The Xbox Series X Is Finally Getting A Higher Resolution UI

Interesting that the actual resolution isn't revealed. Is it 4K? Will it stop the screen flicker when transitioning between a game and the dash? So many questions right now LOL

If they aren't specifying 4K then I can't see it being 4K, they would shout that from the rooftops, it's probably 1440p, which is fine with me.

To be honest 1080p is fine anyway. Looks good enough on my 55 inch LG C9.

As always, performance is the most important factor so they will have selected enough of an improvement to resolution to look a little nicer without any sacrifice to speed. Hopefully. Haha.

well that's great for the privilivged alpha ring users now isn't it

Nice I guess? I don’t have a problem with the UI being 1080p though, it serves its purpose I don’t get why it needs to be higher to be honest.

Just hope it hasn’t taken RAM memory away from game developers for usage.
I’m sure I remember Xbox saying they left it at 1080p HD to give developers as much RAM pool memory as possible for games.

I'm having a real issue with certain games taking a long time to open. Today I tried opening a game (can't remember which) and it didn't open, so I gave up and decided to have a quick game of FIFA online instead. 10 minutes up (and when I was 1-0 up to boot) the game I'd tried earlier suddenly started and crashed me out of FIFA! Anyone have any idea what that could be about?

Similarly, I can't seem to open Halo Reach in MCC, despite it being installed, it just crashes me back to the MCC title screen. Never played it before and so far it looks like I never will! Very frustrating

I don't know. Seems a lot of effort for very little return. Heck, I was taking a picture of an icon on my XSX main screen to send to a buddy and already looked amazing... and that was a phone pic, translated into a jpeg, then further sent in a Text.

@The_New_Butler for the most part I agree except for one thing- the UI being 1080p might be an issue because some TVs flash to black in between resolution changes.

Some people hate the look of the 1080p UI. Sure PS5 UI looks a little sharper, but it's also irritating and borderline unusable to navigate.

The more irritating part is if you drop to your menus/settings/download queue while playing, the screen flashes and switches modes with a delay. That's pretty irritating, but it doesn't sound like this fixes that anyway, unless they keep HDR enabled (though some have complained about Disliking PS5's implementation of doing that.)

@phoenix1 Every major feature update goes through the Flighting program before it reaches the general public, so this is "the norm".

Sometimes, it's only a matter of weeks before it gets released to the public, depending on the feature.

UI is easy to navigate. I've seen people complain it's not 4k and now it is. Edging the small gaps and going leaps and bounds.

@phoenix1 it's being rolled out to insiders first in the same way every system update is. They're literally testing it out before it's made available to everyone else. That way any issues get ironed out before release and people like yourself have nothing to (legitimately) complain about.

@The_New_Butler I'll give it a crack, although I do this fairly regularly anyway as I'm often swapping it to a different room. Thanks anyway!

@Fenbops The main issue with the UI being in 1080p is some TVs flicker as they change modes from the game back to the UI. Otherwise it looks good enough really.

Just set console to display 4k and bam it displays the UI in 4k. Nothing new. The one x even does this but it slows down loading the store and gamepass lists. If playing on a larger tv and can’t read large text at even 1080p. Check your eyes out.

@NEStalgia Funny how people have such different opinions. I think the PS5 is soooo much easier to use but don’t notice any difference at all in sharpness between the two. I abhor the Xbox UI.

I'm in the alpha ring don't have a series console though just a one s

@Fenbops from Jason Ronald tweet not long ago, “ No impact to resources for games”

@FatalBubbles are you new to the Xbox ui, or were you an x1 owner? If you're new, it'll grow on you most likely. You just have to wrap your brain around the idea the home screen isn't really used, everything is on the Guide menu just like the Windows Start menu. I had the same experience when I jumped into x1x after skipping x1 prior, but once I got used to it, it's my favorite UI. It's just so functional.

If you're not new and didn't like it since x1 though, then, well, yeah, I guess it's all opinion. As far as ps interfaces go, I never loved the PS3 XMB, but I like it more than the PS5 social interface with a backwards ps button. PS4 interface was ok, not great but functional. It had folders. The Vita interface was wonderful though. Easily Sonys best interface.

PS5 on the other hand flips off the standard conventions of not just every other console, but every other playstation, too. The handling of the PS button alone makes me want to throw the controller at the TV every time I use it. And the menus just seem arbitrary. I suspect it's unfinished, but almost a year later isn't inspiring confidence. Switches UI has been unfinished for 4.5 years. . I like the PS5 in general, but the interface, while pretty seems so counterintuitive.

@The_New_Butler I thought I was literally the only person who preferred the simplicity of the switch interface.

@The_New_Butler Switch has no folders and makes organizing a big digital library almost, but not quite as impossible as PS5.

XB, vita, 3ds, wiiu (marred by slowness), come ahead of PS4, 360 come out ahead of PS5, switch, and PS3 when it comes to library management. Those are really bottom of the barrel there which is bizarre as the most digitally focused consoles of each brand.

UI looks just fine as it'is in my SeriesX, never care for more res and my 4k tv has no flikering issues, If other users have flickering problems I guess it's fine to have a higher res UI, so everybody have the best UI experiense. And us Jason Ronald said the higher Res will come with no more Ram ressourses used, so I'll take it as it is then....

@NEStalgia I really do not like the PS5’s UI it’s a step backwards compared to the PS4 UI in a lot of ways. Everything is an extra button press or two away or not even featured yet.

I hate the forced HDR too and hope MS never integrate it into their system. It makes games that do not support HDR look worse in most cases and I see no actual benefit to a UI being HDR. Last 4 games I’ve played on Xbox are Deaths Door, The Ascent, Omno and now dodgeball academia. None implement HDR, the Xbox recognises that and doesn’t push it. I much prefer that to the fake forced HDR of the PS5.

Great Job Microsoft

@Fenbops If I am not mistaken PS5 actually added an option to only apply HDR to supported titles. I have this option enabled, "on when supported".

@Roqka I’ll have to have a look for that thanks.

@NEStalgia I’ve owned every Xbox and PS back to the beginning so neither are new for me. The PS UI just is so much simpler and cleaner to me. It’s not a big deal either way, I just thought it was interesting how vastly different we looked at them.

I Never had a problem with it being 1080p The people that seems to have a problem with it were PS5 fanboys, youtubers and games media

@Fenbops Yeah, I've heard some complaints about the HDR thing on PS5. I haven't noticed an issue with it personally, but it's certainly possible there is one. The main thing is that it doesn't make the TV flash and pause (some screens take a while to switch between HDR and non), which can be annoying on XB (or PS4.) Sometimes if you have a complex HDMI chain it can end up losing the signal entirely. So I thought the permanent HDR thing was cool, but I didn't know it messed with games. I think the main things I've spent PS5 time on are Gravity Rush 1 & 2 and TCS1, lol, so if it's had a negative impact, I guess I lost out already. I'm curious about that setting to disable it as well (and curious to see examples of it making things worse.

But yeah, it seems like everything takes multiple button presses and shouldn't, or is the inverse of how every other console does it (short press for power menu (at the end of the row), long press for home screen...just...why??)

@FatalBubbles Well, I think if the PS5 interface was the first console I ever owned, I would like the interface well enough. But the social connection stuff gets in the way, to me, I'll never use it. If it had folders, and, really, more home icons rather than that small handful and then too many button presses to see the rest, and, seriously, the feature most used is the power button. why does that take like 500% more button presses than any other console to get to?

But the one thing that infuriates me more than any other is the Samsung-like idea of changing how the menu button works. Every. Single Time. I want to check sometime I short press PS. Which just brings up the shortcut menu. Every single time I want to turn the machine off, I Long Press the PS button, which takes me to the home screen. Every time! And worse, once it takes you to home, pushing the button again doesn't get you back into the game like every other system....so then you end up 2 layers deep, and have to manually press through to go back to the game. Contrary to Xbox, Nintendo, and all prior Playstations. Just why? All it does is mess with long-standing muscle memory. It's like making a shooter and mapping fire to left trigger.

@The_New_Butler Yuck. Nono. Folders are king. The day XB got folders, and the best folder implementation is the day it became my favorite UI. PS4's folder implementation was.....serviceable? Kinda? 3DS/WiiU had a good one.

I guess it depends on the size of your library. My XB library including game pass games I'm trying and gold games is over 300 titles thanks to bc. Over 100 on PS, maybe 50 or so on Switch. Just aimlessly scrolling through alphabetized lists is a painful way to find something, I have to know what I'm looking for before I look for it, and then I have to remember "does it start with 'the', etc." Then there's collections like FFXIII, where there's FFXIII, FFXIII-X2, and Lightning Returns: FFXIII which are not located next to each other where you'd expect an anthology. Or worse, the Assassin's Creed series. Then Switch's default is "last played first". I've avoided playing games because then that icon will be at the front of my home screen and replace the convenient access to games I play more often that I want there. PS5 suffers from that as well, except it has even fewer titles up there.

With folders, I just sort them when I add them like a digital media database (Adobe Lighttroom, etc.) So I have a folder for Sims & sports, a folder for Strategy, a folder, well, two for RPGs because I have too many and there's a limit on folder size, so I have RPGs and JRPGs separated. "Action" games where I have Assassin's Creed games, and the like, "Shooters" where the Halos go (in order, just as a book library would have them on a shelf), etc. Yakuza gets it's own folder because there's so many darned games in one collection. And playing them doesn't randomly split up their order or replace front page icons. Nothings more annoying than playing Yakuza 4, and now that's at the front of your entire OS above things you play often, and now the end of your library has Yakuza 6, 2, 1, 0, 3, 5.

It sounds totally OCD saying it, but imagine a real physical book shelf, and you put the M,N,O encyclopedia volume in the first spot on the top shelf after looking up "Marsupial" and slide all the other books over a shelf, and just leave it that way, and the only way to put them back in order is take all the encyclopedias off the shelf and put them at the top. That's the Switch method by default. OTOH imagine Alphabetizing it all, and now The Hobbit part 2 and two will always be separate from LOTR: The Fellowship 1&2, LOTR: The Two Towers 1 & 2, and then your off-publisher special binding print of "The Return of the King: Lord of the Rings" part 1 is in a different place on the shelf than the standard edition of "LOTR: The Return of the King part 2", and your home icons are all just the random last things you looked at.

If there's no folders, organizing all that stuff is a mess. Rather than a library it's like having to google every time you want a title.

It might not matter as much if you're mostly an indie gamer because everything is a 1-off deal. But then you have Pillars of Eternity..... (no longer indie, but still...)

The Xbox UI is my favourite and I don't mind the 1080p UI on a 4K TV if it makes the UI or games smoother but I'd like it to be HDR-compatible so you don't get the no-signal screen for some seconds every time you jump back to a HDR game.

@NEStalgia I agree, Xbox UI is the best and I like the Wii U UI more than Switch, PS4 and PS5.

@NEStalgia It just sounds like you want the PS5 UI to be the Xbox UI. 😛 I can understand the dislike of the button pressing since Xbox is a little quicker to do those things though.

@FatalBubbles I'd settle for the PS5 UI being the PS4 UI. They made it prettier and less functional all in one go....

I wasn't a big fan of the PS4 UI compared to Xbox UI, it still had a lot of clunkiness going on, but really, the basics it got right. Power menu, dropping to home, folders, checking downloads, etc. It definitely took less button presses than PS5. And it had a store that was complete...

@NEStalgia I feel like Xbox and PS swapped this gen. Xbox had a great app and now it doesn’t even have a store and PS one is better. PS UI did get clunkier.

@FatalBubbles LOL, so true, I'm still irritated by the app store going missing. I bought all my games through it. Why get rid of that? I assume it has something to do with Apple skimming stores, but how is PS doing it?

@SplooshDmg PS5 UI feels like they tried too hard. Well, the home screen they tried not enough. The store is still borderline useless, and the handful of icons they permit us is almost comical. But the bottom feels like the stepchild of Mac OSX Aqua when it first launched around the millennium. It's very Apple almost mockingly so.

What, nobody likes the new Xbox app that lets you browse games with pages say "this exists, go use a PC with a keyboard to buy it?"

@JetmanUK The problem isn't that the UI doesn't look good enough - you are totally right, 1080p is plenty sufficient for that. The issue for a lot of us is that the constant switching between the 1080p of the UI and the 4K resolution of games/streaming/etc. can really mess with some equipment. Particularly if you have any type of AV switcher or receiver.

I too am a bit worried that they didn't say "4K" - I was so excited when I saw this headline. This is honestly the only gripe I have with the Series X - it's a beautiful machine, I love everything else - but the constant resolution switching is a PITA.

Never understood the bid deal about the UI being 4K, I mean you're not playing the dashboard..