Xbox Series S Review

The budget version of the new Xbox has its place and could shine as a second console, but it's hard to recommend as your primary gaming platform.

[alextdarling]

Series S is great for casual gamers who want a budget console, the likes of consumers that have no intention to buy a 4k tv/monitor.

Im not interested in it at all but I see the appeal for others.

[CaptainHenry916]

It shouldn't even exist and will be holding games back

[Lexreborn2]

Black Friday is in a few weeks.... 4K adoption is going to be on the rise...

[Lore]

This thing is a rip off, you have around 300gb of space to work with, and if you want to upgrade the storage it will cost the equivalent of purchasing a Series X (factoring in the difference). Who would buy this?

[ABizzel1]

It's not even great for them. The storage isn't enough unless you plan on buying an external to store games on and transfer back and forth, which make it more PC like and many casuals won't comprehend this.

The price at $299 seems reasonable, but adding the extra external NVMe to the console and you could have bought the Series X, also console prices generally drop so in 3 - 4 years when there are more games out and Xbox is finally on a roll with AAA games then you should be able to get a Series X for around $299 during the holiday season.

Looking at Xbox studios and the games they have in development the majority of their IP's won't start rolling out games until holiday 2021 at the earliest with 2022 being the year they really push their IP's, and by that holiday we could even be seeing a $399 Series X.

4K TVs are not expensive decent models that have 4K@60 are selling this holiday for $200 and this price and for another $100 or so you can add 1080p@120 and 1440p@120 to that same 4K@60 panel, the same price and less as a Series S.

The Xbox One X will still receive support into 2021, and possibly until holiday 2022 and offers similar performance to the Series S at not additional cost to those who own one.

The Series S is a console that will sell to parents who don't know any better and just get their kids the cheapest Xbox available to them, or those who are on hard times right now and want to be able to get something for their kids.

However, this console is a mistake IMO, and should be the niche option of the two Xbox, not the leading seller that it'll inevitably be. If you can drop $300 for a Series S this holiday, then put that $300 away, and save up another $300 for next year and get a Series X instead, otherwise spend the extra $100 and get an all digital PS5.

The Series S is NOT the console anyone should be buying, it gets the job done, but overtime it will be left behind as it simply doesn't have the power to play games at the resolutions (there are current games running at 720p on this already), and eventually framerates of next-gen AAA games.

[PTMG]

Series S is great as a Gamepass/xbox exclusive machine especially for only £20 a month all included. I bought one for this reason and a PS5 as my main console to play all the newer, flashier releases.

[robleroy]

Cheapest 4k tv I found is €200

[shabz666]

Will be curious to see how this machine sells this gen. I suspect the machine is already a bit too undercooked in specs. Hitting 1080p might be a possibility but we are already seeing some games struggling to hit that native 1440p.

[Tacoboto]

Sea of Thieves is going to only be 1080p60.

Now that reviews are out, and they note small hitches in these Xbox One enhanced titled, man. I don't get how they couldn't just bump up the GPU to 6TF to give us something that could actually hit 1440p, or at least run titles with One X enhancements.

[Locutus_of_borg]

Everyone that buys a series s will have their own reasons for doing so, just because it doesnt match the reasons many people give for not buying one it doesnt make it any more wrong...

[Guyfamily999]

Both the Xbox One S and Xbox Series S are consoles you're going to want to replace if you upgrade to a 4K TV (which can be had for very cheap). The Series S can't run the Xbox One X versions of games, so the vast majority of games on gamepass are going to be extremely similar between the One S and Series S besides boosted load times. If you want a cheap gamepass machine, you might as well just get an Xbox One S for half the price, and start saving up for the Series X and a 4K TV.

[zsquaresoff]

They're being generous with the 7.

[Father__Merrin]

Will this downsample to 1080p

[talocaca]

Yikes.....that's not very good. But then again, Microsoft hasn't really bothered showing any actual next gen games.

[Destiny1080]

ill give this review a 7/10

[TheColbertinator]

Going for the Series X. The S is for budget gamers and I haven't been on a "budget" for years.

[Thundercat77]

What comes to mind is that this console is for those uninformed parents who doesn't know about specs and technology and will see a cheaper price and say... Well this one cheaper and is new.

[SegaGamer]

And why is this so bad? Most kids do not care about specs, if they did, I would have stopped playing on a Mega Drive once I got my Dreamcast, and I would have played on my Xbox more than a PS2, but that wasn't the case, and that is no different with todays generation of kids either.

Just look at some of the most popular games that kids play.....Minecraft, Roblox, Among Us, Fortnite. None of these games are demanding, so kids would be perfectly happy with a Series S.

[RgR]

Series S is the xbox console to get.

No point in spending much money when you can just use their gamepass for all their games. And then once you're done you could sell it back for credit.

I will be getting the series s once there are 5-10 exclusives that I'm interested in.

I would love to get the ps5 at launch, however, I will wait as well to make sure there aren't any issues.

There is a ton of value in being able to paly all the xbox games of next gen at 1080p /30 or 60fpa for a really low price and small investment.

I don't like that they have a weak and powerful console to begin with. Never bought into the xbox x or the ps pro.

So for me just like the original xbox one is microsoft main console this gen. The series S is what I view as microsoft main console next gen. Wish it came with a disc version though.

[Petebloodyonion]

The console was made for ppl who won't see the difference between 4K and 1080P or won't mind.
So I see a lot of 4k tv are cheap in the comment section but the same ppl are failing to understand concept of 4k gaming.

1) Cheap tv offer a poor refresh rate making the screen less smooth and less stable in this case you are better suit with a 1080P 120hz tv compared to a 60Hz 4k tv (and beware of fake 120 HZ).

2) Latency again a problem with cheap tv are that they are great for watching movies but they suck for gaming.

3) The majority will never see the difference between 1080P and 4K because they are sitting to far from the TV, according to Sony, the optimal distance to see the details difference on a 65" tv is 4 feet
https://www.sony.com/electr...

How many of you are sitting closer to 5 feet from your tv?

[BioShockGX]

...why are they giving a score for a console?

[potatoseal]

"A console that should never have been made"

[rlow1]

Most people on this site are gamers and want the best, but for the casual and budget conscious parents this makes sense.