Xbox Series X unleashed: Our unrestricted preview

Glamour shots with Xbox Series X and its accompanying gamepad. [credit: Sam Machkovech ]

If you'd like to estimate Microsoft's confidence in its upcoming Xbox Series X console, start with the fact that the company gave us a console three weeks ago... and didn't hang around to see what we'd do with it.

That's not how cutting-edge hardware previews tend to work. There are supposed to be multiday events! And corporate handlers! And finger sandwiches! But mostly, there's supposed to be control on the manufacturer's part, in terms of swapping in new hardware or addressing failures the moment something might go wrong for a prospective critic. At such events, staffers may as well wear shirts that read, "We're still working the kinks out on that."

Obviously, the massive, in-person events didn't happen this year. So what do you do as the industry's game-console underdog in order to convince people that your $500 console is better than the other $500 console? One of Microsoft's answers, apparently, was to drive a truck full of "PROTOTYPE"-labeled Xbox Series X consoles to critics' homes far earlier than we expected.

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