In case you’ve been living under a rock, the Series S is the budget version of two consoles that Microsoft launched in November last year. At $299 (£249), this is a far more ideal price point to the 500 bucks expected of people looking for the 4K cream of the crop in the Xbox Series X or PS5.
Xbox Series S: The console
Going in the opposite direction of my thoughts on the PS5’s hardware design, I initially thought the Xbox Series S looked weird. This small oblong with a giant black circular grill on top reminds me of the drive-thru speaker box that I’d use to order a Quarter Pounder with cheese.
Over the last 12 months, however, it’s grown on me. The small size and weight is so much more convenient, the box shape is surely a little more durable than Sony’s wing-tipped system, and it’s restrained approach to design makes the box blend into any TV stand or desk with ease. It doesn’t draw attention to itself, and let’s be honest, that’s all you want from a games console.
A quick shout-out to one of my favorite elements of the Xbox Series systems, which is the versatility of play. Plugging in my USB keyboard and mouse has been a breath of fresh air across games like Halo Infinite and Gears Tactics that do work with controllers, but can feel a little clunky. It means you can turn your console into a low-cost gaming PC.
As for what you’ll find under the hood and how it performs, the custom AMD 7nm CPU and RDNA 2 GPU with 10GB GDDR6 video memory produces 4 teraflops of visual power. Compared to the 12 teraflops of the Series X, that sounds paltry, even to those who had no idea what a teraflop was until they bought the console (me).
In real-world use, however, that difference is not as drastic as the numbers suggest. Sure, there are some variable resolution changes (Forza Horizon 5 runs at 1440p at 60 frames per second on the Series X, compared to 1080p 60 fps on the Series S), and you can notice some slight visual downgrades upon closer inspection. But, for typical gameplay without stopping to look at wall textures, this is good enough.
One problem I’ve ran into constantly this year is a lack of space. For this new generation, 512GB is simply not enough and the use of proprietary storage expansion cards drives the cost up drastically for extra room. To put it into context, if you bought a Series S ($299) and a 1TB memory card ($219), that ends up being $18 more than just buying a Series X.