Microsoft's Xbox Series X and Series S consoles turned a year old on November 10. Within that year, Xbox released a few first-party console games (like Psychonauts 2 and Forza Horizon 5), and its new consoles saw several well-received third-party console exclusives as well, such as The Big Con and The Artful Escape.

Rather than deliver a traditional "the year that was" retrospective, we're instead going to cover the features, services, and games that most surprised us in the first year of the Xbox Series X|S's lifecycle. From a love for Smart Delivery to a welcome reprieve from scrolling through social media, here's all the biggest surprises from the first year of the Xbox Series X|S. When you're done reading, be sure to check out our corresponding list of what most surprised us about the PS5 in its first year.

Smart Delivery is essential

Xbox threw around a lot of buzzwords ahead of the launch of the Xbox Series X|S. Chief among them was "Smart Delivery," which Xbox used as a catch-all term to describe how cross-generation games would work on Xbox One and Xbox Series X|S. Basically, if a game released for both consoles, you only needed to buy it once--the Xbox One would know to play the past-generation version of the game and the Xbox Series X|S would know to play the current-generation version. It was all automatic.