Xbox Series S/X: Thread 02

[MartyG]

£249 is good - maybe my original prediction of £399 for Series X might actually be Microsoft's plan after all - try and cut PS5 off at the knees purely on price, rather than marketting it as a premium product.

[Neon Ignition]

1440p support on the Series S is an utter waste of time. It fuels the perception of weakness that saw the PS4 Pro nagged about checkerboarding all its life and people buying TV's pick up either 1080p or increasingly 4K units so the system either targets beyond one option or not enough for the other and I say that as someone who adores using 1440p on PC as a fallback.

Also, whilst the Series S plays all Series X next-gen games - for the next few years so does the Xbox One, Xbox One S and Xbox One X so MS will literally end up getting people to buy Series S more on the principle of discontinuing the other models that undermine this one more than the XSS being a compelling option in its own right.

Not that that matters because as we've seen Microsoft doesn't plan on releasing anything that uses the next-gen abilities of either Series S or Series X within the next two years. It's why Sony would be wise to take a hit and get the discless PS5 down to £299.99 or less as if they do they'll milk that back from daft gamers willing to pay £60 a pop for new games on PSN and that power difference will mean they'll KO the Series S in the first round.

[nonny]

£249 is a great price.

Surely that also means the XSX isn't coming in at £499 then and is more likely to be £449

[Neon Ignition]

Read the specs a bit and the 1440p makes a tad more sense but 120fps will get dropped before 2021 is done so 30fps 4k checkerboard will be the most common experience

[nonny]

1440p support on the Series S is an utter waste of time. It fuels the perception of weakness that saw the PS4 Pro nagged about checkerboarding all its life and people buying TV's pick up either 1080p or increasingly 4K units so the system either targets beyond one option or not enough for the other and I say that as someone who adores using 1440p on PC as a fallback.

Also, whilst the Series S plays all Series X next-gen games - for the next few years so does the Xbox One, Xbox One S and Xbox One X so MS will literally end up getting people to buy Series S more on the principle of discontinuing the other models that undermine this one more than the XSS being a compelling option in its own right.

Not that that matters because as we've seen Microsoft doesn't plan on releasing anything that uses the next-gen abilities of either Series S or Series X within the next two years. It's why Sony would be wise to take a hit and get the discless PS5 down to £299.99 or less as if they do they'll milk that back from daft gamers willing to pay £60 a pop for new games on PSN and that power difference will mean they'll KO the Series S in the first round.

How is 1440p a waste of time?

It is a common resolution to many who play on a monitor with freesync and if it affords high frame rate as well it will be great for this machine to support that. It's not like it isn't also going to do 1080p and for those that have a 4K TV it is still going to upscale back to 4K well enough for people to be happy given they paid £249! for that.

The Xbox One S right now can't do 1440p freesync but the One X can, albeit that machine is now discontinued and doesn't have any of the other architecture benefits of this new Series S.

Comparing it to the PS4 Pro is also a bit weak as that was touted as the top-end console for the Playstation 4 but was limited in power for 4K. This is a lower-tier model for the next generation sitting below the Series X. It isn't the same thing in terms of marketing it or it's focus.

If Microsoft can hit £399 for the XSX it will be a competitive price for Sony to counter but it's not a direct competitor to the digital PS5. Sony have two powerhouse consoles one sans disc drive... Microsoft has one powerhouse and one mid-tier option.

It's really going to be interesting to see how Sony prices their two options against these for sure, but I don't think Sony can go ultra low on the digital PS5... hopefully they'll announce soon.

[fishbowlhead]

1440p games. 4k upscaling confirmed.
512gig ssd.
4k media supported.

https://www.theverge.com/2020/9/8/21426947/microsoft-xbox-series-s-specs-pricing-release-date-trailer-leak

[Nico87]

Same Zen 2 CPU as XSX and PS5.
Same RDNA 2 GPU architecture as XSX and PS5.
Same GDDR6 RAM as XSX and PS5.
Same NVMe SSD as XSX.

Fairly solid selling point.

[Neon Ignition]

1440p is a nice support option but it's something that probably less than 0.01% of of the userbase will be able to use or make use of, especially delivering 120fps at that because the Series S is going to be pushed and stretched and strained in ways that the original Xbox One never could have imagined. For those who have invested in a Freesync monitor (and don't have a PC which will be incredibly limited in numbers) worthwhile support will only be maintained by owning a Series X as the S simply doesn't have the grunt to cope with Years 3-7 content delivering that output.

If you push the Pro comparison aside then maybe the next likely candidate would be the Gamecube. That wasn't a weak powered system, it had a small profile, aimed for less core gamers as a focus and absolutely sliced through launch day by coming in at a still never beaten £129.99 which was mind blowing even back then. Didn't help it though.

I just think the S is very easily made redundant. It lacks pretty much everything a core gamer would be looking for and has nothing more casual gamers would be drawn in by. It exists to undercut Sony without ever really asking if enough of a market exists to warrant it. It's main perk will be it's likely about to collapse pricing on remaining One S/One X models making latecomers able to get into Xbox's library for an insanely low price.

[wakka]

£250 is a very good entry price to have access to the next 5 to 7 years of console games.

[nonny]

1440p is a nice support option but it's something that probably less than 0.01% of of the userbase will be able to use or make use of, especially delivering 120fps at that because the Series S is going to be pushed and stretched and strained in ways that the original Xbox One never could have imagined. For those who have invested in a Freesync monitor (and don't have a PC which will be incredibly limited in numbers) worthwhile support will only be maintained by owning a Series X as the S simply doesn't have the grunt to cope with Years 3-7 content delivering that output.

If you push the Pro comparison aside then maybe the next likely candidate would be the Gamecube. That wasn't a weak powered system, it had a small profile, aimed for less core gamers as a focus and absolutely sliced through launch day by coming in at a still never beaten £129.99 which was mind blowing even back then. Didn't help it though.

I just think the S is very easily made redundant. It lacks pretty much everything a core gamer would be looking for and has nothing more casual gamers would be drawn in by. It exists to undercut Sony without ever really asking if enough of a market exists to warrant it. It's main perk will be it's likely about to collapse pricing on remaining One S/One X models making latecomers able to get into Xbox's library for an insanely low price.

I think the 1440p piece is just marketing to say this is the max native resolution capability. It will appeal to a small subset as you say but it says all that needs to be said in regards to where it sits in the overall spec difference. If its 1440p then you instantly know it is also good at 1080p...

It remains to be seen whether it would appeal to core gamers or whether a market exists for it. For me the price is right, and game pass on top of that makes it a solid option to get straight into the xbox ecosystem (if you want to)...

[MartyG]

1440p games. 4k upscaling confirmed.
512gig ssd.
4k media supported.

https://www.theverge.com/2020/9/8/21...e-trailer-leak

Probably just as well that casuals only buy two games a year, CoD and FIFA, because that's all they're going to fit on the NVME drive for this next gen's games

[Cassius_Smoke]

It's a great price. I don't have a 4k TV so I'm not to bothered about that either.
Won't buy one though, for the same reason I don't own an Xbox now. Nothing worth playing.
Sure it plays all the 3rd party titles, like the PS5 will. But PS5 has the chance of some great exclusives and VR.

Neither Xbox console tells me it's going to offer a new experience to the current one and PS5 does.

[Nico87]

Probably just as well that casuals only buy two games a year, CoD and FIFA, because that's all they're going to fit on the NVME drive for this next gen's games

That's exactly who's gonna buy the S. And there are millions of them. Definitely getting one myself, worth it for BC alone

[Neon Ignition]

I can see the temptation via All-Access (MS needs to push that much harder as saying £20 a month or whatever sounds incredibly low) but given MS has nothing to use the system power lined up and that Game Pass doesn't include most of the games casual gamers would buy (FIFA, COD etc) so would mean tying themselves into paying £60 instead of much less on the few games they do buy it comes across as a hard sell. Say MS knocks out a truly stunning next-gen Horizon 5 in 2022/23 that finally embraces the power of the systems - I'd be amazed if by then there isn't already a Series S2 knocking on the door that is closer to the SX's power in a cheaper box. Given I'd imagine most interested parties already have an Xbox One it's much like paying £250 for nothing back in return.

For someone not in the Xbox ecosystem at all looking for a cheap way to get into MS's games and wanting future proofing, sure, the Series S does the job if the thinking is system + game pass covers all. I'd imagine that's an incredibly small number though too based on how the One and One X has been doing in recent years.

[Tobal]

It remains to be seen whether it would appeal to core gamers or whether a market exists for it. For me the price is right, and game pass on top of that makes it a solid option to get straight into the xbox ecosystem (if you want to)...

this is exactly what i was got texted this morning by a friend and work colleague this morning, asking what its all about (1 is switch owner only the other a base ps4/switch). The Price is a head turner and they've listened to me talk about gamepass (and bing rewards for freebies) being so much better than the trash we get on PSN.