| Doctor_MG said: I think there are obvious reasons to not like the Series S. One obvious example is that it has been a hassle for developers to port games to *sometimes*. Which means that some games take longer to come to Xbox or, worst case, don't come at all which affects Series X owners too. That said, the people that don't like the Series S often don't have a Series X...which I feel like the Series X owners are the only ones with a legitimate reason to not like the console. In addition, I think there is the very real point that people don't think about: how many games are coming to the Series consoles BECAUSE of the Series S? That number isn't known. You reference how without the Series S that MS would be even further behind this generation. I believe that's true. Which means that Series S could be the reason that some developers have a reason to port their game to the Series consoles to begin with from a profit standpoint. In which case, it could very well be a wash. Series S causes some hardship for developers, but it also creates opportunities for others. In addition, I think Series S development is great for Switch 2 owners. Switch 2 isn't on the level of Series S from a raw hardware perspective, but doing the work to port a game to the Series S means that the Switch 2 is a hop, skip, and a jump away instead of this dumbfounding and impossible seeming leap |
I have a Series X, has little to do with not liking the Series S. I got the X for the disc drive as its mostly 2nd hand XOne games I have used it for.
The thing with MS is, all their new games I can play on PC for less. I haven't bought a single current gen game for Series X, so the idea of a Series S for the bedroom or something doesn't even come to mind. A 2nd hand One X that has the disc drive makes more sense!
But I do think Halo Infinite and Forza were held back by the Series S. They were not the flagship titles I was hoping for and Forza is now dead, Halo on life support. (Forza Horizon is fine although getting rather formulaic / soulless, but still excited to see what FH6 can bring)
And sure, Series S is now closest to Switch 2. The RAM bottleneck in Series S is good for Switch 2, or rather Switch 2 is good for Series S. Switch 2 has 9GB available for games and slower RAM than Series S. So the work on Switch 2 should work for Series S as well. Nintendo could of course free up more RAM of the 12GB for games, just as MS did for the Series S (although that's out of the much slower remaining 2GB) and then the puzzle of how to fit games on either becomes more complicated.
As it looks now
Series X, 13.5 GB RAM for games, 10 GB at 560 GB/s, rest at 336 GB/s
PS5, 12.5 GB RAM for games (13.7 GB on Pro) at 448 GB/s (576 GB/s on Pro)
Switch 2, 9 GB RAM for games at 102 GB/s docked, 68 GB/s handheld
Series S, 8 GB RAM for games with 'hundreds of MB' more freed up since 2022, 8GB at 224 GB/s, rest at 56 GB/s
Switch 2 will quickly outsell Series S, but Series S will continue to benefit from Switch 2 ports.
