REVIEW: The new $500 Xbox One is incredibly powerful and far too expensive

The new, $500 Xbox One X is the most powerful home video game console ever made. With its beefy internals, the Xbox One X is more powerful than most home computers. It can power 4K and HDR gaming - the next major graphical step up after HD.

It's also the most expensive home game console ever made, only matched in price by the original Xbox One (which came with an expensive Kinect peripheral) and the original PlayStation 3.

It's not just you: $500 is a tremendously high asking price for a game console in 2017. The Nintendo Switch, which launched earlier this year, costs $300. The next best version of the Xbox One, the "S" model, costs $250. Even Sony's PlayStation 4 "Pro" model, which touts the ability to produce 4K and HDR games, costs $100 less than the Xbox One X at $400.

In short, it's a hard sell.

Whether it's worth your money is a more complicated question. Do you have an Xbox One already? Do you own a 4K/HDR-capable television? Do you consider $500 to be a major expense?

For me, however, it simply isn't. Here's why.