Now that we're nearly 5 years in, was Series S a good or a bad idea?

[SvennoJ]

Soundwave said:

It was a good idea tied to a poor brand.

Good ideas are a dime a dozen too, it's the execution of the overall brand strategy which is a lot harder to get right.

By and large I haven't heard much fuss from developers that the XBox Series S is some huge hang up in their dev pipeline. If anything the hardware that devs have as is is too powerful and they're drowning trying to make games for that level of hardware as is. 

Just some recent popular RPGs

https://www.purexbox.com/news/2025/04/digital-foundry-praises-clair-obscur-expedition-33-but-xbox-series-s-is-a-sore-point

https://www.videogameschronicle.com/news/baldurs-gate-3-is-finally-adding-split-screen-co-op-on-xbox-series-s/

https://www.thegamer.com/black-myth-wukongs-director-confirms-xbox-delay-series-s-memory/


AI 'insight'

Games with notable performance or graphical issues on Xbox Series S include Star Wars Jedi: Survivor and RoboCop: Rogue City, while others like Orcs Must Die! 3 and Delta Force are also mentioned for poor optimization. These issues often stem from the Series S's less powerful hardware and Microsoft's previous requirement for cross-platform parity between the Xbox Series X and S, which can lead to compromises in development for the weaker console.


Yeah the problem is it's too powerful ;)