Which would sell more if Series S or X was the only one available?

Because the "new" hardware runs backwards compatible. I highlighted PS5 Pro for a reason. PS5 and PS5 Pro do not share the same GPU and yet PS5 doesn't suddenly have shader stutter in all games without a Pro Patch. Similarly PS5 doesn't suddenly run PS4 games with shader stutter.

If there is another explanation please enlighten me?

I can't see how that matters.

You can both right now, but instead most people are choosing neither.

For the few that do, they can buy them for as around £150-£200 on the 2nd hand ebay market:

https://www.ebay.co.uk/sch/i.html?_nkw=xbox+series+s&_sacat=0&_from=R40&rt=nc&LH_Sold=1&LH_Complete=1

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So if Microsoft can't sell a cheap console and they can't sell a normal priced console.  I can't see why they would choose either of these paths again.  Surely the premium console market (even though it's small) would be the only place left to go.

PS5 Pro games are recomplied to take advantage of the PS5 Pro.  This is why you see the "PS5 Pro Enchanced" tag on games.

PS5 games that are not recomplied don't take advantage of the new hardware at all, unless they have unlocked framerates, which causes games to suffer heavy frame time issues on base hardware.  So most studios don't do it.

You're not touching on shader compilation though. Do PS5 games that are not "PS5 Pro Enhanced" (Most PS5 games/All PS4 games) Suffer Shader compilation issues on the Pro's GPU?

My suspicion is that you guys are making direct reference to the PC platform which has a huge array of completely different GPUs by different manufacturers and no formal "backwards compatibility" from one generation to the next... If for example MS is making GPU upgrades for its console, it could easily mandate and control that future GPU upgrades have the capacity to emulate prior GPUs and run the exact same code as the most base machine. The "closed ecosystem" is MS/Playstation shepherding what goes on the platform & creating a propriety/streamlined experience for the best user expeirence, this does not happen on PC. Nvidia and AMD make the GPUs but they do not make the store fronts, operating systems or even the APIs.  This "closed ecosystem" on console does not mean singular/never changing hardware. We've had meaningful mid-gen updates as far back as the DSi

I think there are meaningful hurdles in terms of form factor, cost and power efficiency but a console engineered around this will obviously fair better than any PC comparisons. Again I reference what MS achieved with the Series X SSD cards.

No, because they run in backwards compatablity mode.  Those games can never take advantage of future hardware upgrades.

And if that's the point, why make a console that can be upgrade with modules if games can never take advantage of those future modules?

Also don't forget that NEC actually tried this already and it was a confusing mess for customers.

The problem is, making it modular (and fool proof) will drive up the price a lot, making for a bad value proposition.

Just look at the XBox SSD expansion, double the price of do it yourself.

Modular upgrades need to easily fit and be easily accessible, not get any problems with cooling, fool proof ultra fast connections.

A lot of stuff is integrated in consoles which saves costs. Consoles are also balanced for thermal load, power consumption, CPU, GPU, RAM integration. You can't just upgrade the GPU and hope for the best. The PS5 Pro also has 2GB extra RAM and the CPU runs 10% faster.

There might be room for easy upgrades, but that room disappears quickly when you pay a lot more for the option to be able to buy / add further upgrades. Power, cooling, balance will have to be designed with upgrades in mind.

"The PlayStation 5 motherboard has an integrated CPU and GPU, both custom-designed by AMD; the CPU utilizes the Zen 2 architecture, while the GPU is based on the RDNA 2 graphics architecture, meaning there is no separate, dedicated graphics card on the motherboard - it's all integrated within the single chip"

You got to pull that all apart for modular upgrades or the upgrade would simply be replace the whole console. (Which we already have with pro consoles)


Hence Steam boxes were not competitive. You simply paid more for restrictions in upgrades. And those weren't even designed for easy upgrades. The price would only be higher to achieve that.

PS4 Pro (somewhat) succeeded because the fully integrated design could keep the cost reasonable. To make it modular from the start the base PS5 would cost in the region of the PS5 Pro while an upgrade would be the price of the base PS5...

Besides that, a pro console dumps cheaper second hand consoles on the market. People 'subsidize' their upgrade by selling their original hardware. That's good for the consumer to get a deal, good for resellers, good for console makers. (Since they make more money on software sales than hardware)

What about 10 distinct Xbox SKUs going from $300 all the way to a thousand bucks? Compatibility with game releases is ensured by the brand-new Xbox AI™ (actual results might vary in quality).

Known "partner manufacturers" will include HP and Asus, among others. Just like GPUs. Online connection required, controller not included.

The reason why no one is buying an Xbox Series S is because the Series X exists.

The reason why people arent buying the Series X is because the games are being released day 1 on Steam.

If they had one SKU that wasnt as weak as the Series S or as strong as the Series X but in between and that was not as powerful as the competitors but powerful enough to be able to run the games at a decent performance/visual resolution without it being too expensive (i.e. a $400 SKU instead of it being a $300 or a $500), they would absolutely do a lot better than a premium priced Xbox which more than likely would be ignored considering you would likely be able to get a mid range desktop that would be more bang for your buck than a standalone console.

They are already bleeding money with what they are going through, making another high premium console would make things worse since it looks like they are pushing into becoming more of a service than a console maker (like Steam for an example).