Xbox Series S design leaked, Confirmed at $300 this Holiday (Series X = $500)

[EricHiggin]

Norion said:

LudicrousSpeed said:
The CPU is the same in both consoles, I don’t see anything happening in six or seven years that is possible on one console but held back because the S doesn’t support it.

Plus it’s not like resolution is the only thing that can be cut. They can have a lower frame rate or less effects like ray tracing.

It's mainly some developers showing concern that has me worried. I'm mostly concerned about extra work getting it to run at an acceptable level on the Series S causing issues. It took a lot of effort to get games like Doom running on Switch though of course the S is closer to the X and PS5 than the Switch is to PS4 and Xbox One so it wouldn't be as much extra work as that. There won't be a way to know for sure how much exact impact it'll have for a good while.

EricHiggin said:

If MS goes the mid gen upgrade route again, or something like that, there will be a $300 or less XBSX digital by 2023 ish.

If some of the rumors are true that PS5 is planned to be a shorter 5 to 6 year gen max, like in the past, and MS follows suit, then worst case scenario, XBSX becomes the XBSS of the following gen, since XBSX would basically be the upgraded model, just launched at the start of the gen.

If you want to remain at your present gaming quality of life, then upgrade. If you don't want to have to upgrade, pay more for XBSX now. If you don't care, then just deal with 720p-900p upscaled to 1080p eventually. By 2025 ish, 4k should have a much larger presence in the TV market, so who really will want to have an XBSS at potentially 720p, upscaling to 4k?

I do think I'd like if that rumour turns out to be true since then the lowest common denominator for hardware would be somewhat less outdated.

If MS wants to go the services route, and it ends up working for them, they will almost have to take another step in the phone upgrade direction. They can either make it harder on themselves and support XBSS by having it play 720p-900p upscaled after 2025 let's say, or they make it clear that console will no longer be supported. Then make you upgrade to the 12TF ($299), or let's say 30TF ($499) console, in order to play new content. Either that or maybe use your XBSS for xCloud streaming if you can, assuming the service is fully operational and worthy by that point in time.

How things play out with supporting XB1 will partially influence how MS moves forward. If XB1 is too much of a hindrance, then XBSS will probably be discontinued much sooner than XB1 will be. Aside from XBSS potential xCloud use, if that pans out. Otherwise they would drop XBSS and force an upgrade at some time not to long after the next top tier model comes out, and the existing top tier get's a smaller cheaper digital model. If they kept the upgrade path from this gen, that means XBSS would be good for at least 4 years, maybe 6 max before it's support ended. For $300 or $25 a month starting in 2020 and lasting until 2025 ish, that wouldn't be too bad at all to remain fully invested in the ecosystem before a necessary upgrade.

Whether they just make it a consistent upgrade or call it a new gen, odds are unless you're streaming, you'll have to upgrade much sooner than you had to this time around. I wouldn't be surprised if MS is being careful not to push gamers to quickly this time around since it burned them harsh when they tried it with XB1. They may very well just be taking baby steps towards a consistently hardware upgraded services model.