Yesterday, I published some early impressions of my time with Microsoft's new Xbox One X. I'm generally skeptical about 4K gaming, but Gears of War 4 really was a sight to behold, even on my non-HDR TV. The machine was still a tricky proposition overall, but it was delivering on its promise of providing the best visuals I had ever seen on a console. And so I found myself leaning towards a positive experience with this thing. The feeling was, as it turns out, premature.
A cautionary word before any of this: these sorts of things happen. New hardware has a nonzero failure rate, and just because I and a few other people had issues doesn't mean we're in a red ring of death situation. It does mean that this is something I'll be keeping an eye on in the coming weeks, but it should not, at this point, be interpreted as some sort of failure on Microsoft's part. I also seem to be hexed: in this generation so far, only my PS4 Pro and Nintendo Switch have worked without issue, though plenty of other people had trouble with those. But I'm here to report on my experience with the X, and my experience over the past day has not been great.
Problems started when downloads started killing themselves for some reason: I had downloaded Gears of War 4 and Halo Wars 2 without issue, but then I kept getting a "something went wrong" error, followed by one of those delightful strings of letters and numbers that Microsoft likes to give. The error codes never corresponded to anything in particular, but I took it to just be network malarky. A global network of computers capable of sending the entire collected knowledge of the human race literally over the air sometimes develops problems, after all. I gave it a rest and came back to it in the morning. Things were worse.
At this point, the little Xbox logo would light up on the console, but no image would go to the screen: I tried swapping HDMI inputs and cords, but still nothing. Sometimes, it would finally chug to life about five minutes in, but it would refuse to sign into Xbox Live or respond to button presses of any kind. When things did appear to be working, the downloads would start killing themselves again. I tried to go into settings, but I'd get an error code when trying to load them. This is when I had a feeling things were going downhill.
After a point, I was able to get the console to turn on, send a signal to the TV and then load settings: I tried to do a factory reset on the console, which prompted a "preparing console" screen with a little progress bar. The bar hung up on 64%, then went to a "something went wrong" error screen. The console reset and then hung up at 50%. This did not feel like forward momentum, and after another cycle of this things were pretty clearly done for. I tried a few troubleshooting tactics given me by the helpful Raine H. on tech support (I may have been a bit crabby. Sorry Raine!), but nothing worked. As of now, we're processing a replacement console, and this is the way of things.
So, my Xbox One X is heavy and inert, with very little give on any side and a textured surface on top. These are qualities I look for in a brick, but not in a videogame console.
Nobody else at Forbes has described any issues with the X. I've seen scattered reports of other problems online, but there does not yet appear to be anything widespread. Other people seem to describe a console that won't turn on at all -- not even a light -- which seems to point to some sort of hardware/power supply issue, which is not what I was dealing with. Mine seems more like a software problem, though it's hard to know for sure where the actual issue was happening. I've contacted Microsoft for comment and will update with any new info.
All in all, not the best start, but again, it's the way of things.
