Not gamers, displays.
S - 1080p/1440p
X - 4k
I think the Series S is aimed at gamers who have never, or maybe not recently owned or played an Xbox. Itâs a pretty easy onramp, especially if you go with the All Access option, pay $25 monthly to get a console, an online pass, and a bunch of games to play right there day one. I didnât really get what Series S was all about until the reveal, and itâs pretty clearly set up as a Game Pass box. That might be tempting to some folks. I would assume somebody at MS probably ran some numbers about that.
I disagree - I think thereâs a reason the S more or less is similar to the performance of the last gen. I think the market (as perceived by MS) is that of a last gen console buyer. They seemed to have perceived that âSâ gamers are a market that for whatever reason would by its nature not buy full price current gen consoles. Instead of forcing them to do so, MS seems to be offering a modern âlast genâ upgrade option. Donât waste your money on a last gen console, they seem to say, hereâs something in your price range thatâs even better and is a better experience than that old and busted last gen thing.
Thatâs the best conclusion Iâve conceived. Because thatâs what it is - last gen performance with modern improvements and future proofing.
I think my question is do we get games at some point that run only on Series X? S is sort of tempting as a gamepass box for the TV as a secondary console to the PS5.
You keep saying this but I donât understand what you base it on.
The CPU improvements and addition of an SSD for the Xbox Series S will mean games can run a lot more smoothly than they ever did on the Xbox One X. âThere are also opportunities where we can enhance the titles on Xbox Series S even further than what we can do on Xbox One X,â says Ronald. âIf you look at the raw power of the Xbox Series S, if a title wants to go in and double its frame rates itâs actually really easy, because weâve more than doubled the GPU performance and more than doubled the CPU performance, so itâs relatively easy for a developer to go in and enable that if they choose to update their title.â
I think they mean âenhancedâ S version of games vs X version of games, though i admit my eyes get a bit crossed thinking about these differences.
But youâre saying a Series S is âlast gen performanceâ, which just isnât the case. We donât yet know exactly how a game played on Series S vs Series X might differ, probably because thatâs going to vary somewhat from game to game. But we know that the Series S brings much more to the table than the Xbone.
I think itâs a kind of corporate inertia, actually. One reason Apple prices the iPad Mini to be more than the lowest end iPad is because it helps them perceive that cost is not the only factor going into the purchasing of it. They might not exactly know why people are buying them, but if they have a supply chain for them humming along, itâs kind of no skin off their teeth to keep cranking them out.
MS developed this âsplitâ console generation last time around with these X and S variants because of that mid-gen upgrade, and corporations being what they are, were probably loathe to rock the boat and drop the S and X distinction. But they also couldnât just keep producing the Xbone as the low end product for various compatibility and supply chain reasons. Once they decided they needed both an Xbone tier product and a next gen product compatible with next gen games, you can kind of see how the S+S series S came into existence. And engineering teams being what they are, iâm sure they set upon it with aviditity and did a good job.
But i guess my (final?) conclusion after way too much time distracting myself from the modern political world thinking about it is that itâs the end point of a process where the goal was an Xbone tier product replacement rather than a lower tier version of the series X.
In this case, I choose to take them at their word, that itâs all about having options. If you want the best performance and like owning a console, youâve got a Series X. If youâre price sensitive or donât have a 4K TV, thereâs a Series S. If you want to play the games but youâre happy with doing so on a PC, thatâs an option too.
Letâs assume that their end goal here is to get as many people as possible on Game Pass, which I think is probably a pretty reasonable assumption. Youâve got folks who bailed out during the Xbone generation, probably a decent number. Would they be tempted back by a $499 high end console? Maybe. But I think the Series S probably looks pretty good to folks who are on the fence, or folks who are looking at maybe a second console, like some folks mentioned upthread. And their dollars are worth just as much to MS as someone like me, who plans to use the Series X as their AAA machine, like I did with the One X.
Thereâs masses of people who arenât fixated with 4K, or always having the absolute highest graphical settings. The want a affordable, capable machine that can play the games like Madden, Fortnite, etc which this will do just fine. The fact it does 1440p or only 1080p doesnât affect them. As dive said, pair it with GamePass and its a great value.
Also the Series S is a âNext Genâ console.
1080p upscales to 4K easily. MS said they paid extra attention to the upscaler.
All of that is equally true of the Xbox One S which is even cheaper. I think what the Series S ignores is that there is an aspirational aspect to buying a next gen console. Even if you donât have a 4K TV right now, that doesnât mean you never will. If youâre the kind of consumer interested in buying a next gen console right away, the chances are you are also the kind of consumer who sees themselves upgrading their TV in the next few years.
Except that there are people in this very thread expressing interest in picking up a Series S.
Shocker, some people are price-sensitive.
Then why should it be a shock that console manufacturers might cater to such people?
It isnât for me, theyâll sell a ton of them if it lives up to their promises-- itâs just like the XSX and all games play perfectly, just at 1080p.
The hubris about Xbox Series S will die down after the Sony crowd secure a PS5 pre-order. They are just a bit angsty while constantly refreshing their carts at retailer websites this past week.
Whatâs going to be really funny/sad about BC will be games like Ninja Gaiden 3: Razorâs Edge. Microsoft snuck it in just before they shut down BC releases to work on next gen, but they didnât give the game One X enhancements, so itâs stuck on the original 720p resolution (err, it might be lower than that, but it doesnât matter).
But the Series S might end up playing that game at 1440p based on the Eurogamer article above, and they likely wonât bother backporting that to One X.
So Iâd have to keep my One X to play NG2 at 4K60, buy a Series S to play NG3RE at 1440p, or buy a Series X to maybe play them all at 4K120.
Of course I wonât do any of that since I can survive 720p, but it goes to show how silly BC can get for obscure games.
SSD (as standard) will have a much larger impact on the new generation of console games than 4K graphics. The Switch proves how little graphics matter nowadays to mainstream gamers.
As long as games play as well on the Series S as they do on the X, then it can clearly still be considered a next-gen console.
As the owner of 6 Xbox One X consoles and a One S - only two of which are on 4K TVs - the Series S is exactly what I need - an affordable way to upgrade to the next generation power for the 1080 and 1440 displays in my family.