When Microsoft announced its Xbox 20/20 series of events earlier this week, it said that it will be showing off games that are Xbox Series X Optimized, only providing some brief context on what that means. Today was the first event, where the company talked a bit more about it.
The image above is the Optimized for Xbox Series X badge. Microsoft had a similar program for the Xbox One X, calling games Xbox One X Enhanced. That would mean that a game would play at 4K, HDR, or one of the two. Xbox Series X Optimized means more than that. It essentially means that the game will take advantage of all of the new features.
First of all, an Xbox Series X Optimized game will play at 4K 120fps. The base setting for the console is 60fps, so you"re never going to go lower than that. 30fps games are dead, at least for the Xbox Series X.
They"ll also support DirectX Raytracing (DXR), meaning that games can draw things like shadows and reflections in real time. The games will support DirectStorage as well, meaning that they"ll load faster, and of course, the SSD storage adds to this too. Smart Delivery is a big feature, and that means that you"ll get the version of the game that applies to your console. So if you buy a game on your Xbox One and then download it later on the Xbox Series X, you"ll get the Series X version.