1624

Microsoft’s next-gen Xbox Series S console leaked earlier today, just before the company officially confirmed its $299 pricing. Now a new leak is providing more details on exactly what’s inside the smaller Xbox Series S. Twitter leaker WalkingCat has posted a promotional video for the Series S, confirming that the console is targeting 120fps gaming at up to 1440p resolution and offering 512GB of storage.

The Xbox Series S will also include support for ray tracing, variable rate shading, and variable refresh rate. Microsoft is also including support for 4K media streaming, and even 4K upscaling for games. The video also reveals the Xbox Series S is the smallest Xbox ever, and it will be 60 percent smaller than the bigger Xbox Series X.

The 512GB storage could be a challenge given modern games regularly exceed the 100GB mark, but it’s still possible the Xbox Series S will include the same removable storage port found on the larger Xbox Series X. Microsoft isn’t using a disc drive in the Xbox Series S, so storage expansion will be a necessity.

1625

Confirmed to be £249 in UK, the price of an XBox One S / £50 more than the One S All Digital (which is the better comparison as no drive). That’s a pretty amazing price for that level of power. It’s going to go so well with Gamepass subscriptions and offer a cheap entry point into next gen.

If the rumoured price for the Series X is indeed $499, even that will be surprisingly affordable for the enthusiast crowd. I’d think MS is waiting for Sony to come out with their prices before confirming the Series X price though. Now that we have a baseline and rumours, they don’t need to rush anymore.

https://www.eurogamer.net/articles/2020-09-08-xbox-series-s-finally-revealed-priced-usd299

1626

That will look less dumb if the console is horizontal.

1627

Exactly as leaked, so we can get past the “will they/won’t they” BS now. It’s a 1080p version of the XSS.

And rumors are saying you can get one with Game Pass for $25/month. The XSS will be $35/month. If true this basically means the XSS will be $499.

1628

$499 is a safe bet since that’s the price that leaked along with the XSS price yesterday.

1629

Yep. Assuming a 24 month period, that’s an additional $15/month for the XSS ($360 total paid) or $25/month for the XSX ($600 paid) which makes perfect sense for $299/$499.

Those are incredibly attractive prices for many people. Imagine getting the latest console and playing a shitton of games on Game Pass for only $25/month. Microsoft has a really sexy service offering here.

If Sony comes in at $399 with their diskless PS5 that would be an interesting competitor for core gamers, particularly given that they actually have exclusive titles. But for new gamers, that game pass is tough to beat.

1630

Guessing to hit that price it will also have a smaller amount of slower RAM too. Probably 12GB/GDDR5.

1631

Wonder if we will get any Digital Foundry style X v S for games before these things ship, would be nice to have a more practical understanding on how games will be different across the two.

1632

Shots definitely fired there.

At least for me this 100% makes it less of a big deal there’s no major launch titles in the pipeline anymore. $299 is easily doable for me just for faster loading times and better experience on xb1 games.

Edit: And I can’t be unusual in that aspect as that was the whole sell for X1X, and this is cheaper than that was.

1633

That’s an attractive price for a Game Pass box. I’d be curious to see how it compares to the One S and One X on “current gen” games - though they’re really blurring the lines with generations this time around.

I couldn’t care less that it’s ugly since it’s going on a shelf. Would be nice if them and Sony were offering a black console but meh, whatever.

1634

It’s a 1440p version of the XSX for $300. Pretty fantastic if you don’t absolutely have to have 4K. A lot of TVs don’t support that resolution though - just monitors.

1635

Up to 1440. I’ll be a rare case for myself and and actually agree with Stusser. The games for this version will mostly end up being 1080p or 1440p DRS where they run at 1080 most of the time.

Just noticed if you put the thing on its side it will look allot like a small Xbox One S.

1636

Well sure, but nobody has a 1440p TV.

1637

Are you hoping for an external disc drive compatibility, or you mean older games via gamepass/buying digital?

1638

I was very very slightly hoping for disc compatibility but only because my friend lent me Jedi Fallen Order and I stopped playing it because of load times. That’s literally the only XB1 disc I’ve ever used since owning this system though, all the rest have been digital and GP games so I’m not too upset about that.

1639

Right. I’m slightly bummed about a lack of a drive, since for the last three years I’ve been buying old wii U games for £5-15 off ebay, rather than £40 through the Nintendo store, but I can’t get away with the cheaper XBox for that tack.

1640

Rumored specs copied from r/hardware:
CPU : 8c/16t Zen @ same clocks as Series X!
GPU : 20 CU RDNA 2 @ 1.55ghz
RAM : 10GB GDDR6
Drive: NVMe (capacity unknown atm)
Rumor to run auto-upscaling through some new MS ML algo, that they trained on their Azure cloud. 1440p 60hz for high quality games, and 120hz for fast games.

1641

Huh, so we get a price announcement on the Series S, which didn’t officially exist yesterday, before the Series X. Hopefully that will be announced shortly.

1642

There’s a separate graphic floating around that also says $499 for the XSX. I’m guessing it’s legit. Now just tell me how to pre-order the X an$ I’ll be good.

1643

Have you been on the internet long? :)

To add that it definitely sounds like the price MS might be considering. But that graphic didn’t seem to have any particular claim to legitimacy so far.