Xbox One X - Switching from the PS4 Pro
As an Xbox 360 fanatic, I switched to PC gaming in 2011. After moving to a new house in 2016, there was no room for Triple Screen PC Gaming. I wanted a new and stable platform with 4K capabilities. The PS4 Pro released with 4K support and I wanted to see what they had to offer. During that time, rumors were telling me that the Xbox Scorpio wasn’t going to release soon. When the Xbox One X - Scorpio Edition was available for pre-order a year later, I decided to switch. In this blog post, I’ll explain why and what my current experiences are.
PlayStation 4 Pro
No cloud or automatic backups
I’m just a simple console gamer without the need for online gaming. On PlayStation, that means you’re losing a lot of features. Most importantly to me: games will not be backed up to the Cloud. So if your PlayStation hard disk crashes, you lose all your save games. Backing up a PlayStation 4 is a pain. It takes quite some time, requires reboots and you can only perform a manual backup!
No game downloads in standby
As I don’t have a Fiber connection at home and internet over cable is quite expensive, my download and upload speed is limited. I have enough bandwidth to stream 4K Netflix which is fine, until you need to download 4K games. PlayStation can download the games in stand-by, but requires an online subscription too.
Xbox One X
This is a big benefit for Microsoft, because they offer Cloud backups and game downloads in standby without a monthly subscription! I absolutely love the Xbox One X. First of all it’s really (really!) quiet and offers beautiful 4K footage. NBA 2K18 is one of my favorite games and the graphics of the courts and most players are incredible! After installing the mandatory updates, I’ve started to download the footage needed for NBA 2K18 and went out for some food. After I came back, the installation was finished and I started playing. It was such a great experience!
Stream Xbox content with the Xbox App
This is a killer feature from Microsoft! I use an Intel NUC DN2820FYKH with a slow Intel Celeron processor, 8 GB of RAM and Windows 10 as an HTPC in the bedroom. It’s fine for simple TV, NBA or Netflix streaming. I was surprised to see it is able to stream 1080P content from my Xbox One X in the living room! The Xbox Controller stays connected to the console in the living room next to the bedroom without any lag. I can even start the Xbox with the Xbox app and directly start playing games!
Controller
The controller that comes with the Xbox is a personal thing, but I’m happy with it as I like the lay-out of the thumb sticks and the feedback I get from the bumpers. Batteries can be easily replaced with new ones as I use rechargeable batteries. But the quality of the controller is not good at all. The left thumb stick on the Scorpio controller I received in the box was broken within a couple of days. It felt like the internal part was damaged. If you Google for “Xbox One controller left thumb stick cracking” you will find much more people facing this issue. Luckily the Microsoft Support is excellent and they replaced my controller by sending me a new normal controller and swapping the Xbox One X - Scorpio Controller with a new Scorpio controller. Unfortunately, this controller also had this issue and the 3rd controller is now on it’s way. Some controllers also have some sharp edges which feels cheap.
Some other things you should know
HDMI-CEC support doesn’t work well for me. When I started the PS4 Pro, my TV switched to the HDMI input. With Xbox One X, this is limited to powering on my TV/receiver without switching to the HDMI input of the Xbox. Looks like I’m not the only one, as this HDMI-CEC Support Uservoice Request is backed by 4.000+ votes. Achievements are not working for me in Forza Motorsport 7. The first achievement of “Welcome to Forza” is not even popping up where you need to complete your first race. I’ve completed and won several races already, but none of the achievements are popping up. Microsoft Support asked me to fill in a form so they can take a look at it. Luckily achievements for other games are working fine. [UPDATE] This issue has been fixed. I’ve also seen games crashing or not starting up with error code “0x8027025a”. After restarting the game, it will work. And if you shutdown the Xbox while you have a game like NBA 2K18 open, it will open up next time saying the connection was lost and you need to restart the game. If you shutdown the Xbox in F1 2017 while in the garage, next time you start the game all your telemetry is broken. So now I’m just closing all games before shutting down the Xbox. All this doesn’t feel right if you buy a console to play games on a more reliable system than a PC.
Final notes
After all I’m still happy with the switch to the Xbox One X. The graphics are great, the system is much more silent and powerful and I like the controller lay-out. I was really surprised to see that the Xbox app works so well on an old and slow Intel NUC. Let’s hope the Xbox platform will be more reliable soon.