It’s been a given that the newly-named Xbox Series X will be one of the most powerful consoles ever, with support for 8K resolutions and 120 FPS gameplay, and slowly but surely, we’re starting to see how its advanced technology will translate into an actual tangibly next-gen gaming experience starting next year.
Prior to its official unveiling at The Game Awards on Thursday, one of the few things we knew about the Xbox Series X’s technical specs was the fact that it will drastically cut down on loading times thanks to a Solid-State Drive (SSD). While that will definitely appeal to next-gen gamers, more hardcore players might be more intrigued by how the XSX will use that capability to upgrade a useful feature of this generation: suspending and resuming a game.
Most consoles these days, including the Xbox One, are capable of letting users pause a game, turn the console off, and then later pick up right where they left off without having to worry about saving first. Currently, this suspend/resume feature can only suspend a single game at any one time on the Xbox One, but according to Jason Ronald, Partner Director of Program Management for Team Xbox, the Xbox Series X will be capable of suspending multiple games at once.
The reasoning for this, he told GameSpot, is that, “Many players choose to play multiple games at the same time, being able to instantly jump right back where I was, those are things that we can do with the platform level to make the gaming experience better. It's really about ensuring there's less waiting and more time playing because that's ultimately what we all want to do with a with the consoles and with the services that we have.”
Just from that alone, it’s easy to imagine some tantalizing possibilities. The way Ronald describes it, it sounds like players should be capable of having a constant rotation of games they can instantly access at any moment, all without the hassle of reloading them every time. So, for instance, if one enters the lobby in a multiplayer game like Halo Infinite, they should be able to switch over to another game (like the recently announced Senua’s Saga: Hellblade 2) while they wait and then switch back once the match is ready to begin.
Besides the multi-game suspend/resume feature, Ronald and Xbox chief Phil Spencer opened up more regarding the Xbox Series X’s new controller and Microsoft’s plans for its Project xCloud game-streaming program going into 2020. They go a fair ways in painting the XSX as possibly the most streamlined and user-friendly console to date, though time will tell if it will offer a better experience than its competitor, the PlayStation 5.
The Xbox Series X launches in holiday 2020.
Source: GameSpot