09-09-2020, 02:53 AM
Microsoft has announced they will be shipping two consoles at the start of the next generation, the Xbox Series X and the newly announced Xbox Series S. I would really like to hear our community's thoughts about this (especially @ wormtail39 and @StivnQ)
My thoughts:
With just the Series X, I think there wasn't much appeal to the next-gen Xbox platform. Sure, the Series X is the world's most powerful console, but they really don't have the exclusive and launch games for an appealing launch
But with the Series S now revealed, things are probably not the same. Here's a look at what's on offer for $299 / €299 / £249
And from that lower resolution part, comes the main appeal of this console. Not many people are gaming at 4K right now. Most TVs don't support input above 4K@30fps. In my opinion, this means that Xbox Series X and PS5 are for people who want the best visual fidelity and the best possible gaming experience with no price restrictions. But for everyone else, which probably is a large majority (Steam survey in 2018 showed that only 6% people gamed above 1080p, but that's arguably irrelevant for console gaming), the Xbox Series S could be the perfect gaming machine, especially given the price.
My thoughts:
With just the Series X, I think there wasn't much appeal to the next-gen Xbox platform. Sure, the Series X is the world's most powerful console, but they really don't have the exclusive and launch games for an appealing launch
But with the Series S now revealed, things are probably not the same. Here's a look at what's on offer for $299 / €299 / £249
- 1440p at 120fps
- Digital only - no Blu-Ray drive
- DirectX Raytracing
- Variable Rate Shading (VRS)
- Variable Refresh Rate (VRR) -- already available on Xbox One, but not used by games
- 512 GB NVME SSD
- 4K media playback -- already available on Xbox One / S / X
- 4K upscaling for games -- PS4 Pro does this for most titles currently, but only at 30fps
And from that lower resolution part, comes the main appeal of this console. Not many people are gaming at 4K right now. Most TVs don't support input above 4K@30fps. In my opinion, this means that Xbox Series X and PS5 are for people who want the best visual fidelity and the best possible gaming experience with no price restrictions. But for everyone else, which probably is a large majority (Steam survey in 2018 showed that only 6% people gamed above 1080p, but that's arguably irrelevant for console gaming), the Xbox Series S could be the perfect gaming machine, especially given the price.