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

JimmyFantasy on 09 September 2020
Shaunodon said:
JimmyFantasy said:

Yeah, but also the 32X was intended to have a longer lifespan but then happened that no one cares, and almost any third-party developer ignored it. Are we sure XS will receive third-party support in the long term or just some lazy ports from Xbox X (like the current Switch)?

"The primary difference between Xbox Series X and Xbox Series S is in resolution. Through talking to our customers, we found that many of our fans prioritize framerate over resolution, so we wanted to build a console that didn’t require a 4K TV. Xbox Series S delivers approximately 3x the GPU performance of Xbox One and was designed to play games at 1440p at 60 frames per second, with support for up to 120fps. With the increased efficiency we get from the next generation AMD RDNA 2 graphics architecture combined with the virtual memory multipliers enabled through the Xbox Velocity Architecture, Xbox Series S will deliver performance and experiences well beyond the raw specs. In addition, Xbox Series X and Xbox Series S share the same development environment, tools and capabilities, all of which enable developers to build and release their content across consoles more easily while still taking advantage of the unique hardware capabilities of the next generation."

Sauce for people who post in these threads without doing the minimum research.

Ok, on the paper it sounds good, but. What if some developer launch a game (in the next 2-3 years) that squeeze the Xbox X hardware GPU in terms of geometry, shaders and other visual effects, and then the end result is the game runs at 1080p and 30fps on the most powerful hardware. How it will run on Xbox S?



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drkohler on 09 September 2020
Captain_Yuri said:

Final Specs

https://news.xbox.com/en-us/2020/09/09/introducing-xbox-series-s/

I'm a little puzzled by the fan-out image of the box.

One can see 4 memory chips on the top layer.

The bottom shield has 1 "bump", that is for 1 memory chip (used for thermal contact and pressing the ram chip to the board).

So this would mean:

3 2GB gddr6 chips full width, 2 2GB gddr6 chips in Clamshell mode.

/edit No longer puzzled. Corrected my wrong fst guess

Last edited by drkohler - on 09 September 2020

Shaunodon on 09 September 2020
JimmyFantasy said:
Shaunodon said:

"The primary difference between Xbox Series X and Xbox Series S is in resolution. Through talking to our customers, we found that many of our fans prioritize framerate over resolution, so we wanted to build a console that didn’t require a 4K TV. Xbox Series S delivers approximately 3x the GPU performance of Xbox One and was designed to play games at 1440p at 60 frames per second, with support for up to 120fps. With the increased efficiency we get from the next generation AMD RDNA 2 graphics architecture combined with the virtual memory multipliers enabled through the Xbox Velocity Architecture, Xbox Series S will deliver performance and experiences well beyond the raw specs. In addition, Xbox Series X and Xbox Series S share the same development environment, tools and capabilities, all of which enable developers to build and release their content across consoles more easily while still taking advantage of the unique hardware capabilities of the next generation."

Sauce for people who post in these threads without doing the minimum research.

Ok, on the paper it sounds good, but. What if some developer launch a game (in the next 2-3 years) that squeeze the Xbox X hardware GPU in terms of geometry, shaders and other visual effects, and then the end result is the game runs at 1080p and 30fps on the most powerful hardware. How it will run on Xbox S?

That won't happen.

My guess is you've been drinking too much Goopy-kool-aid.



Otter on 09 September 2020
Shaunodon said:
shikamaru317 said:

Hmmm, I’m a bit concerned about how backwards compatibility will work with Xbox One X games. While it has been said that the 4 TFLOP RDNA 2 GPU in Series S is faster than the 6 tflop GCN GPU in Xbox One X, and the Series S CPU and Storage are huge improvements over XB1 X, Series S has both less and slower RAM than Xbox One X. I wonder if Series X can actually play BC games with XB1 X settings.

Well that's already a no, because it can't output at native 4K. Assuming Series X|S uses those same builds for BC, Series S should instead run @1440p, which I guess would cover for that RAM difference?

Are we sure it can't output 4k? Has microsoft stated this? 

"Xbox Series S delivers approximately 3x the GPU performance of Xbox One and was designed to play games at 1440p at 60 frames per second".
The tweet that made the round & this here looks like it was referring to what MS designed its use around, not what its maximum resolution output is. They're probably just trying to not confuse the communication between S and X.

I'm not really sure why a 2020 GPU wouldn't be able to output 4k. Even PS4 Pro can.



Shaunodon on 09 September 2020
Otter said:
Shaunodon said:

Well that's already a no, because it can't output at native 4K. Assuming Series X|S uses those same builds for BC, Series S should instead run @1440p, which I guess would cover for that RAM difference?

Are we sure it can't output 4k? Has microsoft stated this? 

"Xbox Series S delivers approximately 3x the GPU performance of Xbox One and was designed to play games at 1440p at 60 frames per second".
The tweet that made the round & this here looks like it was referring to what MS designed its use around, not what its maximum resolution output is. They're probably just trying to not confuse the communication between S and X.

I'm not really sure why a 2020 GPU wouldn't be able to output 4k. Even PS4 Pro can.

You're probably right. I still think most BC games will be re-worked for Xbox Series X|S anyway, as they've made it a big focuse of their early marketing. We can already see Gears 5 at 120fps, Forza Horizon team just confirmed a day one upgrade for Horizon 4 60fps, and those will both likely be 1440p on Series S.

Would be nice if some of those games could give a 4K option for Series S, but given the marketing is around 1440p and people that mostly own HD TVs, I wouldn't be banking on it.

I'm not sure what the importance of matching Xbox One X is either. Everyone that was interested in those 4K builds, you'd think would've bought the Xbox One X, or would just go for the full Series X. Don't think there's much reason for Series S to match it. Much better if it utilises the higher framerate capabilities, imo.



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Otter on 09 September 2020

And the long term performance of Series S is still a gray area, only time will tell if its enough and whether developers optimise around it properly. Especially if PS5 becomes the base development system (instead of S), I see many mid/late gen games missing 4k in order to boast more cinematic visuals. It won't be common but there may be times where Series S is targeting resolutions as low as 720p, just as the current Xbox One does with a few titles (Avengers for example)



yvanjean on 09 September 2020
Kristof81 said:

So it's $25 per month for the brand new console and over 200 games out of the box? Sign me in. Correct me if I'm wrong, but the game pass ultimate is $15 per month, which means, the console (in this case) is $10 ... x 24 months = $240, $60 cheaper than MSRP.

I'll correct you, Microsoft is using game pass to subsidized the consoles and is not going to charge any interest.

Xbox Series S -> Console $300 / 24 months = $12.50/Month and Gamepass ultimate would be 25.00 - 12.50 = $12.50/Month. 

Xbox Series X -> Console $499 / 24 months = $20.83/Month and gamepass ultimate would be 35.00 - 20.83 = $14.17/Month.

You are getting a slight discount on Gamepass Ultimate. There also time value of money which makes the deal even better since you don't have to pay the full cost upfront. The only catch is you made a commitment to Gamepass Ultimate and might wind up not really using it. But, it's an amazing deal for this coming holiday season, really reduce the burden on families during hard times.



Conina on 09 September 2020

Xbox Series X has 200% more GPU performance, 100% more SSD space, 60% more RAM, 150% higher bandwidth (fast RAM), 500% higher bandwidth (slower RAM) and an UHD optical drive... for just 67% more money.

I'd never settle for the Series S instead of Series X for $200 / €200 difference. Series X is the much better deal IMHO.



Conina on 09 September 2020
yvanjean said:
Kristof81 said:

So it's $25 per month for the brand new console and over 200 games out of the box? Sign me in. Correct me if I'm wrong, but the game pass ultimate is $15 per month, which means, the console (in this case) is $10 ... x 24 months = $240, $60 cheaper than MSRP.

I'll correct you, Microsoft is using game pass to subsidized the consoles and is not going to charge any interest.

Xbox Series S -> Console $300 / 24 months = $12.50/Month and Gamepass ultimate would be 25.00 - 12.50 = $12.50/Month. 

Xbox Series X -> Console $499 / 24 months = $20.83/Month and gamepass ultimate would be 35.00 - 20.83 = $14.17/Month.

You are getting a slight discount on Gamepass Ultimate. There also time value of money which makes the deal even better since you don't have to pay the full cost upfront. The only catch is you made a commitment to Gamepass Ultimate and might wind up not really using it. But, it's an amazing deal for this coming holiday season, really reduce the burden on families during hard times.

But there are much better deals to get 2 - 3 years GamePass Ultimate.

Last month I got 28 months of GamePass Ultimate for €60:

  • I bought a 12-month-Gold keys for €23. While activating it via VPN, I got an additional month for auto-renewal -> XBL Gold until 2021-09-02
  • I bought a second 12-month-Gold keys for €23 and got an additional month for auto-renewal -> XBL Gold until 2022-10-02
  • then I bought 1 month GamePass PC (Beta) for €1 -> XBL Gold until 2021-10-02 + PC GamePass until 2020-09-02
  • then I bought 1 month GamePass Ultimate for €13 -> GamePass Ultimate until 2022-12-02, the other subscriptions ended
  • at the end I canceled the auto-renewal of the subscription

So the 26 months XBL Gold, 1 month GamePass PC and 1 month GamePass Ultimate all added up, which results in monthly costs of €2.14 (€60 / 28 months).

Instead of paying 600 $/€ for a Series S (25 $/€ x 24 months) + GamePass Ultimate my total costs would be 359 € (so 241 € less).

Instead of paying 840 $/€ for a Series X (35 $/€ x 24 months) + GamePass Ultimate my total costs would be 559 € (so 281 € less).

Last edited by Conina - on 09 September 2020

curl-6 on 09 September 2020

Try to think of Series S/X less as two different consoles, and more like the docked and undocked modes of the Switch.

It's the same core hardware, they run the exact same games, one is just clocked higher and therefore runs at higher resolutions and sometimes settings.

Last edited by curl-6 - on 09 September 2020