Microsoft's most powerful Xbox yet is called 'Xbox One X,' and it costs $500 (MSFT)

pulse

June 11, 2017 10:21 PM

The Xbox One X is Microsoft's most powerful game console the company has ever created. It costs $500 and launches November 7.

This is the Xbox One X, Microsoft's upcoming iteration of the Xbox One. It's capable of playing games in 4K, and powering movies in 4K UHD.

LOS ANGELES —The next version of Microsoft's long running Xbox line of video game consoles is named Xbox One X. It costs $500, and launches November 7.

Microsoft detailed the new console during a press briefing in Los Angeles. The Xbox One X looks strikingly similar to the Xbox One S (Microsoft's previous console), but is notably smaller.

The other big difference about the Xbox One X is how powerful it is.

It's capable of powering 4K gaming — the next step up in graphical fidelity after HD — as well as 4K Blu-ray discs. It's got "six teraflops" of processing power, which means it's far more powerful than the current models of Xbox One and PlayStation 4 — even the new, more powerful PlayStation 4 Pro.

The console is being touted as the most powerful game console ever made, and Microsoft says it's also the smallest Xbox ever made.

Aside from being powerful and small, the Xbox One X is an Xbox One: It can play all your existing Xbox One and Xbox 360 backwards compatible games. It also works with all your existing Xbox One accessories, from gamepads to racing wheels.

A variety of new games are coming to the Xbox One X in 4K, including a new entry in the "Forza Motorsport" racing series, a new entry in the first-person shooter "Metro" series, and a new entry in the third-person action "Assassin's Creed" series.

All were on display during Microsoft's press briefing in Los Angeles on June 11, and they were all quite impressive. Perhaps most impressive of all was "Metro: Exodus," a first-person shooter series set in a post-nuclear apocalypse Russia. A trailer showed a player carefully creeping through a sewer tunnel, fighting off mutant animals of some type. It was gorgeously detailed and genuinely impressive for a home game console.

Xbox One X was previously announced as "Project Scorpio," and Microsoft only showed off its chip at the time (seen above). The Xbox One X console is expected to launch on November 7, starting at $500.

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