Xbox Series X | S

[tobert]

PSA - The Series S is currently £189.99 in Smyths and at Amazon

[Mike1812]

Yeah I was just looking at it on Argos for £199. Was looking at getting an X but I'm tempted by this now. 

 

Is it worth the extra for an X if I can afford it do you think?

[Kayin Amoh]

17 minutes ago, Mike1812 said:

Is it worth the extra for an X if I can afford it do you think?

 

I'm tempted to chime in because I think the X is a tremendous machine, but I've never had or used an S. A lot of people seem to have X as their home console, and have an S for kids / traveling / emulation, just as a handy backup device.

 

Someone who's used both can give a better answer. If you can afford it the X will be more futureproof, but the main issue for me would be ensuring access to 60fps games as the generation goes on.

 

But hey - I hear the S is a great machine, and you can always upgrade later if you feel the need. And these are some good prices.

[ryodi]

XBox series controllers are £34.99 at Argos as well.

 

https://www.argos.co.uk/list/great-prices-on-xbox-controllers?tag=ar:search:m020:xbox-controllers

[monkeydog]

Looks like they're that price everywhere.  Could do with a spare one. If we're doing 3 player I end up with the Xbone controller that the dog chewed the nubs off. 

 

Might go with a love red!

[Graham S]

2 hours ago, Mike1812 said:

Yeah I was just looking at it on Argos for £199. Was looking at getting an X but I'm tempted by this now. 

 

Is it worth the extra for an X if I can afford it do you think?

I have an X in the lounge and recently bought an S for the office from the trading folder, and I’m delighted with it. Just as good really.

 

These are the main reasons to have an X:

It supports 4K. I think I can tell I have a lower spec machine as I’m sat so close to my monitor with my S. 

The X supports the high resolution modes in the backward compatible games. (See this Resetera thread )

the disk space is pretty constrained on the S. As flight simulator is enormous, I’ve only got that, some emulators and 3 other games on there. The expansion SSD is like £180. If that’s a problem may as well have an X from the start. 

 

Set against that the S is small and lovely on my desk. I like the restrained design of my X under my telly but it can’t hide its bulk up close. 
 

*EDIT* forgot to mention S is digital only!

[tobert]

I have an X and was tempted by a second S,  however the SSD size is probably a deal breaker as I would likely use the S to play the same games as the X when the kids/family are using the main telly, but it would fill up pretty quickly

 

 

 

[Graham S]

In a way you only need what you’re personally playing right now, as the S is a one person machine for me, and with the “Home Xbox” limitations I guess the rest of the family would have no luck anyway. But yes, it’s very tight. I would have said the X didn’t have enough space before I experienced this!

[Mike1812]

I've gone for the S at that price. Then maybe get an X later and use that as a second console. Seems ridiculously cheap for what you get. 

[MattyP]

1 hour ago, Mike1812 said:

Yeah I was just looking at it on Argos for £199. Was looking at getting an X but I'm tempted by this now. 

 

Is it worth the extra for an X if I can afford it do you think?

Had both. Series X initially  and now only have a Series S. 

 

Depends on what your needs are? Just a simple console that will do 1080p and play the latest games with the new features then the S maybe your ticket. Its lovely and compact and doesn't invade the room. 

 

The series X gives you more storage and targets 4K - ultmately more powerful but at the moment its arguable whether that power is used in anyway to make different games. Sure you'll get a frame rate boost perhaps or a resolution boost (or both).

 

All depends what you want and what your budget is. The Series S at £190 is a steal IMHO. A great way of getting this gen upgrade for not much money at all.  Not missed the X at all. The experience feels the same. 

 

Personally hanging on the side-lines a bit now. Want to see what games come up. I might invest in a upgraded Series X at some point (or just the vanilla one) if the games get more demanding or upgrade the PC. Right now though getting a lot of gaming out of the Series S and don't feel like I've compromised anything. Saved some money too.

[MattyP]

19 minutes ago, tobert said:

I have an X and was tempted by a second S,  however the SSD size is probably a deal breaker as I would likely use the S to play the same games as the X when the kids/family are using the main telly, but it would fill up pretty quickly

 

 

 

Just have external drive and shift things across - takes a few moments to bring over a game. XB1 games run off the external drive only S/X games need to be in internal storage (or in an expensive memory expansion card).

 

But I guess it depends on what you want. I am finding I just have one "big" game on the go at any time and then a few smaller indie games. Seems to be working for me despite having an X earlier with the additional storage I mostly didn't play the games I'd downloaded on there at the same time or needed instant access to them.

[JPL]

12 minutes ago, MattyP said:

but at the moment its arguable whether that power is used in anyway to make different games.

What do you mean by this? The X was never designed to play different games than the S. They’re basically the same console, with one being a cut down version of the other. All games that come to X will come to S too, just with less bells and whistles.

[Fry Crayola]

1 hour ago, ryodi said:

XBox series controllers are £34.99 at Argos as well.

 

https://www.argos.co.uk/list/great-prices-on-xbox-controllers?tag=ar:search:m020:xbox-controllers

 

I would be all over this for my PC, but for whatever reason my existing Series controller doesn't connect to my Xbox Wireless Adapter, and my PC being such an old bastard doesn't have Bluetooth.

 

I suspect my adapter is too old, as it's longer than the current model.

[Mike1812]

Damn, this thing is tiny!

[Shimmyhill]

6 minutes ago, Mike1812 said:

Damn, this thing is tiny!

 

Takes it to the pants thread

 

The series S is impressively small and light - so much so its not big enough for a PS5 to stand on it properly 😂 - serious experiments were done!

[MattyP]

41 minutes ago, JPL said:

What do you mean by this? The X was never designed to play different games than the S. They’re basically the same console, with one being a cut down version of the other. All games that come to X will come to S too, just with less bells and whistles.

Just meant that games haven't yet been developed will need extra resources the X has over the S. Agree though generally the S just has less memory and the APU is clocked at a slightly lower clock speed however I guess at some point Devs might start to target games that require more memory for example so we might get things that are Series X only. 

 

Doesn't really bother me the S is so cheap anyway happy to move on should this happen. Or just keep playing what is available for the S. I expect it will be some years away and perhaps in another iteration of the hardware anyway (Zen 3 etc).

[Mike1812]

Think I'll load up on gamepass with the money I've saved using the upgrade for £1 trick if it still works

[Graham S]

3 minutes ago, Mike1812 said:

Think I'll load up on gamepass with the money I've saved using the upgrade for £1 trick if it still works

Still worked a week or so ago according to the thread so you should be safe. 

[Sane]

Boring accounts question:

 

I have a series x, my nephews bought a series s. I have gamepass on my account. Can I set up my account on their Xbox, set it as the home console and install games on it so that they can play them on their own accounts? 

[thesnwmn]

39 minutes ago, MattyP said:

Just meant that games haven't yet been developed will need extra resources the X has over the S. Agree though generally the S just has less memory and the APU is clocked at a slightly lower clock speed however I guess at some point Devs might start to target games that require more memory for example so we might get things that are Series X only. 

 

Doesn't really bother me the S is so cheap anyway happy to move on should this happen. Or just keep playing what is available for the S. I expect it will be some years away and perhaps in another iteration of the hardware anyway (Zen 3 etc).

 

My take is that MS have basically promised this will not be the case but of course they could. Personally I don't think they'll do it until the next generation could turn up. 5 or so years.

 

I think it's more a gamble around whether the X will somehow cross generational boundaries when the S doesn't. I doubt it because it'll be CPU changes that force generation changes for MS from now on rather than GPU.

[JPL]

47 minutes ago, MattyP said:

we might get things that are Series X only. 

No, that’s not going to happen. A cutdown version of anything that runs on X will be available on S. They said as much back before the consoles launched.

[Mike1812]

I suppose they could do that with the option of streaming on S?

[JPL]

I can’t find it now, but there was a video with one of the engineers a couple of years back who said it had been designed specifically to be able to play any game that is developed for Series X, just with lower res graphics, lower frame rate or a bit of both.

 

It made total sense what he was saying, so I wish I could find the video. I wouldn't mind seeing it myself again as well, just to see exactly what was said.

[thesnwmn]

6 minutes ago, Mike1812 said:

I suppose they could do that with the option of streaming on S?

 

Not without fucking over a bunch of people.

 

I never quite get why people seem to create this narrative around the S being a thing MS will halt support for before the X. It never comes with any reference to MS suggesting this would even be a consideration. And yet, people cannot stop mentioning it.

[bear]

The shitshow that'd ensue if MS changed course on their messaging and let developers release Series X only games wouldn't be worth it, especially seeing as the Series S is selling fairly well. It might be different if the S had utterly bombed. 

[womble9]

1 hour ago, Mike1812 said:

Think I'll load up on gamepass with the money I've saved using the upgrade for £1 trick if it still works

 

It worked for a frined of mine just yesterday (coming in at £80 for 3 years!) so hopefully you'll be fine . 

[Fry Crayola]

2 minutes ago, thesnwmn said:

I never quite get why people seem to create this narrative around the S being a thing MS will halt support for before the X. It never comes with any reference to MS suggesting this would even be a consideration. And yet, people cannot stop mentioning it.

 

I think it's grounded in fear. Big companies have fucked people over before, and it's easy to get locked into thinking that it'll happen here.

 

Personally, I'd say it's more likely the Series S and X will get phased out together in favour of a further leap, than focus shifting entirely to one.

[K]

My Series X controller’s just started suffering from stick drift. Good timing in the sense that Xbox pads are very cheap right now, not so good in the sense of it only being just over a year old. The build quality of the pads generally feels a bit shoddy. 

[Quest]

Seems like every controller is suffering with stick drift these days. My dualsense started doing it last week and I've only had the PS5 a few months.

 

Some of the recent 8bitdo controllers are using Hall Effect sticks that are meant to be drift-proof.

[MattyP]

1 hour ago, JPL said:

No, that’s not going to happen. A cutdown version of anything that runs on X will be available on S. They said as much back before the consoles launched.

Makes sense given they are the same architecture however I take what companies say with a pinch of salt at times. 

 

So essentially what we have then is a Xbox One and Xbox One X scenario where everything will work on both consoles but you'll get a richer experience on the higher end machine in terms of frame rate, texture quality and resolution.