was somewhat of a splurge purchase for me, I am already quite happy with the results at 1080p and, like I said, am really looking forward to seeing it all in 4K. My current PC runs games great at 1080p and I've been able to play stuff like Forza Horizon 4 and DOOM on almost max settings, but I see myself going back to playing Xbox and multi-platform games on the X once I make the switch to 4K. There's no way I'll be getting a 4K-friendy PC in the next year or two, so it's nice if the X will allow me to experience those higher resolutions soon.

@isomeri: @boozak: If you’re impressed now, just wait until you get an HDR display. Xbox One X impressed my on my 1080p display, but the leap was several times greater from 1080p Xbox One X to 4K/HDR Xbox One X.

The X is a fantastic console. Red dead looks incredible and one of the most impressive things to me is that the X runs it without making a sound. No doubt, if I’d played this on the pro it would sound like a jet engine.

Yeah I went from a standard PS4 to an X for Red Dead/Forza and the image quality is noticeably better. Red Dead is kinda weird, I don't look at it and think constantly omg the graphics are incredible, it's a more subtle thing of thinking 'I genuinely don't think this could look better, I can't see any compromises'

I have been consistently amazed by how good games look on my X. Forza Horizon 4 is a visual feast and my wife said the colors were literally "dazzling". She said she had a hard time focusing on the driving and roads when everything was so vibrant and crisp. Totally worth it if you have a 4k HDR set, but for performance and upscaling it is a great upgrade for even normal 1080 TV's.

Phil and his team made the right short term correction by creating the most powerful console - unfortunately the one glaring drawback the Xbox ecosystem still faces is the subpar exclusive line up.
This is something that obviously takes longer time as you have to put serious cash on the table to convince any third party developer to go for Xbox exclusivity being aware that Sony currently has a much larger player base.
It seems obvious that after the apparent troubles Microsoft faced the past years focusing on third parties which let to painful cancellations of some of the titles expected to fill that gap, they changed the strategy to expand on first party studios to provide that type of content.

Microsoft should be in a much better position going into the next generation once these studios are able to contribute than they have been most of this generation.

Still I just hope Microsoft not only invests into first party studios but also critically looks back at the quality control. Not only did Sony provide both higher quantity and (arguable) quality of exclusive content - by and large Sony exclusive titles are launched without any major bugs, something that became a bit of a re-occurring theme on the Xbox exclusive titles.

I am very happy with it. Between it being the best place for 3rd party and the extensive back-catalogue that is ever increasing, the XB1 went from something I never thought id own as I enjoyed my ps4, to the only console I use

And I have to mention that I really love the upgrades to backwards compatible games. Even if they don't jump to 4k, having a locked 30 or 60 does wonders for last gen titles (which the X does more consistently than the base).

As far as impulse purchases go, I guess I’m happy with it. It helped that it was on a discount too. Not sure if I’ll play anything besides Hitman 2 on it ’till next year, but I’m looking very forwards to that still.

I went from a launch model to an S two years ago and then to an X last year. I absolutely love the X and feel it is entirely justified.

Does the X actually increase the resolution of a game on a 1080p TV compared to what the resolution of the game would be on a S model? For example, if a game is reported to be at 768P on the S model, will it be bumped up to 1080P on the X?

@ravensword: yes

@yesiamaduck: interesting. I thought maybe it would just improve FPS and aliasing on a 1080p, not actually increase the resolution itself.

I’m gonna try and get one soon. I’m interesting to see though if MS announces anything around E3 time though. Technically we are about due for a new console from both MS and Sony since it’s been a little over 5 years. But maybe MS and Sony are gonna try and ride out the X and pro more. I do wish MS would do a permanent price cut though, they ha e sales all the time for the X so I think it’s clear it probably would t hurt them too much to drop it by 100 dollars for good.

The only thing stopping me from buying an X at this point (as a base XOne owner) is not owning a 4k TV and the strong suspicion that a new generation will come out in 2020. It seems like a super solid product and Microsoft has been doing great with everything except their exclusives line-up lately.

@tds418: Honestly, that thought crossed my mind as well. But the way I look at it is I want to play xbox one more than I do, but the multiplatforms on the base model often suck, so the X is at least going to make them look as good as the PS4 version, if not better. which I'm fine with. and I'm going to get a 4K TV I assume soonish anyway since there getting inexpensive.