Xbox Series S - World Premiere Reveal Trailer

Introducing Xbox Series S. Next-gen performance in the smallest Xbox ever.

[IRetrouk]

Price v performance is good, its not for me as when I do eventually get another xbox its gonna be the series x, but the value can't be denied, that hard-drive is smaller than I thought though, I thought they would have kept the same size as whats in the series x, overall though it seems like a good buy as a second console/one for your kids, once the games start flowing.

[RazzerRedux]

Price is good for a sub-4K console. PS5 DE will need to be $399 at most. Anything more than a $100 gap is going to make Series S very attractive. As it is, I wouldn't be surprised to see Series S outsell Series X at that price.

[bouzebbal]

The games are what sell consoles.. Compare switch with xbox one, less power, more expensive far better games.. It's the overall value that counts, not only power/price ratio

[IRetrouk]

For ps5 I'm still going with £350 digital and £450 disc, thats been my guess since the reveal, longer for the disc based system, I also think the s will sell more than the x, but i don't think it will matter to ms, they want subcribers to gamepass, thats what they will push, already evident with the better with gamepass stuff in the announcement.

[ocelot07]

I can see Sony giving this a sucker punch and dropping a non and announce a $379 or dare I say $349 price.

But I got to give props for Microsoft for this $299 for a 1440p machine is amazing. Normally I would say maybe pay the extra and spend $500 on a 1440p pc. I still do think you would get more value in a $500 pc but this is great value.

However, Sony could make this a hard sell if they do indeed release there much more powerful ps5 de for $399 or less. If they do Microsoft could throw in a year's sub of gamepass with each console to try and combat it. But then Sony could throw in a year's ps+ or ps now to counter that move.

[RazzerRedux]

@bouzebbal

Of course games are a factor, but so is price. That's a damn good price.

[anubusgold]

@ocelot07
Sony isnt giving out brand new games day one like game pass does.

[ooquis]

Lol

[darthv72]

Price isnt the selling point for me. That form factor is. Right now I have a SAD on my living room tv and it fits right next to the cable box. This is the perfect replacement as it looks to be no bigger than that.

I just upgraded my tv too. Went from 47in 1080 LG to a 55in 4k Samsung.

[TheScotsman]

Don't think price is the issue here, it's a seriously under powered console, with no games. That devs have to cater for. Ps5 digital could be 449 and it would still be better value than this series s machine

[Brazz]

If ps5 DE nail 399 than it will be a much better value. More than 2x times more TF, better SSD, more memory, for just $100 more? It's a big win for playstation on my book, much better value.

[ocelot07]

@anusbusgold

True but you get what you pay for really. Pay a pound a month and get access to old titles plus some ok first party games or get spoilt with top notch AAA exclusives you can only find on a certain console?

[KaladinStormblessed]

@ocelot07 There ain't any way a $500 PC is running anything at 1440p at much more than 30 fps

[boing1]

If you want PS5, you buy PS5. Not really sure how a price can change someone's preference suddenly. I agree with second console sentiment though. It'll stand right beside PS5 that's why it's white&black.

[morganfell]

For most people price and value evaporate at a rather rapid rate when one begins to look around at what is being accomplished at greater cost. They can turn their head and tell themselves they got a good deal but the gnawing begins and never really goes away.

[DJStotty]

Don't expect PS5 DE to be 100 cheaper, it is a PS5 without a drive.

I would say 50 cheaper

[robleroy]

The xbox series s is just comparable with a ps4 pro without disc-player and no 4k native gameplay (ps4 pro has both)
Thus without the option to buy and sell games (so pro gamepass)
My estimate is that the ps5 de with 10 terraflop , a faster sdd io system and a better Game name brand and more expensive controller will sell for at least 450 because of this 300 priceTag
Definition of next Gen gaming should be at least native 4K.

[xer0]

It looks like Microsoft just threw another crutch at developers.
Theirs no way every company is going to optimise for these specs (in order of processing power).

Xbox One
Xbox One X
Xbox Series S
Xbox Series X

On Sony... developer just have to choose to optimise for PS5.
Done 👏

Just like they took away Kinect and retracted their anti-consumer software... they'll be announcing that developers should focus on Xbox Series S and X soon enough.

I'm pretty sure they'll drop support for Xbox One and Xbox One X.

[darthv72]

The SS will have some 4k stuff but it will be all the existing games that currently support 4k on the One X. The SS is more efficient than the X so anything the X can do, the SS can do as well as run next gen games at 1440 that the SX could do at 4k.

It makes for a nice entry level machine for streaming media and digital games.

edit: @xer0, the one X is discontinued and being replaced by the SS. The XBO is also going to be phased out so that really leaves just the two 'Series' machines. SS for the low end and SX for the high end. As far as PS5, that will be somewhere in between.

[xer0]

@darthv72 - when are they phasing them out?

Microsoft announced in their presentation that developers need to support the Xbox One.
Could you kindly point me to a source?

[Christopher]

What? Are you serious? You think a 2.5x greater TF improvement at 4k is only worth $100 more? Graphics cards alone don't follow that logic.

[RazzerRedux]

@Christopher

"What? Are you serious? You think a 2.5x greater TF improvement at 4k is only worth $100 more? Graphics cards alone don't follow that logic."

Are you responding to me? I didn't say anything about "worth" at all. I'm talking about consumer's perceived value in the price gap. We have already seen that consumers of consoles are not buying based on teraflops. Base PS4 continued to outsell PS4 Pro and Xbox One X after they were released.

[waverider]

Attractive. Dude, right now the upgrades are better choices then something that is outdated and its not even on the market. This will only undercut the sales of the series x... And get ready for the the price of the series x because something with a gpu 3 times more powerfull and much more RAM and faster will be... This is 300...

[1Victor]

No offense but if you’re going to have a DIGITAL EDITION with 512 gig SSD might as well not release it. Anyone that ever downloaded a game for the current gen knows a PS3 era storage amount(512 gigs) is useless when you have games worth 50gigs this gen and who knows how big they’ll be next gen and don’t forget the operating system that will eat up from those 512 gig 🤦🏿
Good luck with that 🤷🏿 I was expecting minimum 1tb for the digital editions

[Christopher]

***I'm talking about consumer's perceived value in the price gap. We have already seen that consumers of consoles are not buying based on teraflops.***

Xbox Series X - Not 4k machine @ $299

Xbox One X - 4k machine @ $249

PS5 - 4k, next-gen graphics machine @ $399

And then you have $200+ price different GPUs.

Your perception of value seems off as it completely ignores actual value. And that last part actually matters.

Perception of value is set by many factors, not just "Microsoft put out this weak thing that doesn't do anything the PS5 is doing, so the PS5 much be priced close to that or I'm out."

And, as I said, you perceive value of a console completely different than other hardware (such as GPUs).

*** Base PS4 continued to outsell PS4 Pro and Xbox One X after they were released.***

That's because the market for PS4 after those years is different than the market for new hardware. It's mass market extended reach. But, to say that this 4+ year on market who are finally getting a console are the people who are going to buy PS5/XSX in the first year is pretty illogical. And, it's that first year result that will determine second year market appeal and so on.

[RangerWalk267]

Sony doesn't have the capital to lose by dropping the price.

[crazyCoconuts]

At $399 the PS5 DE would make the XSS irrelevant as a next gen console imo. I'm excited to see how the experiment turns out, but the consumer value proposition for the XSS is on shaky ground.

[darthv72]

@victor, but Sony said the next gen games wont have so much redundant data. So that means a game that is 50gb for current hard drive technology would only take about half that (give or take) for SSD technology. And you can expand on storage using the same plug in SSD carts as well as USB hard drives that the SX uses.

[RazzerRedux]

@Christopher

"Xbox Series S - Not 4k machine @ $299

Xbox One X - discontinued, non-RT, non-SSD, 4k machine @ $399"

Fixed.
https://www.microsoft.com/e...

"Your perception of value seems off as it completely ignores actual value. "

I'm not talking about my perception at all, now am I? What part of "consumer's perceived value" did you not understand? This is all speculation on my part and you are acting like I'm assigning value personally to these things when I cleary said otherwise. I think a +$100 variance in consoles is going to have consumers seriously considering the XSS. I may be completely wrong and that is fine, but I think $399 PS5 DE would be the right move for Sony.

"Perception of value is set by many factors, not just "Microsoft put out this weak thing that doesn't do anything the PS5 is doing, so the PS5 much be priced close to that or I'm out.""

No idea what you are even quoting. I don't think you are even reading, frankly.

"And, as I said, you perceive value of a console completely different than other hardware (such as GPUs)."

More of the same, but yeah I certainly do. I wouldn't buy any console if I didn't have to. I buy PS5 for the exclusives alone and as a PC gamer I have no use for Xbox whatsoever. But again, this isn't about my perception of console value at all. By now, I think I should have made that explicitly clear.

@RangerWalk267

"Sony doesn't have the capital to lose by dropping the price."

lol...of course they do. And that price would be subsidized by digital sales bypassing retail.

@crazyCoconuts

I agree. I believe PS5 DE at $399 would slam the door shut on Xbox, especially XSS.

[Christopher]

***I'm not talking about my perception at all, now am I? What part of "consumer's perceived value" did you not understand? This is all speculation on my part and you are acting like I'm assigning value personally to these things when I cleary said otherwise.***

So, you are saying that your definition of consumer perceived value is fact and not your opinion? This is all about your perception, not fact. You are personally assigning a value to "consumer perceived value" by saying this is what they would perceive the price of the PS5 vs XSS.

C'mon, don't act ignorant here. You're not dealing in facts.

[RazzerRedux]

@Christopher

"So, you are saying that your definition of consumer perceived value is fact and not your opinion? This is all about your perception, not fact."

You just quoted me flatly saying this was purely "speculation on my part". How in the world is "speculation" confused with making factual statements? Of course it is all my perception. Of course it isn't facts. Again....are you even reading?

"You are personally assigning a value to "consumer perceived value" by saying this is what they would perceive the price of the PS5 vs XSS."

Good grief. Again, I'm speculating that the price of XSS at $299 would be "attractive" against the PS5 DE if it were priced higher than $399. Why in the world that statement is so controversial or confusing to you, I have no idea.

[Parasidious]

Not sure why'd you compare the XBSS to the PS5 DE. They aren't the same thing. One is weaker version of base console without disc drive and the other is the exactly the same, but without a disc drive. They aren't competing against each other.

[anubusgold]

@KaladinStormblessed

2080 ti cards are selling for 400 dollars now and the other 2000 series cards prices are dropping to nothing oh yes their are PCs out there now that can run games at 1440P for 500 dollars because the 2000 series is officially dead and you can pick these cards up for cheap now and they still run games well. I run games at 1440P with a 1080 and it still runs games at 100 fps with high or ultra settings at 1440P

[Christopher]

***You just quoted me flatly saying this was purely "speculation on my part". How in the world is "speculation" confused with making factual statements? Of course it is all my perception. Of course it isn't facts. Again....are you even reading?***

Do... do you not at all understand that you can't claim that "I'm not talking about my perception at all, now am I?" and then claim speculation, right?

Speculation is based on your perception.

I don't think you understand what you're saying but you're trying to argue that you're not saying what you are saying.

The fact is, all of your comments are your opinion. That includes your perception/speculation on the consumer market. Say it however you want, but that's all it is, it's not actually the "consumer perception" when it's your own opinion of it.

And, you then try to throw off my statements because you are trying to use your "speculation" of "consumer perception" as why it's not accurate to question why a way more powerful piece of hardware would only be priced $100 more than a system that is, for all intents and purposes, weaker than the Xbox One X?

I'm not sitting here saying you can't have an opinoin, but you can't use your opinion to deny my claims of how it doesn't make sense utilizing your opinion as some sort of fact evidence-based material.

Lunacy, I tells ya.

[morganfell]

Only one company, one company is fielding a machine not anchored to the past generation. That company is Sony. It may take some time, two years at max but it is going to become patently obvious that reaching into yesterday robs you of tomorrow. B/CF sounds great then you realize it is crippling next gen experiences. Again the same people defend MS to their own demise.

[RazzerRedux]

"Do... do you not at all understand that you can't claim that "I'm not talking about my perception at all, now am I?" and then claim speculation, right?"

I was speculating on the views of other consumers from the very beginning. That should have been obvious. But if it wasn't then I made it clear in my second reply to you.

"I don't think you understand what you're saying but you're trying to argue that you're not saying what you are saying."

Well, you are just entirely wrong.

"The fact is, all of your comments are your opinion."

I said that in my last post.

"And, you then try to throw off my statements because you are trying to use your "speculation" of "consumer perception" as why it's not accurate to question why a way more powerful piece of hardware would only be priced $100 more than a system that is, for all intents and purposes, weaker than the Xbox One X?"

Throw off your statements? Nonsense. My first reply to you make that clear: "I'm talking about consumer's perceived value in the price gap." How would that be anything BUT speculation? You made some silly assumptions and took this damn conversation down the rabbit hole.

"I'm not sitting here saying you can't have an opinoin, but you can't use your opinion to deny my claims of how it doesn't make sense utilizing your opinion as some sort of fact evidence-based material."

I can and DO deny your claim because it is wrong. I never even implied that my comments were "fact evidence-based material" at all. You've repeatedly try to frame my comments in that light even now after I flatly said: "Of course it is all my perception. Of course it isn't facts". I mean...what the hell do you want me to say when I just agreed with you on that very point? Good God. Lunacy, indeed.

Edit: Get in whatever digs and remarks you want, Christopher. I'm done here and not because I'm out of posts. This conversation is just stupid.

[miloman]

Im betting thats M$ strategy for sure

[RpgSama]

When they say it will play up to 120fps, they mean games like Ori, there's no way it will play more demanding games at 1440p and 120fps, can it play some games like that yes, most of them, no, just the same way as it's unrealistic to think that all games would be 4K 120fps on the Series X or Ps5, even more out of the Series S

[BenRC01]

What it means is it supports that hdmi standard. Nothing but celeste is running at 120fps.

[averagejoe26]

Exactly. These specs they keep throwing around are for the least demanding games out there. It'll run indie platformers at 1440p and 120fps. That's about it - you can tell by the specs.

[neomahi]

But they're so.... Ugly, there a box and a cube. They might as well be your sub-woofer.

[rainslacker]

Given the specs, I'd expect a marginal improvement over what one would expect from the PS4P right now. Maybe somewhere in between the PS4P and X1X, with the boost coming from the faster bus and I/O architecture, and faster CPU, with a bit of new GPU architecture thrown in.

But, as a whole, I wouldn't expect it to reach what the X1X was already capable of....although rarely shown.

[anubusgold]

@averagejoe26

1440P isnt hard to run as you think i run on 1440P 90+ fps on most games even games like Battlefield 5 runs in 64 player multiplayer matches at 115fps and i have a much older card a Gtx 1080 but it over clocks higher than most cards.

[IMissJimRyan]

Let's be clear of something: it's a machine designed to take those that still are on 1080p displays and don't moved to PS4/Xbox One generation.

I think it's an amazing product for the business side of things.

[CBaoth]

This should be the console they push in the Japanese market. Small yet powerful, and cheap enough to be a companion device to mobile. Very clever on MS' part - with xcloud it should be their most successful gen there.

[Tech5]

@ Trailer reveal

interesting. if it's what xbox gamers want great news for them i guess. at least everyone now can enjoy some options. as for me i plan on sticking with my gaming pc for now. for my own personal tastes.

[rainslacker]

Making a new machine for people that aren't that fast on getting in on current gen seems counter intuitive. The more traditional way to handle these kinds of customers is just keep offering the older machine. It's not always prudent for a company to do so, but if MS is going to be supporting the current gen indefinately, I don't see why they need to throw in such a low powered option for next gen. Particularly true when they will possibly mandate that Series X games also have to run on Series S. If this is the case, and MS gains enough market share, then they've pretty much just crippled most of the next gen multiplat games. Although, maybe that's their intention, because they sure don't seem to care about moving gaming forward at all.

[Godmars290]

Still, what was the point of making system power a key talking point, if you're only going to offer a weaker system? Nevermind that if this is your main console how its going to effect how you make first party exclusives.

Not that MS have ever shown that system exclusives were ever a priority.

[darthv72]

Its the same tactic that companies like intel and Nvidia use. They upsell by showing the top of the line product but also reveal there are cheaper lower end versions available. By doing that, people know they have choice in how much they want to invest in building a new PC (using the PC as the example). Its a marketing tactic that has worked for years.

Even car dealers use this, you can get the top of the line SX model with all the bells and whistles or save a few thousand off and get the SS model and still drive off with a really nice car. See how it works? The top models are there for the enthusiasts and the cheaper models are there for those who want something new but dont want to blow their whole load and yet still feel satisfied.

[CaptainHenry916]

512GB of storage lol. You're going to end up paying $500 for a bigger solid state drive

[darthv72]

most likely not. you can also use USB externals like systems do now.

[ocelot07]

@boing1

Yes for majority in n4g am sure most know exactly what they want. But let's be honest Xbox has not had the best of generations. Am sure there is a fair few Xbox one owners deciding to give MS another chance or go with playstation.

If for example the ps5 digital is $399 then this Xbox owner could be like well you get much more power for that extra $100. Or you could have a PS4 Pro owner thinking well am happy with PS4 pro right now but that $299 series s is looking tasty. Of Sony announces tasty price that could away that pro owners mind again.

[rainslacker]

So. lets go out on a limb and hypothesize Sony releasing the standard PS5 at $399. While I think this is a long shot for the disc version, that was the price Sony thought was the best for new consoles at the start of this gen, and it seems to have paid off for them.

But, lets make the assumption. What then for this Series S?

My theory, it would leave the Series S dead in the water....which I think it will be anyways, because it's not even as powerful as their recently abandoned X1X. If the Series S is for the streaming crowd, which makes more sense given the size of the hard drive, then well, they're putting the cart before the horse, but at least they're showing a lot of faith in streaming.

[ocelot07]

@KaladinStormblessed

Ok $500 all brand new parts then no you need at about $650. However, getting a new motherboard and ram and HDD. Then going second hand CPU and a gpu. $500 is doable. Hell buying a old Dell with a 4th generation i5 for $120 - $130. Then buying a second hand gtx 1070 ti or 1080 or a Vega 56 or veg 64 will do 1440p nicely and a new 650watt PSU.

[leejohnson222]

Wait till e3??

[badz149]

LOL typical MS! it was all about the 12TF before but with this weakass version, no mention of TF number whatsoever, just "next-gen performance". the hell is "next-gen performance" anyway?? MS made up term to make something underwhelming sounds great.

[UltraNova]

Interesting to say the least!

[crazyCoconuts]

It's a novel approach. By the time price reductions hit for the holiday, I bet it will match the PS4 Pro price. I think it's more of a competitor for that than the PS5. Even that's a mixed messages though since the SSD is so small: faster load times (XSX) or store more games (PS4 Pro).

[roadkillers]

Look at all of these guys majoring in Business. This console looks dope. Changing menus on my PS4 is slow af

[SierraGuy]

People still use the word "dope"?

[Sitdown]

@SierraGuy
Apparently so, since it was used..

[RaidenBlack]

1440p @ 120fps
512GB SSD
RT support
4K upscaling
.
What's the RT performance of this 4TF retro speaker? RT is very demanding.

[Vits]

We don't really know how demanding RT is on any given console, because AMD have yet to show how their technology handles the load. But it's safe to assume that will be used to a lesser extend than the Series X or PS5.

But going for what was show so far with the technique on consoles. If those two feature reflections on both water puddles and metal objects. The Series S likely only have for the latter and stuff like that.

[catlover316]

I imagine its around the same, but lower resolution.

[RpgSama]

UP TO 120fps**, just like when you see a sale on a store and it says UP TO 75% off and once you start checking out the things there are actually like only 3 items that go for that high of a discount.

Will it be able to achieve something like that on some games, yes, on most games, no.

[sho0ok360]

Dont the new Xboxs have a dedicated RT ships?

I remember reading that series X had a theoretical performance of 13 TF.

So the S could have something similar, separate from the GPU TFs.

[sho0ok360]

13 TF for RT by it self is what I meant.
https://wccftech.com/micros...

[NeoGamer232]

It says DirectX RT.

I don't think it is hardware ray tracing like in Series X

[RaidenBlack]

Just google Ray Tracing APIs

[CaptainHenry916]

I expect Halo infinite to look like the reveal demo with RT turned on with the Series S

[Noskypeno]

Does raytracing fix bad textures? But there is a theory, not a great one just something i heard on reddit, that 343 butchered the demo on purpose to force MS to give them more time to fix some bugs and other stuff. Why else would they spend 2 years advertising a new state of the art engine only to severely downgrade it even worse than a ubi downgrade, that looks the same as the older ones?

[Zodiac]

I wonder if this is also keeping at least most of the performance bells and whistles that the series X has. If it’s just a cut to resolution, storage and the disc drive, this is a really good deal.

[Parasyte]

That’s what it looks like. All of the same features, but with lower specs.

[spicelicka]

Yeah I'm completely fine with the smaller hard drive, I already have a 2TB from my current system that I would be able to hook up. No need to charge us an extra $100 for a hard drive we can buy ourselves.

[spicelicka]

@fewDankMemes

Hmm what makes you say that? i don't see how this would be any different from current systems where you plug in your hard drive and it's good to go. The SSD is a separate component which would run the OS and any games specifically stores on the SSD. The only way it could be a problem is if games require an SSD to run, but they never confirmed this.

[spicelicka]

@Coreymac

Ohh well in that case I take back what I said. I won't be investing in this, would rather invest in Series X.

[OMGitzThatGuy]

@coreymac That's false, MS already confirmed HDDs can be used for storage of games but will have to be transferred to the SSD before playing.

[--Onilink--]

You can use the hard drive to store Series games, but if you want to play them you need to transfer them to the ssd.

If you are playing backwards compatible games you can do so from the hdd

[StoneyYoshi]

@Spicelicka

Xbox Series X/S games WILL require the SSD to run them (MS and Sony both confirmed this themselves). But previous gen games can be played on an external HDD. You can store the next gen games on the HDD but they need to be transferred to the SSD to play them.

[ApocalypseShadow]

What next gen needs. A videogame console half step. Might as well release it with component cables. Sorry. This system is going to over promise next gen and under deliver it.

It would be a pity if 3RD Party games built to run on this system affects the real next gen consoles. I surely hope it doesn't hold back PS5. But I wouldn't be surprised Microsoft would do that. Like releasing HD DVD to hold back Blu-ray. Or DVD that cut games in parts that would have fit on one Blu-ray.

Basically a game pass and Xcloud console.

[rlow1]

Lol, releasing HD DVD to hold back Blue ray? It's called competition and at the time both formats had a legit shot at becoming the standard. Toshiba were the one who developed HD DVD and it had some nice extra features that Blu -ray didn't support. Also, MS was also on the board for Blu-ray as well.......Good try at trying to make MS sound like the bad guy. As for half measure consoles, only after they've been out for about a year can we really know if it will hold things back.

[Atom666]

I laughed too. That's like saying Sony's push for Beta Max held back VHS, or its Memory Sticks held back SD cards.

In format wars, one wins and the others don't. In the mind of a fanboy, it's all some great conspiracy.

[ApocalypseShadow]

Sure buddy. They downplayed Blu-ray

https://www.eurogamer.net/a...

And again
https://www.bit-tech.net/ne...

But then, turned around and had to add the very medium Sony beat them with. Then tried to make it seem that having ultra Blu-ray Xbox one x mattered when no games took advantage of it against Pro.

They clearly pushed for digital over physical. And do so now.

This console is still a worthless half step. All you guys talking about power and teraflops, but then, this weaker system doesn't have it and it's praised for being weak because of price.

It will hold back games just to have parity with series x like halo demonstrated and was laughed at because of it.

[crazyCoconuts]

I'm struggling to call it next gen at all. It runs games designed for Series X, but Series X doesn't have exclusives that don't run on existing X consoles for the first few years anyway. So it's like the X1X with a faster drive... It's not a great story without exclusives. Feels more like a competitor to the PS4 Pro than the PS5 in terms of market.

[spicelicka]

Do you think everyone ONLY plays exclusives?? What kind of nonsense logic is that. What if someone wants to play the next COD at 1440p/120fps? Also you do realize that any games releasing over the next year on either console are going to be under-utilizing next gen hardware right? For the first 1-2 years of any gen most games have looked like ports of previous gen games. Cross-gen exclusives would look great on this.

[crazyCoconuts]

@spice - I mean exclusive to next gen. You can play the next COD on any console (and it won't be 1440p at 120FPS on the XSX lol). You can see why they discontinued the X1X, because this is more of an upgraded X1X than it is a true next gen console. 1440p was the half-step 3-4 years ago

[dumahim]

@spicelicka

So those 3rd party developers will need to scale down games meant for next-gen to run on this under-powered system.

[rlow1]

So your saying a whole different architecture and 7 years worth of advances and it's on the level of the PS4 pro???? Lol, keep smoking that pipe son.

[morganfell]

Cross gen exclusives look good because they are anchored to past gen hardware. Are you buying a game console for the future or not? And just remember on launch day there are already questions as to whether some titles are or are not cross gen and titles will only become more exclusive to next gen as time passes. Already companies are being very closed mouth about whether they will support the current generation which doesn’t speak well for any sort of compatibility with current hardware. And of course Microsoft has backpedaled on their initial smart delivery announcement and are now saying they will leave it up to the individual studios As to whether they will make lower in versions for the current generation which means this new console becomes the lower end version and games are hobbled by it.

[Minute Man 721]

The Series S has it's own dev kit, shouldn't hold back anything

[Atom666]

You're not even a week out from the Nvidia announcement that showed you why this is such a bad take.

The 2080 is out there giving people the best performance available today. Yet, the 3070 is coming alongside the 3080 and the 3090.

The 3070 boasts next gen features, affordable price, but with lower performance target than its more powerful (and expensive) counterparts.

If you want next gen features at 1440p at high frames and a lower price tag, the 3070 is a great card. Now here's a console ecosystem doing the same damn thing, right down to the targeted performance, and somehow it's holding back the PS5?

Just stop and think about that...

But you'll have to give me a cheat sheet or something to help me keep up with when power is important and when it's not.

If we're comparing XSX to PS5, power doesn't matter.

If we're comparing XSS to PS5, power matters.

If we're comparing PC to console, power doesn't matter again.

Then power matters if we're talking about Switch vs. PS5 (can't run those 3rd party games), but power doesn't matter if we're comparing Switch to Xbox (no gaemz!)

It's hard to keep up. There does seem to be a common theme, though...

[ApocalypseShadow]

It's a half step. From teraflops to praising an underpowered system.

That's Xbox fans. Flip floppers.

[iQuasar]

You do not see consoles offering the user to adjust performance settings in the games they buy to accommodate for the lower performing consoles.

YOU DO ON PC. Bad comparison.

Consoles are always viewed as a plug and play ready machine for gamers. When you start muddying the waters with multiple offerings guess what. Those who want to make the most money and are not floated by the very company that makes the equipment will ALWAYS vie for the lowest common denominator. Simple math. It is called fragmentation

Just how many games % wise out of the PS4 library are touted as designed with PS4 pro in mind versus the total catalog of games? This should be the starting point for how bad of an idea this is for the XSX owners purchasing decisions.

[Atom666]

Yep, consoles are the one sector of gaming where it's impossible to offer varying points of entry. Impossible! Doom!

Get over it. Consoles are steadily catching up to the rest of the industry.

Consoles themselves are half-steps compared to what can be achieved on PC. Yet here we are, enjoying a healthy and robust gaming industry.

Imagine that...

[FGHFGHFGH]

This is not targeting the same performance of a 3070. 3070 will be faster than xbox series x

[NeoGamer232]

Please give me a technical explanation on how Series S will hold back games? I want to really know.

[rlow1]

Sony doesn't own the Blue-ray format outright, it much more complicated than that.

"Blu-ray has a lot of grandfathers. A lot of people call it a Sony standard but by our estimates Sony doesn't even have 30 percent of the IP," Doherty said. The top four intellectual property holders are likely Sony, Panasonic, Pioneer, and Warner.

"Royalties were one of the primary reasons that it took so long to get manufacturers to come out with players that could handle both HD DVD and Blu-ray discs. Manufacturers with dual-format players have to license technology from both camps, which boosts costs."
https://www.cnet.com/news/b...

So MS chose to back a different format and if Sony was somehow the only majority owner (they're not). Then I could possibly see your view on MS targeting Sony. But the patent is owned by multiple companies that all have a stake in it. MS didn't even invent HD-dvd but partnered with the companies that did. So to single out MS as trying to hold back Blue-ray is laughable. It involved alot of heavy weight companies and in an area that wasn't even the expertise of MS.
Back to my original point. It's called competition and Blue-ray won. It was more about a bunch of companies that also had a big stake in dvd format trying to push theirs groups format over the other groups. MS was just along for the ride, they weren't even a patent holder. Also, MS could of not allowed windows to play Blue-ray had they wanted to somehow holdback anyone. They didn't.

[averagejoe26]

This is the opposite of what next gen needs.

Next gen should be showing us the next leap in gaming...not games that are now going to be held back by weaker hardware.

All Xbox games are going to have to run on the weaker hardware, thus holding back the best possible version for the main console. Graphics AND features get gimped when having to develop for a weaker console. This is quite unfortunate news for upcoming Xbox games.

[Vits]

Just amazing value on this one.
If it keeps both the SSD speed and the CPU, the only real downgrade would be the GPU. That would translate on lower resolution and toned down effects. But the core experience of any given game shouldn't be affect.

Meanwhile the price is just right for anyone that want to enter the next gen without spending too much or for using it like a secondary console. Plus lateral markets like South America will be very happy with it.

[RazzerRedux]

Downgrades:

GPU
SSD size
Lack of disc drive

So yeah, I think that aligns very well with the price.

[Vits]

Indeed it does.
The only impact that we should expect is lower resolutions and/or toned down effects here and there. But with the same CPU and SSD speed, things should run smoothly without giving developers a headache.

The SSD size is a bit of bummer. As realistic speaking we are talking about 470 GB of storage. What isn't really that much. But as long as Microsoft don't pull a PS Vita and ask a ridiculous amount of money for those "SSD cards" I think it's fine.

[crazyCoconuts]

Memory is rumored to be lower as well

[dazsarge]

Also the amount of RAM and number of Compute Units have been downgraded

[BenRC01]

o.s plus cod war zone means 50% of that drive is gone already.

[RazzerRedux]

The fact that the SSD is proprietary does bring back Vita vibes. That is going to be a significant price reveal in itself.

[waderae]

do we know factually if the series S even takes those upgrade cards ? or are we looking at usb HD upgrade only ?

seen no confirmation thus far

[Vits]

Yeap. It doesn't help that this sort of SSD (Nvme PCI 4.0) is already expensive on computers - about $200 for 1TB.

So I hope that Microsoft either subsidize their cards in order to bring cost down to us consumers. Or at least use the current market prices for them.

[RazzerRedux]

@waderae

Not confirmed, but I can't imagine Series S doesn't take the expansion card. That wouldn't make any sense at all.

[Gamble20]

It’s not really “amazing” value. It’s a cut on virtually every single spec form XSX/PS5 and still priced higher than last gen. That’s not to say it is priced poorly. But amazing value? Kind of hyperbolic. It’s priced exactly as you would expect commensurate with a less capable console.

[Vits]

It's priced at $300 while offering the same CPU and SSD speed as it's more powerful brother. It uses modern hardware to deliver the lower entry point for next generation of games. All while being cheaper than both the PS4 and XOne at launch - And those consoles used a low tier hardware even for the time.

I mean you can think it's value is not that good. But for many, including myself it's just amazing.

[Antnee534]

I might be wrong but with games on current gen getting up to 200 plus gbs won't this be filled with 2 games I dont know if there is better compression with ssd because I never used then so again i might be wrong but won't at least 80 to 100 gbs be used on the os?

[BenRC01]

yup, add something like warzone and you're 50% full. Whats the betting on an external hdd being sold for stupid money 6 months along.

[shabz666]

so right, i hope they have done something with compression for download / install files. Cod MW is almost 150 gigs now. Also didnt PS5 say 850 gigs was that before or after OS usage? 500gig would mean about 400 being available on series s?

[I_am_Batman]

OS definitely won't be that large, but you should end up with somewhere around 460GiB of usable space for games and apps due to overprovisioning and OS footprint.

It's worth pointing out that the same current gen games would use less storage space on next-gen due to better compression being usable and less duplicated data on the drive, but the I/O bandwidth of next gen consoles will probably tempt developers to create a lot more unique assets and create richer worlds which will probably still result in game sizes going up.

All next-gen console SKUs will probably struggle to offer enough storage space though. It seems like offloading unused games to external drives will be the name of the game for a while.

[I_am_Batman]

@joejoejoe: That's right. The vast majority of the unavailable space should be due to overprovisioning to make sure the SSD performance doesn't degrade as the drive fills up. That should be somewhere between 7-10%. The OS itself will probably be a couple GB in size, but it shouldn't make much of a difference although it's possible that MS wants to reserve some space for updates, certain features like gameplay recording and stuff like that which will potentially take a bigger chunk out of the available space.

[Lexreborn2]

I feel like this model is going to have a short shelf life. With 512 gbs people will be investing in the proprietary memory more in the beginning. It’ll end up costing more then the series X long term. If you slap Warzone on this you already only have space for 1-2 more games.

I personally don’t see the value in this and would just opt for the X

[shabz666]

i would go for the x as well, I dont own a 4k tv yet so heres hoping devs have a performance vs resolution setting on a game by game basis. But an X would essentially future proof the purchase. But its pro consumer so its good, hopefully ps5 disc less can match this price and the competition can get tough. I want them to fight for my money.

[Elda]

One will have to spend more money on memory space which may end up costing a couple of hundred of dollars,might as well buy the powerful option of the X.

[ocelot07]

In this day and age even 1tb is not enough. That's a extra 500gb? A extra 2-3 games? Xbox series x owners will also soon be having to spend silly money on the property memory cards and then your going into decent spec pc territory.

[Tedakin]

I'm starting to think Xbox nailed this..... They'll sell a ton of these.......

[Parasyte]

Probably going to trade in my One X for a Series S and pair it with a PS5

[Si-Fly]

512gb is stupid, you’ll be lucky to have more than 3 or 4 AAA games installed at any one time with the way things are going.

[catlover316]

I think that is a downfall of being an early adopter, later in the console cycle models will have much more memory.

[Kavorklestein]

I wish.
Xbox one and PS4 had horribly small HDD's. I've had a 4 tb external drive. hooked up to my Xb1, or XB1s or XB1x as I've upgraded for about 5 years.
I only play PS4 Exclusives on my PS4 so I've never needed more than 1tb.

I would rather pay an extra 100 to 200 bucks for 2 TB on the Series X.
Series S's value proposition reminds me of a mix between PS4 pro and Xbox 360 Arcade.

Many people won't actually need more than what the Series S offers with Gamepass to have more than enough for their gaming needs.

I want a Series X with at least 2 tb of SSD space, if not 3 tb, And can always keep my 4 tb external for most of the older Xb1, 360, and Og BC titles that don't utilize the SSD speed.

[anast]

Which games? Halo 1? The first Wolfenstein?

[Traecy]

With the $300 price tag this will definitely sell with casuals that aren't tech savvy & parents that want to save a few bucks. The XB hardcore fans & the tech savvy will buy the $500 X.

[Parasyte]

Not necessarily. If you have a 1440p monitor already, the Series S is a perfect option.

[averagejoe26]

Casual players don't buy 1440p monitors.They have standard TV's.

[Gamble20]

Not true. There are far more factors than just price that parents and “non tech savvy” consumers look for. There have been several lower priced consoles that have failed to be top sellers, including the Wii U and Xbox One (eventually after dropping Kinect).

[catlover316]

I think most people will get the cheaper one and be happy with it. Most people buying consoles aren’t that fussy, as long as it plays the latest games. We have seen it with the ps4 pro and Xbox one x.

[tontontam0]

Xbox fanboys: makes sense if you only 1080p monitor and don't have a 4k monitor.

Sony should make a 1080p 60fps game and put all the processing power in graphics quality, graphics quality near cgi quality you won't that it's 1080p,Then claim that no other console can run their game.

[RgR]

I might actually opt to get this for the microsoft exclusives...if they're any good of course.

[thornh]

I still feel like this is MS answer to stay competitive with the PS4 not the PS5. It's a nice little machine that is slightly more capable than a PS4 Pro. It is inevitable that Sony will drastically reduce the price of PS4 Pro when the PS5 is readily available. So do you buy a PS4 Pro for, maybe, $299 with an insanely large existing library or do you buy a Series S which is, technically, next gen but would function much better as a current gen system? It's a really weird business decision but a system that will sell quite a bit to uninformed parents. I truly hope MS is completely honest in their marketing and don't try to sell this as an equivalent to a Series X. It's not. With Sony it is much more straightforward. Do you want to have the ability to use physical media or not? Otherwise the system architecture and capabilities are identical.

[Kavorklestein]

PS4 Pro has no value at all Once the PS5 comes out. It has stayed too expensive for too long honestly.

[Jurat]

What games, though?

Serious question. Does it have any platform exclusives at launch? for me, it's all about the games.

[Koolaidude]

The launch games are garbage on PS5 too.

[averagejoe26]

Xbox literally has 0 launch games.

And millions of people seem to be excited about the PS5 launch titles.

Try again.

[UltimateRacer]

My god, just when I thought the series X looked awful the Series S is horrendous but I’m glad they included a speaker in it.

[talocaca]

I love how quick people forget.

A few weeks ago, we were all complaining about the way Halo looked on a 12 Teraflops console, now people are all excited about the specs Microsoft is talking about at $299.

If the PS5 Digital Edition is $399 expected, an extra $100 get you a LOT more for your money 🤷‍♂️

[Tyrant 8 RDFL]

I see it says 1440p up to 120 FPS. To me I can see this with them saying it is up to the developer., which is where my confidence drops on the statement. I want to play at 120 FPS. I will wait and see how things truly unfold when all the systems drops. Then I will make a decision. I'm really hoping many of the games especially the big ticket games will run at 1440p at 120fps. I will even take 1080p at 120fps. At $299.99 that is a great deal.

[moriarty1889]

hope they make one with a disc drive eventually.

[Mulletino]

512Gb Hard drive is a joke

[DeadManMMX]

This is cool though it’s the modern day equivalent to the 360 arcade. Would love it to have a 1TB but you can get in and get gaming and expand later.

[catlover316]

This could be huge for them if marketed correctly. On a 55 inch tv at normal viewing distance 1440p looks pretty much the same as 4k.

[Profchaos]

Let's not get ahead of ourselves it's using free sync to achieve 120htz support in the same way current Xbox one console's outside of the og 500 GB machine can.
We don't know what the support will be when it comes to games. Personally this looks like the PS pro in a lot of ways and will probably use some form of upscaling to hit above in a non native way

[DJStotty]

Queue the "but, but this is less powerful than the one x @ 6tf" comments.

[Relientk77]

Wow there is no space for games. 512 gigs is nothing, especially when Call of Duty is 200 gigs and other games are 100 gigs

[randomvoice]

The next gen storage expansion chips are gonna be crazy expensive. You install a COD here and you're probably done with the storage

[njitram2000]

I have a 1080p projector and a 1440p monitor. I won't be getting a 4K TV any time soon due to the projector being much bigger. So 1440p is actually perfect for me if it is able to hit 60fps consistently.

[DarthZoolu]

My nephews will be getting a XSS because he has a nice 1080p TV already. I'll get a new tv and XSX. This is a major win for MS. 4k is very demanding, by the numbers it seems XSS will be able to run 1080P better than XSX runs 4k.

[MazeRunner]

if the console can guarantee a lock 60fps at 1440p or even 1080p is a huge win. most people don't care about 4k and all that nonsense and the price is good.

[Parasyte]

The power is there. The rest is up to devs.

[Mithan]

Thats not bad, that is what I play on my PC. 7700k/1080Ti.

Hopefully they have a good 1440 to 4k upscaling method for 4k TV's, and thats great.

[Auron]

Will it support xcloud?

[JayRyu]

Yup!

[Grievous]

Do people really find this a good deal? The XBox Series X has double the SSD space, more ram, much better GPU and a 4K BR drive for not a whole lot more money.

[j15reed]

I think you forgot the One X doesn't have an SSD and also this box has the same CPU as the Series X.

[Italiano1234567]

I call bullshit no game on this machine will hit 120 unless perhaps its a small indie title. Remember they said xbox1 was a 1080p machine how that turn out

[Parasyte]

That’s why they had that important “up to” qualifier. It’s the same as ISPs saying “speeds up to 500mbps”.

[strayanalog]

I see Microsoft wanted to show their XSS today.

[Muzikguy]

Wow so the $300 was true. I suppose this will make next gen more interesting in a sense. That's a good price for those that care about it

[Destiny1080]

that 512 gig is more like 300 gig after you take away the Os, and didn't they say they have a 100 gig buffer

you cant have a "next" gen console and i use that word loosely with 300 gigs of storage so your basically forced to buy extra proprietary storage and of course you need that battery pack for your controller, this thing could end up costing more then the series x and only one third of the power

i guess if your not going to upgrade your tv for the next ten years and not install more then one are two games at a time this might be a good option

[DarthZoolu]

You are forgetting that with SSD games will actually be smaller because of less redundancies and code also the fact that this is not a 4K machine means that you're going to see game sizes closer to what you see on PC

[dumahim]

Another *adjective* *noun* ever!
Will they ever stop with this nonsense?

[JayRyu]

I'm getting one! It will be my portable system when i travel. I will trade in one of my one X and upgrade.

512 GB internal but there will be the expandable storage cards, so no one should be worried there. It will play all of the next gen games.

All at an affordable entry point. 👏

[Vithar]

November 10th though, is that the relases of series as well!!!! hmmmm

[yomfweeee]

Half a gig for all-digital device? Come on now.

[Chocoburger]

Microsoft makes more hardware announcements than software announcements. In this industry, it really should be the opposite. (*facepalm*)

[neomahi]

Kinda looks like they stole Sony's PS5 hardware reveal doesn't it? And we waited this long for pricing..... Why? Alright Sony, it's out, go ahead and get it over with, you have no excuse either for waiting this long. Additionally, $200 doesn't Merritt a disc drive. The PS5 had better not have a $100 gap as is rumored because a disc drive isn't worth or doesn't cost $100, not even. Disc drives are cheap. PS5 should be $349 for Digital version, $399 for disc drive version, and even that's pushing it, a disc drive is what, $12? So that's still a mark-up.

[franwex]

SSD space is too low.

Well I guess at one point one would be forced to buy their memory cards-which will probably be overpriced.

[R6ex]

If only there's a disc drive on it ... :(

[Pughski]

Is there any exclusive to xbox worth even getting next gen?

[Profchaos]

I'm confused."play over 100 high quality games" what does that mean? It can't seriously mean that this has limited next gen compatibility

[Stanjara]

Gamepass games

[Profchaos]

So happy we got some movement on prices should mean that xsx price which was 499 in the same leak will be confirmed and Sony will show up with a price and we can finally place orders for our next gen systems of choice

[Charal]

You Xbox fans are a joke.
Long forgotten are the “most powerful console ever” moto.

Now a digital only 512 GB 1/3 power (rumored) box is the next big thing 😂.

No one wonders why not tech spec is available for this SeS aside MS PR “ next gen 1440p 120fps” BS?

Use your brain and connect the dots:

- One X have been discontinued for this box, but MS promise games to be released to One S for a couple of years, meaning SSD will not be mandatory by game design. That means only 2 things for me: either SeS is cheaper to produce than One X, or One X would have be to much of a competition for SeS. Either way, I predict SeS is less powerful than One X.

- Look at the size of the box, and the speaker like vent. After what we have seen from both MS and Sony focus on cooling on real next gen boxes, and even Nvidia on RTX 3000 series, this SeS is made to support low thermal dissipation. Which once again means that computing power have been slashed vs SX.

But anyway, fun times are coming in the future Xbox vs PS5 face off, as globally Xbox will always loose due to the SeS.

[Imortus_san]

Nice trailer.

[kryteris]

4tf performance target is bad for gaming. I guess it could do it at 720p upscale to 1080 but that does not seem like it would have enough pixels. XGen seems like it is aiming for 1440p up-scaling features for 4k. That is 1/3rd power, and i was worried the PS5 would be held back on 3rd party titles. lol.

[DFresh]

That black circle ⚫️ on the console looks tacky as f***.
Why not just make it white like the rest of the console?
1440P?
When PS5/Series X are going to be 4K.
It just means games are going to get held back spec wise to compensate for lower performance of Series S.
It also means games can never take full advantage of Series X for the exclusives M$ would have.
M$ should of just stuck with a disc and disc-less models of the Series X.