XBOX ONE X $500
New system impressive, just like its price tag

Microsoft's Xbox One X delivers on its promises to bring gorgeous gaming into the living room. But after spending time with it, the company still has some convincing to do on its price tag before it hits store shelves on Nov. 7.

For those who haven't heard, the Xbox One X is the long-rumored "Project Scorpio" and what Microsoft is touting as the world's most powerful console. It's packed with impressive technical specs: triple the memory of the Xbox One S console Microsoft released last year, graphics that top the PlayStation Pro, a terabyte of storage. The list goes on.

Aesthetically, the Xbox One X isn't much to look at — it's essentially a smooth black box. It doesn't have to be that pretty, because it's more important what the games do.

And there's no denying that the games look great running on 4K. Even if you don't have a 4K television, the console will use a technique called super­sampling to enhance the clarity and color of whatever it's showing.

Even Minecraft, which is known for its blocky aesthetic, gets a visual boost. Little details like highlighting the edges of blocks make a noticeable difference to the overall look of the game. Players can also see farther within the game's world at any given point and can add shine and texture to the blocks in their game that really pop in the 4K resolution.

The demos showed off that games look fantastic on the Xbox One X and offer developers more options to make games even more immersive down the line. But that's down the line.

And that conclusion might be fine with Microsoft, for now.

However, it is $100 more than the competing Play­Station Pro from Sony. So when it comes to buying a new system, most gamers probably either have their console allegiance set or will be relying on exclusive games to decide which of those two machines is right for them.

On that front, Microsoft is touting a launch lineup with breadth — it showed off 42 games at the Xbox One X's launch news conference, 22 of which are exclusive to Microsoft at launch.

Those include the latest "Forza," "Crackdown 3"″ and "Sea of Thieves." For a niche market of gamers, those games plus the Xbox One X's power and future potential will make it worth it.

But not necessarily for the rest of us.

WASHINGTON POST