I agree on a lot of this, but we practically just entered this painfully slow generation. Sooner or later, I don't know if cases like Aveum would remain rare among AAA games. Anyone who insisted those consoles were [insert resolution/framerate] machines have no understanding of game development whatsoever, but I can't entirely blame them when we had literal developers misinforming people that midgen upgrades were "Not happening, because PS5 is a 4K machine as is".

There is no such thing as "4K machine". Even the PS4 Pro was 4K capable, but in the end it's the workload that decides the resolution or framerate. Like in workout terms the weight you're lifting determines your reps.

The anger should be more common towards the Series S, because Microsoft emphasized early into the generation on 1080p-1440p and 60-120fps being the expected experience. And FSR is useless at scaling from resolutions as low as sub 500p. To top the resolution and framerate reductions, Series S is also seeing huge visual cutbacks including more limited Nanite and Lumen utilization. Aveum Series S vs X is borderline generational difference.

But the average complainer will blame the developers, using silly arguments like Series S running indies at 4K.

"but it's also their responsibility to remain within reason"

720p at 60fps is acceptable imo, if barely. FSR helps the final image looking at lot crisper. "4K machines" not reaching their expected 4K image quality (which is an overkill anyway) is not as problematic as Series S rendering in native 400p-500p, where FSR is pretty much useless. We both know that high-end PC's won't be targeted as the primary systems to develop for, because their userbase is tiny. PS5 and midrange PC's were always going to be the default platforms for obvious reasons, the first of which is popularity/adoption rate.

720p can be acceptable in some scenarios but I'd still challenge the decision that led to this outcome and hope its uses remain pretty exceptional all through the gen. And, at the same time I'd find that outcome acceptable, I would also consider 400-500p acceptable for the series S to the same extent.

The anger should be more common towards the Series S, because Microsoft emphasized early into the generation on 1080p-1440p and 60-120fps being the expected experience.

1080p-1440p capacity of the S has not been emphasized any differently than the 4k capacity of the Series X or Ps5. I did put "Anger" in quotation marks because it's not actually a thing. Even with the most egregious example to date, there's no "anger" to speak of and there will most likely never be. The "Anger" or bad reviews for the games I've seen are targeted at the game's overall design choice, I'm yet to see one that specifically singles out Series S. So far the only actual anger I see towards the S is from non-user that deem the experience too subpart for actual user to enjoy meanwhile actual user simply enjoy the experience. And why would it be different, I mean if you find Series performance unacceptable then go for the X or PS5 or PC, if you cannot due to financial reasons then you were always going to be screwed anyway and the Series S at least still provide you with an option.

I enjoyed playing 224p titles on my NES and still enjoy it to this day, Why cannot I enjoy modern gaming features on a budget even if it means 400-500p in exceptional cases? Because someone else decided that this option should not exist to me? Or because someone else decided in my stead what should be acceptable to me? Or because someone else made a very dubious claim that it's somehow bad for the more powerful option to have a less powerful one?

And FSR is useless at scaling from resolutions as low as sub 500p

FSR 2.0 is intended to work with as low as 360p, it's not useless and will only get better with each iteration.

seeing huge visual cutbacks including more limited Nanite and Lumen utilization

Huge is subjective but even then it's still in line with users' expectations of the Series S.

To top the resolution and framerate reductions

In the vast majority of cases, framerate is maintained and the Series S is often the one producing the most consistent result due to lower output resolution and lower fidelity assets being used.

Aveum Series S vs X is borderline generational difference

It's way more akin to the diff you'll find on PC by swapping a low-tier GPU to a mid-tier one of the same gen, nothing really generational. In terms of gameplay, all the elements are present and the game simply would not work on Xbox One/PS4, and not even on the One X or PS4 Pro for the lack of CPU power. 

The case with Immortals produces mixed feelings as to whether it is reasonable though. This title was trying to push Nanite and Lumen from the latest UE version yet those appear to be resource-intensive. One of the points of those techs was to reduce some dev time by making it easier to use raw unoptimized assets throughout most of the dev's process and maybe even to some capacity in the retail version, it's not clear if Ascendant Studios achieved some budget saving with those. However, the result for us consumers is a product that did not really break any barrier in terms of visuals compared to other contemporary titles that successfully manage better performance and native resolutions by relying on more proven tech. It's in this context that the design choice becomes more questionable. 

In the same vein, a lot of devs push for graphics for the sake of it and create a marketing campaign stating their title push to limit the latest top-end GPU of the markets. There have been a lot of this throughout the years and all those titles almost always end up being only a bleep on gamers' radars that fade as soon as the title is released, too often lacking in other aspects or simply lacking the compatibility that would enable the title a larger crowd of player to build a fanbase on. This is relevant because, in all likely scenarios, this is the kind of design choice that would make it hard to produce a console experience and more so for the S.

To me, this quest for the best graphics has become so unappealing anyway, it has been used so much as PR to hide what titles lack that this kind of marketing does not produce the slightest bit of hype for me anymore. To me, great gameplay with OK graphics will produce a great game, and great graphics with OK gameplay will only produce OK titles. On top of that, I find that today, out of all periods in gaming history is the perfect time to not care that much about graphics as with minimal effort, the title will still look great anyway.

As far as the Series S's longevity goes, even in the case of some exceptions tackle it in a way that the Series S truly can't handle, so be it, the benefits for millions of gamers to enjoy gaming at a lower cost of entry far outweigh the cost of a handful yet to exist exceptional cases.

I think you're reading too much into the expression "anger". Call it what you want... some people will not be happy about how many games will run/look on Series S, and they will be blaming developers rather than acknowledging the console's limited capabilities and popularity. Most will just move on and eventually get a better console/PC.

SNES games were 2D and designed for CRT's. They're more pleasing to the eye than sub 500p Series S 3D games running on 4K displays. The SNES was a killer of a console for its time, and its games visually aged better than most if not all 3D consoles. (Edit: Nevermind, you said NES and I can't fucking read, but the point still stands. 2D games were fine on CRT and low resolutions).

Even DLSS doesn't do a perfect job at scaling from resolutions lower than 720p up to 4K. FSR in its current form is a lot worse than DLSS when upscaling from low resolutions. In Aveum Series S case, it's virtually useless (not much better than standard upscaling). The gap between the image quality of Series S and X/PS5 is therefore bigger than the native resolutions suggest.

It is definitely a near-generational difference visually. It's even more extreme than cases like Destiny PS3 vs PS4. Low vs ultra settings on PC is often a near-generational difference as well. It depends on the game.

Expectations for Series S vary from one person to another (my expectations for instance were spot on, Series S didn't disappoint me at all). But Xbox centric channels and influencers overhyped it. A lot of people will be disappointed, but I'm not saying it's the end of the world or anything like that.

Series S's popularity may have peaked already. Active Series S users will dwindle as midrange PC, PS5, and Series X userbase greatly increase. Fully optimizing for the Seires S should become less common over the years, because support is always tied to popularity.

Of course PS5 and Series X will disappoint a number of gamers too. Just not as much as the S.

Sure, exactly like some will not be happy about how the game looks on the X or PS5, ROG Ally or Steam deck or laptop and blam developers rather than acknowledging the console's limited capabilities. 

Exactly like it always has been with every gaming hardware, why does the series S need to be singled out?

Sure there's that attribute with 2d games, but I also still play a lot of N64, complete SM64 (240p) every year. also was using my OG Xbox quite often up to the point that Timesplitter FP (480P) was added to the backward compatible list. 

But the point of this is people will decide for themselves what's acceptable to them, they don't need to be imposed any one other standards.

FSR and DLSS are not meant to do perfect jobs.

It may be useless for your standard but it isn't actually the case as far as the technology goes. I trust Ascendant would simply have disabled FSR for the S if it was the case but they didn't, I also trust AMD would not even have proposed the option to upscale from such low res but they did. Should be pretty easy to test anyway, just play the game on PC with resolutions closely matching 436p upscaled to 1440p (target output for the S) and then do the same test relying on your screen more upscale to do the jobs.

But the game functionality is still complete and low settings are still a viable budget option for millions of players. Even more so when you consider that more and more focus is given to creating viable experiences for APU lately. Having the Series S ensures MS that all their titles including those from 3rd party will be able to reach a wider range of configurations and probably access tens of millions more potential gamers on PC than if low-power device was simply overlooked.

Sure expectations vary but that's not exclusive to the S.  I've seen way more downplay of the S the overhyping, in fact, I'm not sure I could say I've seen anything that qualifies as overhyping for the S. The most praise have seen came from MVG. And he mostly praised the machine for it's price point and dev mode functionality enabling emulation gaming, not as a top-notch graphics console.  

That's debatable at best, Maybe, who knows? I mean, that's like saying more people will be disappointed buying a cheap Toyota than those buying a more expensive model. That's debatable at best. People will have more expectations of a more expensive version and probably be more rigid about it, making them more easily disappointed in their purchase decision with each perceived flaw.

Yet this completely overlooks the fact that simply more people would come to enjoy the products. Cheap Toyotas enable millions of people to have access to Toyota cars and way more people to enjoy Toyota overall than if they were to propose solely expensive cars.

So the true question should simply be, can/will more people enjoy Xbox with the series S option than without and that's not even up for debate, that's an undeniable yes supported by millions of sales to date.