Xbox One X: 10 Critical Reactions You Need To Know

7. Loading Times Are A Mixed Bag

"In terms of loading times, we saw an extended Witcher 3 load drop from one minute 45 seconds to just 45 seconds - remarkably, Xbox One X shaved off an entire minute. A fast travel jump in the same game also saw loading times drop from 45 seconds on a base Xbox One to just 19 on Xbox One X." - Eurogamer

"Loading the first campaign level of the native 4K-enhanced version of Gears of War 4 took the One X roughly 20 seconds, compared to 10 seconds for the standard version on a One S. On unenhanced games, loading times appeared inconsistent in our tests so far. Some were quicker on the X than on the S, and others were slower. We’ll keep testing this on other games." - IGN

"On a launch Xbox One, Middle-earth: Shadow of War took 51 seconds to load a save from the main menu; the Xbox One X cut that almost in half, to 28 seconds...The Xbox One X’s loading advantages were much more marginal for Xbox 360 games. The system shaved just two seconds off the loading times for a Battlefield: Bad Company 2 campaign mission and the open-world racer Burnout Paradise. And I couldn’t tell much of a difference in terms of performance or image quality, at least for those two titles." - Polygon

One of the more interesting responses from the reviews so far is the wildly mixed response to the unit's loading times.

In slightly older games without 4K enhancement, load times seem to be substantially reduced, while games with 4K enhancements enabled sometimes take longer than the One S due the additional required texture load-in.

As for backwards compatibility, the loading difference sadly seems to be pretty negligible, and though overall there's not a clear, objective conclusion on how the One X performs under every loading condition, it's fair to say that it's impressive and disappointing in different areas.