Xbox Series X | S

[JPL]

2 minutes ago, BarryL85 said:

 

I'm torn on the S, I think it is fantastic value for money but the size of the SSD is the concern for many i'd assume.

 

If for any reason you feel the need to expand on the storage i'd personally opt for the Series X (providing you are happy with it's form factor). You gain in so many ways, double the storage size being the most immediately beneficial one. Of course an S with the expanded SSD would net you a further 500gb but is that really worth £20 more than having an X? For me that is an easy no.

Assets will be smaller due to the lower resolution, so in theory you should be able to have roughly the same number of games on either system. As for storage, you can always just plug a standard drive in to archive any games you’re not currently playing. It’s a really well designed system. Take a look at that video I’ve just posted if you haven’t seen it before.

[FiveFootNinja]

4 minutes ago, BarryL85 said:

I'm torn on the S, I think it is fantastic value for money but the size of the SSD is the concern for many i'd assume.

 

If you are going to expand the storage then definitely just go for the X, it's much better value and you get the more powerful machine. 

 

In my use case I'll have it hooked up to game pass and easily have 6-10 games on there at a time and just rotate them like I do now. My broadband is fast enough that I can get games fairly quickly and I just remove ones I've finished or aren't really playing and have a few bigger titles and some smaller games on there for whatever mood I'm in. I've never really had any issues on my 500GB Xbox One (never bought an external drive for example) and that was even with the monster RDR2 install on there.

 

It does seem like the Series S hasn't captured customers as much as some people (myself included) expected though as despite both PlayStations and the Seres X selling out almost immediately you can still easily picked Series S pre-orders right now.

[moosegrinder]

I'm currently uhming as to whether to get an X pre-ordered when they next come up. Got an S as I don't need a drive or 4k but I've had a tax refund so I'm debating whether to future proof myself.

[FiveFootNinja]

Can anyone who has ordered hardware from Microsoft direct give me an idea on how reliable their delivery dates are?

 

I've just tried to order a play and charge kit from Amazon to come alongside my console but the delivery date for it is the 11th (the day after the console arrives) but the MS store says "available" on the 10th however I'm not sure but not sure if that is delivery or postage date? 

 

 Refer to previous comment about this being a stupid and an unnecessary faff. it should just be in the bloody box!

[Mr. Gerbik]

26 minutes ago, denisb said:

Is the saving on the S worth the performance hit? I’ve got PS5 and series X ordered but was thinking as I’ll only do digital on Xbox would the S be worth it

 

22 minutes ago, Hitcher said:

There is no performance hit, it just runs at lower resolutions.

 

18 minutes ago, moosegrinder said:

 

Just no drive, smaller HDD, smaller form factor and no 4k.

No, there's more - no X Enhancements on the S. So in terms of backwards compatibility you'll be stuck with the vanilla Bone versions of Xbox One games and none of your 360 titles will be of the gorgeous enhanced variety. Not a deal breaker for some, but definitely for me. Just so you know.

[JPL]

2 minutes ago, Mr. Gerbik said:

 

 

No, there's more - no X Enhancements on the S. So in terms of backwards compatibility you'll be stuck with the vanilla Bone versions of Xbox One games and none of your 360 titles will be of the gorgeous enhanced variety. Not a deal breaker for some, but definitely for me. Just so you know.

That’s not 100% true though. You’re right in that some of the X enhancements aren’t there, such as higher res textures, which it doesn’t need anyway and some added effects, but due to the CPU being way better, you’ll get better frame rates. 30 > 60, 60 > 120, etc.

[BarryL85]

12 minutes ago, JPL said:

Assets will be smaller due to the lower resolution, so in theory you should be able to have roughly the same number of games on either system. As for storage, you can always just plug a standard drive in to archive any games you’re not currently playing. It’s a really well designed system. Take a look at that video I’ve just posted if you haven’t seen it before.

 

Just watched it thanks

 

Will this really mean the game file sizes will be smaller? In theory they can be but will game dev's really take advantage of this? 

[moosegrinder]

5 minutes ago, Mr. Gerbik said:

 

 

No, there's more - no X Enhancements on the S. So in terms of backwards compatibility you'll be stuck with the vanilla Bone versions of Xbox One games and none of your 360 titles will be of the gorgeous enhanced variety. Not a deal breaker for some, but definitely for me. Just so you know.

Nobody knows what this actually means though. It depends on what X enhanced games use. It SHOULD just be textures which don't make any difference, the extra grunt from the Series S should solve any frame rate related shenanigans.

[Mr. Gerbik]

1 minute ago, JPL said:

That’s not 100% true though. You’re right in that some of the X enhancements aren’t there, such as higher res textures, which it doesn’t need anyway and some added effects, but due to the CPU being way better, you’ll get better frame rates. 30 > 60, 60 > 120, etc.

Yeah, the framerates are very important. Agreed on that. But I also love those 360 and OG games looking like proper remasters that Sony for example would charge mucho dinero for.

[Darren]

6 minutes ago, FiveFootNinja said:

It does seem like the Series S hasn't captured customers as much as some people (myself included) expected though as despite both PlayStations and the Seres X selling out almost immediately you can still easily picked Series S pre-orders right now.

I think those of us who’ve ordered an S are in the pretty narrow overlap on the Venn diagram between “people who are interested enough to pre-order a brand new console” and “people who want the budget model.” It *should* sell fine to the wider public *if* they communicate clearly that it’s not a bargain basement experience, it just doesn’t do 4K, so unless your kids have a 4K telly in their rooms then an X (and, they could argue, a PS5!) would be a waste of money.

 

Judging by the last few posts I’m not sure they’ve made that quite clear enough just yet...

[JPL]

Just now, BarryL85 said:

 

Just watched it thanks

 

Will this really mean the game file sizes will be smaller? In theory they can be but will game dev's really take advantage of this? 

Yes. There’s absolutely no reason for them to install 4K assets on the S.

[moosegrinder]

1 minute ago, moosegrinder said:

Nobody knows what this actually means though. It depends on what X enhanced games use. It SHOULD just be textures which don't make any difference, the extra grunt from the Series S should solve any frame rate related shenanigans.

 

Edit: JPL said it better.

[thesnwmn]

2 minutes ago, JPL said:

That’s not 100% true though. You’re right in that some of the X enhancements aren’t there, such as higher res textures, which it doesn’t need anyway and some added effects, but due to the CPU being way better, you’ll get better frame rates. 30 > 60, 60 > 120, etc.

If the rate wasn’t locked. The point is you get the non-X enhanced version of the game on S.

[Mr. Gerbik]

3 minutes ago, moosegrinder said:

Nobody knows what this actually means though. It depends on what X enhanced games use. It SHOULD just be textures which don't make any difference, the extra grunt from the Series S should solve any frame rate related shenanigans.

They said it will run the One S versions of games didn't they? That means 900p-tastic grainy visuals for XB1 games and no 4k enhancements for 369* titles afaik.

 

Edit: *Nice. But I meant 360 obviously

[moosegrinder]

Just now, Mr. Gerbik said:

They said it will run the One S versions of games didn't they? That means 900p-tastic grainy visuals for XB1 games and no 4k enhancements for 369 titles afaik.

 

The 4k is irrelevant because it doesn't do it. That's the catch all, it won't do anything at 4k. However if something ISN'T hard locked to 900p it'll upscale to 1440. As I understand it.

[Jg15]

The S is back in (preorder) stock on Amazon. Guessing more X stock won't appear until the 10th.

[moosegrinder]

Edit: this new skin is fucking stupid.

[Hitcher]

This is how Xbox Series S backwards compatibility really works

 

1440p for OG Xbox and enhanced 360 titles, 2x performance on select One S titles - and more.

 

Kicking off with games running on the vintage 2001 Xbox - the 'OG' machine - we've confirmed that Xbox Series S will run these games at an enhanced resolution. There's a 3x boost to resolution on both axes, meaning that titles targeting 480p on the original machine will hit a maximum of 1440p on Series S, presumably with a range of performance benefits. The good news continues with the enhanced Xbox 360 titles that were released for Xbox One X. These games will also be enhanced for Series S, this time running with a 2x2 resolution multiplier, bringing titles that ran at native 720p up to 1440p. While this doesn't match the max 4K we saw on Xbox One X, there is the potential for improved performance elsewhere thanks to the much faster Zen 2 CPU architecture. In scenarios where Xbox One X was limited by its Jaguar CPU cores, Series S has much more headroom.

 

 

https://www.eurogamer.net/articles/digitalfoundry-2020-this-is-how-xbox-series-s-back-compat-really-works

[Mr. Gerbik]

7 minutes ago, moosegrinder said:

 

The 4k is irrelevant because it doesn't do it. That's the catch all, it won't do anything at 4k. However if something ISN'T hard locked to 900p it'll upscale to 1440. As I understand it.

When you run the Enhanced X versions of games on a 1080p telly, the supersampling makes it look sharp abd detailed and smooth. Running the vanilla S versions makes 900p locked XB1 games and un-enhanced 360 games look hella grainy even on a 1080p telly. That's my point, those BC games don't look like remasters anymore, they just look like the original games. Not a deal breaker for lots of people here obviously, but I don't want to miss out on that after loving replaying old favorites that way on the 1X.

 

Edit: oh I didn't realize there would be specific series S enhancements for 360 titles! Never mind then  Point still stands for XB1 titles though. There were lots if 900p titles that looked grungy to me compared to the games I was playing on PS4. When I switched over to X1X it was like night and day. For those vanilla S titles locked at 900p or even lower in some cases, it would look even grainier on a 4k telly. 1080p looks fine still imo but it seems like that's the minimum. 

 

[thesnwmn]

Yes, but that’s just OG and 360.

 

For One titles you get the ‘S’ version. Maybe a more stable frame rate. Maybe a better one. But no guarantee and will depend on how the game was coded (unlocked frame rate or not).

[RubberJohnny]

I think they clarified saying it would still get enhancements, just not the specific 4K X enhancements.

 

Quote

To deliver the highest quality backwards compatible experience consistent with the developer’s original intent, the Xbox Series S runs the Xbox One S version of backward compatible games while applying improved texture filtering, higher and more consistent frame rates, faster load times, and Auto HDR.”

 

Resolution is missing there though.

[Mr. Gerbik]

Sorry for creating this resolution gate chaos everyone

[moosegrinder]

Also it means the installs for the S games on BC stuff will be smaller because they won't have the One X packs which can be massive.

[JPL]

9 minutes ago, Mr. Gerbik said:

For those vanilla S titles locked at 900p or even lower in some cases, it would look even grainier on a 4k telly. 1080p looks fine still imo but it seems like that's the minimum. 

Yeah, but if you had a 4K TV, then surely you’d go Series X.

[HarryBizzle]

 

29 minutes ago, Mr. Gerbik said:

 

 

No, there's more - no X Enhancements on the S. So in terms of backwards compatibility you'll be stuck with the vanilla Bone versions of Xbox One games and none of your 360 titles will be of the gorgeous enhanced variety. Not a deal breaker for some, but definitely for me. Just so you know.

 

This bit's not right:

 

Quote

Kicking off with games running on the vintage 2001 Xbox - the 'OG' machine - we've confirmed that Xbox Series S will run these games at an enhanced resolution. There's a 3x boost to resolution on both axes, meaning that titles targeting 480p on the original machine will hit a maximum of 1440p on Series S, presumably with a range of performance benefits. The good news continues with the enhanced Xbox 360 titles that were released for Xbox One X. These games will also be enhanced for Series S, this time running with a 2x2 resolution multiplier, bringing titles that ran at native 720p up to 1440p. 

 

https://www.eurogamer.net/articles/digitalfoundry-2020-this-is-how-xbox-series-s-back-compat-really-works 

 

Which is great news, I think.

 

 

@denisb I think, while in theory, both are supposed to have equivalent performance, we don't really know 100% that that's going to be the case. I'd expect to see some comparisons from Digital Foundry and others in the run up to launch. If I was trying to choose between them, I'd probably stick a pre-order in for both and cancel one once we know more.

[FiveFootNinja]

4 minutes ago, JPL said:

Yeah, but if you had a 4K TV, then surely you’d go Series X.

 

I would definitely have gone with an X if it was my main machine. But as a second box I kinda feel the Series S will be fine even on my 4K... I could be swayed though as some of these reviews and tear downs start coming out.

 

The bigger issue for me actually is I literally can't fit the PS5 and Series X in my TV bench due to both of the new form factors. I would need to find somewhere else for the SkyQ box to live to even have a chance of them squeezing in there.

[Hitcher]

Don't forget that the S will also hardware upscale to 4K if you have a 4K TV.

[JPL]

Just now, FiveFootNinja said:

 

I would definitely have gone with an X if it was my main machine. But as a second box I kinda feel the Series S will be fine even on my 4K... I could be swayed though as some of these reviews and tear downs start coming out.

 

The bigger issue for me actually is I literally can't fit the PS5 and Series X in my TV bench due to both form factors.

Maybe we’ve got different priorities, but I’m going Series X as my main machine for Gamepass and better third party games, then PS5 as my secondary for exclusives.

 

Saying that, the current design of the PS5 offends me so much, I’m absolutely not getting one until the mid-gen redesign.

[reef]

Has anyone answered the most important question yet? Can you rotate the X button 90 degrees if you are placing it horizontally on the shelf? Rotating the PS symbol was one of the PS2's best features

[FiveFootNinja]

22 minutes ago, JPL said:

Saying that, the current design of the PS5 offends me so much

 

That's exactly why I need it to fit inside the TV bench (with the door shut)! 

 

 

Priority wise it was a tough one. Money and space no object I would have both premium consoles for sure, but with the PS5 offering the better games in the launch/post-launch window and (probably on form at least) the better first-party exclusives for at least the first few years, and the prospect of PSVRv3 on the horizon that was a bit of a no brainer for me. As Game Pass is generally something I generally dip in and out of for smaller experiences it didn't feel like a massive compromise to go with the baby box with the bonus of the enhancements/upscaling compared to my current OG Xbox with the added bonus of them all fitting into my room setup.

 

Truth be told more than once this week I've been considering cancelling the S and just sticking with what I have for a bit and then getting an X next year sometime, but if keeps coming back to where I'd physically put the thing in the room. We'll see. I might cave. The Bethesda announcement didn't help my quandary either