Early Xbox One X Reviews Praise the Console's Power, Ponder Its Need to Exist

This article first appeared on USgamer, a partner publication of VG247. Some content, such as this article, has been migrated to VG247 for posterity after USgamer's closure - but it has not been edited or further vetted by the VG247 team.

The Xbox One X is here, and everyone has opinions on Microsoft's little powerhouse console-including us.

Thinking about upgrading? You should check out our Xbox One X review first and foremost, because Kat possesses the clearest, purest voice on the Internet. We can also answer all your questions about the Xbox One X's specs, price, and game library, and offer some game recommendations.

Once you're done with all that, you should read other sites' reviews of the Xbox One X. We graciously grant you our permission. In all seriousness, most of the Xbox One X's reviews share common traits: They marvel over the console's power, but waffle over whether the purchase is worth it given the Xbox One's lack of exclusives and the availability of the cheaper PlayStation 4 Pro. There's also the matter of gaming PC's getting cheaper all the time-and unlike the Xbox One X, a gaming PC can easily be upgraded.

Here's a sampling of Xbox One X reviews from other sites:

Digital Foundry
"[I]t all comes down to whether you own a 4K screen or are considering investing in one. The right ultra HD display with decent HDR support really does offer a huge improvement in many cases over standard 1080p. (...) Work needs to be done on beefing up the lacklustre 4K media support, but as a top-tier games machine, Xbox One X is an excellent piece of kit."

Ars Technica
"[T]he Xbox One X leaves players with less power and performance flexibility than a slightly more expensive PC, and it so far struggles to really stand out as a clearly superior option over the cheaper PS4 Pro in many use cases (FIFA 18, for example, looks practically identical on both consoles). This console leaves its most impressive improvements to the publishers' mercy for now; that's a position no gamer ever wants to be stuck in."

Engadget
"The biggest knock against the Xbox One X is its $500 price. The PS4 Pro launched at $400 last year, and there's a good chance we'll see plenty of deals around the holidays. If your friends are on Xbox Live, or you're a devotee of Microsoft's first party franchises, then the X makes more sense. If you just want to play third-party titles that come to both platforms, though, the PS4 Pro is clearly the better deal."

The Verge
"[T]he X does offer the best graphics currently possible on a console. If you don't care about Sony's exclusives then the Xbox One X will be the best console to play all the cross-platform games coming out. (...) For anyone else, this probably isn't the console for you. Sony really has some impressive exclusives on the way, and it's hard for Microsoft to counter this despite its great job on the hardware. Microsoft promised the best hardware, and it delivered-but that's nothing without games."

Techradar
"[I]f you're a gamer who just wants a console that plays great-looking games without digging too deep into your pocket books, the Xbox One X is a bit overkill - save some money and buy yourself an Xbox One S ... preferably the one with a 2TB hard drive."

The Next Web
"Like the PS4 Pro before it, the Xbox One X is a weird console. It improves graphical fidelity, but doesn't meaningfully add to the core gaming experience. In Microsoft's case, you don't even have access to VR titles yet. As such, it's not an obvious recommendation the way the usual generational upgrades would be."