Microsoft recently launched the Xbox One X, their mid-generation upgrade to their current home console hardware, and there’s no doubting that the work they’ve done on the launch and everything surrounding it has been commendable. Not only are the specifications and the capabilities of the Xbox One X really impressive, it’s also surprising to see those specifications being backed by so much support by way of games.
Albert Penello, the head of marketing at Xbox, recently sat down for a talk with Gamesradar, and among the many things he discussed was the fact that there are currently so many games that are supporting the 4K capabilities of the Xbox One X, some of the big ones being games such as Forza Motorsport 7 and Assassin’s Creed Origins.
“When we went out and announced back in 2016 the numbers and that we were going to be able to do games in 4K there were a lot of people that were skeptical,” Penello said. “Especially PC gamers, because they would say “well, on a PC that’s not enough” but internally we knew because we had run the games. We knew that we were going to be able to achieve those goals and we knew what the development environment looked like. So all of this had developers first in mind and so now we see 160 games announced so far that are Xbox One X enhanced.”
Penello says that Microsoft were able to pull off such support for the Xbox One X thanks to the fact that they made the machine with the developers who will be working on it in mind first and foremost. “On a typical console launch there are maybe 20 games that take advantage of the box,” he continued. “We’re going to be in the 50 to 70 range, so that’s pretty remarkable. That wasn’t accidental, that was because we had a very specific focus on the developer and their experience.”