It’s no secret that Microsoft was fighting an uphill battle with the Xbox One. The initial announcement of the draconian DRM strategy did not go over well, with Sony and the gaming community at large taking every opportunity to dunk on it. But over time, the console landscape shifted dramatically. Microsoft, along with Phil Spencer, completely changed the conversation.
Xbox Games with Gold provided players with permanent copies of 360 games. Microsoft extended its hand to other publishers, opening the floodgates for cross-platform play — while Sony opposed the program for another year, only relenting for certain big-ticket games. Xbox Game Pass utterly shifted the landscape of "generations," becoming the first major successful "Netflix for games" concept.
That philosophy extends to the Xbox Series X family.
[Since this is our first of the two new hardware reviews, here's a quick side note. We've made both articles fairly uniform, so you can compare and contrast them together when the PS5 review hits. You can find our Xbox Series X unboxing article here.]
