Xbox Series X | S

[Parksey]

10 hours ago, tobert said:

For those who have owned both, how big a jump is the series S from the Xbox one X? 

 

I have a one x so can technically play everything I could play on a series S but I wonder how big a different the QoL improvements like quick resume make.

 

I don't own both (or a One X), so this is an opinion with no grounding in technical facts whatsoever. 

 

If you own a One X, I would say get a Series X.

 

The Series S will feel like an upgrade - it's smoother, faster and slicker. You'll likely notice loading is markedly quicker. 

 

However you're probably going to be playing a lot of One X stuff on the console for the time being. 

 

For me, I got an S because I basically have to get a PS5 due to playing Destiny with my friends on the PS4 for the past five years. I'm invested in it. I've had all three consoles in the past and one always gets left behind. So the S price point was attractive. It was a bonus, really. Plus I never owned an Xbox One, so £250 for the chance to play all those games I missed, as well as all those future next gen games being available if I wanted them, was a bargain. And there's Gamepass as well, which I didn't have access to. 

 

If you have the cash spare, I'd go for the X. You're getting the best possible version of old games and the best possible version of new ones. You have a disk drive, if that bothers you. You have the extra storage too (I have Destiny, Halo MCC and Forza on there, and it makes it impossible to add another live service game like F76 or Gears 5).

 

You'll be future-proofed, as well as being able to see old games revitalised. You've already played some before maybe, whereas for me, the Gears 1 Remake, Sunset Overdrive etc are all new, so I don't mind if they not too different from their One S counterparts. I've been playing my PS4 before that and the QOL stuff makes it way better and faster than that. That is enough for me and my lack of 4K TV. 

 

For now. As I have mentioned, I'm definitely going to upgrade in the future. Just wondering if my temptation can hold out maybe 3 years until the mid gen upgrade. 

 

It's odd, as I've said before. I definitely don't regret getting the S - I've had a great time with it and it's all I want to play at the moment. It's a great console and good if it's complimenting something else or competing with game time. Or if you're on a budget. 

 

I don't regret getting the S in as much as that I feel like I've hedged my bets and gone 60-70% in, realised I really like the Xbox and its way of doing things, and wish I'd gone 100% in. My future PS5 is probably going to be that third console now. 

 

If you think you're going to go all-in on the Xbox, or on Gamepass, I'd get the X. If you own an Xbox One and have had Gamepass, I'd get the X. 

[routeburn]

I'm wondering if there will be a mid-gen new model addition to the XBox Series to give 4K60 with Ray Tracing as the baseline. What MS is doing with Gamepass is detaching the games from the hardware. i.e. you subscribe to Game Pass. If you want OK bling, get the S. You want good bling, get the X. You want super customisable bling, get a PC. They can now swap in, or out, the hardware platforms and all you get is higher or lower levels of performance depending on your budget. So adding either a new 'X' or something above the 'X' would make sense as performance increased and prices drop.

[MNFRMTMRRW]

2 hours ago, routeburn said:

I'm wondering if there will be a mid-gen new model addition to the XBox Series to give 4K60 with Ray Tracing as the baseline. What MS is doing with Gamepass is detaching the games from the hardware. i.e. you subscribe to Game Pass. If you want OK bling, get the S. You want good bling, get the X. You want super customisable bling, get a PC. They can now swap in, or out, the hardware platforms and all you get is higher or lower levels of performance depending on your budget. So adding either a new 'X' or something above the 'X' would make sense as performance increased and prices drop.

Based on Xbox All Access subscription plans, it would be smart to have a new console upgrade every 24 months so people can stay subscribed. But not sure if developers would like this, unless the upgrades are mostly gpu based, with maybe a switch from 7 to 5nm. I can totally see Microsoft do it, they also didn’t mind having a second active SKU with the S. 

[routeburn]

From what I can tell, the MS dev tools and the popular game engines seem to be moving in the direction of giving a very flexible and scalable layer between the game itself and how it is rendered/presented - meaning that you can create a game and a set of graphical assets which the build process+engine will then run at the appropriate "bling", FPS, resolution, on the platform it's running on. We even see real-time scaling of rendering engine with variable resolutions, FPS, and texture / graphical qualities. It's all very impressive.

 

This means that if MS ships SeriesX+1, it shouldn't be the nightmare it used to be for developers. Depending on the tooling and game engine it should "just run better" on the new hardware. Obviously if the game only has 4K assets and it's an 8K-capable platform then it's not going to look as good as an 8K-native product, but if it's just running at a "guaranteed 4K60 with ray tracing" vs a "target 4K60 with no ray tracing", I don't see that this would be too hard.

[dreamylittledream]

Series S back in stock at Argos if anyone’s after one

[Uncle Nasty]

Impressions after owning an X since launch and being out of the Xbox loop since the 360.

 

Despite there not being a big exclusive launch title, this is easily the most I've enjoyed a console launch, it's not even close. This thing is fucking insane. The speed of everything, the UI, responsiveness, speed of getting back into a game, loading, launching, everything is a massive boost to what we're used to which is not only a tangible QOL upgrade, but makes dipping in and out of games something you'll do way more often as load times are just so short. Occasionally you'll see a flash of a loading screen, the kind of thing you'd used to stare at for 30+ seconds, but now in most games that is just gone, it's amazing.

 

Gamepass is just stupidly good and embarrases PS+ as the joke that it is. Forget the pile of shame, the future is having a massive library of quality titles that you play at leisure. Doesn't matter if you complete anything. Just sitting down and having a huge collection of games to browse and install is satisfying in itself (you will need the storage expansion though) and encourages you to try games you would have otherwise overlooked risk-free. I would never have paid for Tetris Connect, Xeno Crisis or Gears Tactics, but these are amazing games and I'm deeply hooked on all three of them. Again, load times are so insanely fast that flipping between them and playing in short bursts is totally viable and suits the way these games play.

 

Backwards compat has been talked about before but I will say that playing SSX3 at 4k 60fps on a massive telly is an absolute thing of wonder and looks sensational. Load times are non existent, the colours are so beautifully vivid and bright and the game itself still plays like a dream, actually better than you remember thanks to the silky frame rate. This has taken over from Wipeout PS4 as my daily adrenaline rush fix.

 

The hardware is completely silent, not even a whir, even when it's under what I assume is heavy load with something like Halo V or Forza Horizon pushing everything around at 4k/60. Compared to the PS4 which sounded like a hairdryer even in menus, this is another significant upgrade that makes the whole experience just feel slicker and more high-end.

 

The controller is okay. D-pad is annoyingly clicky and I'm finding myself gripping the pad in a bit of an awkward way - it's not as effortlessly comfortable in the hand as I found the Dual Shock 4. I bought the play and charge pack which gives about a week of use, based on a good few hours of gaming every day.

 

App integration is decent with Gamepass (you can be reading a forum post about a game in bed on your phone, for example, then hop into the app, look it up on Gamepass and install it to your console from there) and keeping track of your MS Points - this is a reward system which gives you actual digital money to spend on games for doing gaming things.

 

I was dreading setting up Spotify, Amazon etc as my passwords are generated by 1Password so they're long, random and contain a lot of special characters, but they have even simplified that so you sign in on the net from your desktop instead of faffing with your passwords. That was a much appreciated ease of use consideration. Setting up the console itself was slick and easy, I did everything on my iPhone. When the console restarted it had configured my old account and all my old games (even the Dorritos game and the Undertow reward for when Live was down years ago!) were available to download.

 

Overall, after some initial doubts, ownership of this console has been a complete joy and I look forward to using it every day. As a lapsed Xbox customer there is a lot to catch up on, so my perspective is definitely influenced by having an entire generation of improved Xbox games plus all the back compat titles to try. If you are in that position too I wouldn't hesitate to recommend the X and make a pig of yourself with all the goodies on Game Pass.

 

[moosegrinder]

14 minutes ago, Rumspringa said:

I haven't used an xbox in years but got my son a series x for christmas, is there any way to update the console, install and update a couple of games from disc without signing into his account and alerting him to what awaits on the day? Our internet speed is so shit that it will be days before he gets to play anything otherwise.

 Just make a new one. It sets it up through the Xbox app on your phone so as long as you haven't linked that to his old Xbox you should be able to make a new one and do all that without him knowing.

[carlospie]

Call it santa Claus. 

[moosegrinder]

29 minutes ago, carlospie said:

Call it santa Claus. 

YES DO THIS

[David Kenny]

11 minutes ago, moosegrinder said:

YES DO THIS

His son is 36 years old.

[moosegrinder]

Just now, David Kenny said:

His son is 36 years old.

Pft, like that matters.

[MNFRMTMRRW]

1 hour ago, Rumspringa said:

I haven't used an xbox in years but got my son a series x for christmas, is there any way to update the console, install and update a couple of games from disc without signing into his xbox live account and alerting him to what awaits on the day? Our internet speed is so shit that it will be days before he gets to play anything otherwise.

1. Setup a new Xbox account / use your own Microsoft account on the machine
2. Install the app on your phone and login
3. You can then download every game in the store, even if you don't own them yet
4. When your son adds his own account and logins he can play all the games he has on disc/digital purchase for. And if you also gift hem new games those will be locked and loaded on day 1

[MattyP]

23 hours ago, Majora said:

Yeah I have both Series X and PS5 and while PS5 was definitely the more exciting launch period I'm back to playing on my X more because of Gamepass. I'm still polishing off Demon's Souls and Sackboy on PS5  but I'm now wondering what the next new release will be on PS5 that I'll be happy to spend 60-70 quid on whereas I already have a huge backlog of games on GamePass I want to play and more are going to come of course. 

 

Gamepass really has just completely changed how I consume games to the point where I almost don't care what Microsoft's first party line-up is like right now. Of course it'll be great when they start releasing their heavy hitters on the service but I don't even have close to enough time to play all the games I want to on GamePass as things stand anyway.

 

This is what has ultimately kept me on the Xbox platform. Really getting lots of benefit out of GamePass and the thought of paying £50+ for a game these days is not really something I would consider unless its exceptional.  The fact that I can easily move over to PC too and get GP on that too is great. As much as I like the idea of the PS5 I think the gimmicks of the pad would wear off as would buying full price games.

[Timmo]

54 minutes ago, MattyP said:

 

This is what has ultimately kept me on the Xbox platform. Really getting lots of benefit out of GamePass and the thought of paying £50+ for a game these days is not really something I would consider unless its exceptional.  The fact that I can easily move over to PC too and get GP on that too is great. As much as I like the idea of the PS5 I think the gimmicks of the pad would wear off as would buying full price games.

 

Along with what you're saying, Cyberpunk has only highlighted once more another big issue with new (what will now be) £55-£70 releases - many of them just aren't finished.

 

I'm pretty much all in patient gamer now, getting games when they are cheaper and finished makes way more sense. I got Days Gone a few months ago and it was amazing, but that's only because it's evolved so much from its initial, broken state.

 

Game Pass offering the odd AAA game on release is obviously great, though!

 

All that said, I'm not a big multiplayer gamer these days and I can understand FOMO when not buying games new. Fortunately I seem to be past that stage.

[MattyP]

9 minutes ago, Timmo said:

 

Along with what you're saying, Cyberpunk has only highlighted once more another big issue with new (what will now be) £55-£70 releases - many of them just aren't finished.

Still sat on the fence with CyberPunk... want something to play at Xmas time but coming around to the idea of waiting for a more patched version to get released and hitting GamePass over Xmas instead. Happy to be patient too.... I was thinking of getting it on my PC but it doesn't look to up to the job of doing it justice without some upgrading so will probably end up holding fire until a Series X targeted  build gets a release.

 

To be fair PLENTY on GamePass to keep me busy that I haven't played before. So many new to me. In January looking forward to the The Medium...

[amorenod]

Look who has arrived to keep the big, white one on its toes. In a few days, the RTX 3070 will be here, making it 3 for 3. Eat shit, scalpers.

 

[Ninja Doctor]

Totally flip flopping over picking up an S from Argos. Should I?

[deerokus]

You could just use gamepass never buy another game again and have a great time. Of course I'm not that sensible but still, it's totally doable. 

[MattyP]

25 minutes ago, Ninja Doctor said:

Totally flip flopping over picking up an S from Argos. Should I?

 

Think that is a question you need to ask yourself?!  S + GamePass sub is a great combo though.... Hell at the moment a Series X and GP is a great combo. No need to buy any games at all... and full backward compatibility for your old favourites too.

[Timmo]

22 minutes ago, Ninja Doctor said:

Totally flip flopping over picking up an S from Argos. Should I?

 

My thought process was this: I bought an S with Game Pass, with the plan to get a PS5 next year as well, or upgrade to an X. Very pleased with it so far.

[Ninja Doctor]

My problem is I’m sat here looking under the telly and I’ve got a Wii, a ps3, a PS4 and my 360 all set up and in regular use. I just don’t think I’ll get the use. 
 

okay I’ve convinced myself, after Christmas.  Not now. Someone go buy all the Argos ones so I don’t change my mind. 

[MattyP]

4 minutes ago, Ninja Doctor said:

My problem is I’m sat here looking under the telly and I’ve got a Wii, a ps3, a PS4 and my 360 all set up and in regular use. I just don’t think I’ll get the use. 
 

okay I’ve convinced myself, after Christmas.  Not now. Someone go buy all the Argos ones so I don’t change my mind. 

Indeed.... Seems you have plenty enough to keep you busy. Feel bad having a PC, Wii and a Series X at times. Choice is great but you sometimes end up sat pondering what to play... Guessing a S and GamePass would only compound the problem in your case....

[BossSaru]

44 minutes ago, Ninja Doctor said:

Totally flip flopping over picking up an S from Argos. Should I?

 

If it is not going to break the bank, I'd go for it.

 

I got the X, but frankly of be having just as much fun with the S, albeit with fewer games on the SSD.

 

Xbox with Game Pass is a real bargain. A few times in the Danes so far I have looked at games, then thought "but I have a few dozen games on GP that I want to play just as much", and not purchased.

 

Sure, the PS5 may have the better exclusives. But for the next three years I have all the Game Pass games I can eat without having to pay a penny more then the £121 I have already put in (3 years of XBL Gold, plus £1 to upgrade to GP Ultimate). Our, to put it another way, three years of having for the cost of about two PS5 launch titles.

[MattyP]

13 minutes ago, BossSaru said:

Sure, the PS5 may have the better exclusives. But for the next three years I have all the Game Pass games I can eat without having to pay a penny more then the £121 I have already put in (3 years of XBL Gold, plus £1 to upgrade to GP Ultimate). Our, to put it another way, three years of having for the cost of about two PS5 launch titles.

...And arguably and realistically going on past experience we won't see many games that push either of the new consoles hardware for a couple of years anyway.

[Timmo]

Once this generation gets going, if the S can match the X for frame rate just at a lower resolution, it with game pass will be an insane bargain which a lot of PS5 owners surely won't be able to resist. Maybe that is Microsoft's plan.

[AceGrace]

OK,

 

I took advantage of the Argos Series S consoles that are back in stock so now I have a series X, series S (and a PS5).

 

I already have an account which has xbox live enabled. 

I know this has been asked many times before but

 

The Series X is for me, the Series S is for the kids.

What I want to do is keep the Series X as the main one but I would like the kids to be able to share xbox live, and my digital games BUT I want to keep mine as the primary console.

 

Is this possible?

 

[Kryptonian]

2 minutes ago, AceGrace said:

OK,

 

I took advantage of the Argos Series S consoles that are back in stock so now I have a series X, series S (and a PS5).

 

I already have an account which has xbox live enabled. 

I know this has been asked many times before but

 

The Series X is for me, the Series S is for the kids.

What I want to do is keep the Series X as the main one but I would like the kids to be able to share xbox live, and my digital games BUT I want to keep mine as the primary console.

 

Is this possible?

 

No, you’d have to make the S the primary console so their accounts can access your stuff on there and your console would need your account signed in and to be online for you to access the same.

[AceGrace]

Ah OK. Is that going to cause me any problems with normal use?

 

I will be using the series X far more than they will be.

 

Is there a guide somewhere on the exact steps needed to set it up?

[HarryBizzle]

22 hours ago, carlospie said:

Who the hell has enough time for two consoles! 

 

I honestly do wonder if I actually need a PS5 at all. I spend nearly all my gaming time on Game Pass. Maybe I should have just gone for the X so I have a disc drive and be done with it.

 

But it's great that pretty much whichever console you pick, you're pretty much sorted. It's nothing like last gen where owning a base Xbox meant awful performance.

[MNFRMTMRRW]

31 minutes ago, Timmo said:

Once this generation gets going, if the S can match the X for frame rate just at a lower resolution, it with game pass will be an insane bargain which a lot of PS5 owners surely won't be able to resist. Maybe that is Microsoft's plan.

I am confident it will once the development kits are complete once AMD releases their DLSS competitor (which Xbox hardware will support).