The Xbox One X Is, Sadly, Exactly What We Thought It Would Be

With all the bright lights in LA shining down on them, Microsoft finally revealed Project Scorpio – now known as the Xbox One X – to an eager gaming world. After months of anticipation, this was the moment that we’d all get to see the system that Microsoft has been hyping up as the most powerful gaming console ever made.

To be fair, it is the most powerful video game console ever made. In fact, Xbox One X is pretty much the exact console that Microsoft has been selling us on for about a year now, and that’s a problem.

While it’s a good thing that Microsoft didn’t spend too much time dwelling on the processing power of the Xbox One X given that stats like teraflops don’t exactly make for exciting presentations, it’s hard not to feel like the Xbox One X reveal is the most underwhelming console reveal in recent history.

Chalk that up to the way that Microsoft approached the marketing of this new console. Last year, everyone figured that Project Scorpio was going to be either a next-gen device or a 4K upgrade for the current Xbox One. When Sony revealed more and more details for their 4K PlayStation Pro, Microsoft was forced to counter by letting the cat out of the bag and revealing that Scorpio was indeed a 4K upgrade.

Since then, they’ve been slowly revealing information about the device while Sony and Nintendo have been releasing new consoles. To be clear, the Xbox One X is looking like the exact 4K console upgrade that Microsoft should be releasing. To be even more clear, it’s the exact console that they should have released sometime last year.

Now, however, the Xbox One X feels like that guy on Facebook who always seems to be a few days late with big news or the latest viral video. Yes, the information is still technically relevant, but the thrill is certainly fading away.

What’s worse is that Microsoft didn’t really do much to subvert people’s expectations for the Xbox One X. It’s priced at $499 which is a little above the optimal console price and a little below a complete disaster. It’s scheduled to release on November 7th, which is about the timeframe we worried that the Xbox One X was going to be released given how far behind it currently is.

If Microsoft had released a more powerful Xbox last year, that would have been perfectly fine. If Microsoft had released a more powerful Xbox this year that was surprisingly affordable or loaded with new features that we previously hadn’t thought of, that too would have been fine.

Instead, we got the exact console that we thought we were going to get. While that’s hardly the end of the world, you can’t help but feel like the Xbox One X is just a little too ordinary.