Last year in September, Microsoft launched its "Designed for Xbox" program which, as the name says, certifies products and accessories that have been designed to work with the Xbox to give customers the best experience. Today the company is expanding that program to include monitors that it believes will work best when paired with an Xbox Series X|S.
In its blog post, the company has really stressed the capabilities of monitors that can take full advantage of new consoles" powers. In particular, HDMI 2.1 seems to really be the focus of this program and it"s easy to why because the HDMI 2.1 standard is capable of up to 48Gbps bandwidth which is enough to push 8K60, 4K120, and even 10K.
HDMI 2.1 also has several gaming-centric features like Variable Refresh Rate (VRR) support, Auto Low Latency Mode (ALLM), and Quick Frame Transport (QFT). So users with a monitor that has HDMI 2.1 input would be able to take advantage of these features on their Xbox Series X|S.
The HDMI 2.1 also has a few other features too which include:
- Dynamic HDR support,
- eARC connectivity,
- Quick Media Switching (QMS).
In terms of products, a few Designed for Xbox displays have also been announced. They are:
- Philips Momentum 559M1RYV 55” (video promo above)
- ASUS Strix Xbox Edition Gaming Monitor XG43UQ 43”
- Acer Xbox Edition Gaming Monitor XV282K KV 28”
A feature common in all these monitors is support for FreeSync Premium Pro. For those who don"t know, FreeSync Premium Pro is the highest tier for FreeSync monitors designed for taking advantage of HDR content, high refresh rates (>120Hz), and also has low framerate compensation (LFC).
These monitors should become available this summer says Xbox and more such Designed for Xbox monitors are also planned for later. You can read more about it here.