Update: Microsoft also finally revealed the price of the Xbox Series X, which will cost £449 in the UK and $499 in the USA or your regional equivalent. Both the Series S and the Series X will hit the shelves on November 10th. Meanwhile, pre-orders will be available starting with September 22nd.
Original story:
Microsoft has officially revealed its second next-gen console in the form of the Xbox Series S.
This reveal included a November 10th 2020 release date and a price tag of £250 in the UK and $299 in the USA for the Xbox Series S.
The Xbox Series S will be an all-digital and lower-spec version of the Xbox Series X. Providing a cheaper option for consumers looking to pick up a next-gen system at the expense of no disc drive, lower resolutions and less internal storage.
A trailer showing off the upcoming system lists the features of the Series S stating them as follows:
- All-Digital
- 1440p At Up To 120FPS
- DirectX Raytracing
- Variable Rate Shading
- Variable Refresh Rate
- Ultra-Low Latency
- Custom 512GB SSD
- 4K Media Streaming Playback
- 4K Upscaling For Games
What I think is the biggest talking point in this reveal is the price. £250 for a next-gen system is a good deal if you aren’t bothered about not having the best looking or performing games and no disc drive. And you just want to have a machine capable of playing the latest games. A price like this also means Xbox will most likely have the cheapest option of the next-gen consoles with the Series S and the most powerful with the Series X.
The Series S will also the smallest Xbox console ever. Being nearly sixty percent smaller than a Series X if big consoles bother you.
Xbox Game Pass will surely be a big factor in the appeal of the Series S. Having a cheaper system and the Games Pass subscription service, which has over a hundred games available to play, and every upcoming game from Xbox Games Studios available on it day one will surely be something that will attract people to join the Xbox world.
However, the 512GB SSD is something I think could be an issue. I understand the size is probably to keep costs down but to me, it sounds too small. The Xbox One released with a 500GB HDD back in 2013 and it wasn’t really enough and got filled up fairly quickly. The size is also a worry giving the large download size of recent games like Call of Duty: Modern Warfare and Red Dead Redemption 2.
This reveal did come after a series of leaks surrounding the console. With Brad Sims posting an image to Twitter showing what the Series S looked like as well as its price, this was posted alongside an article published on Thurrot covering the scoop. Twitter user WalkingCat also posted a video to the site showing the size of the console. Windows Central would confirm the leaked information while stating itself an alleged release date (November 10th 2020 as well) and price ($499) of the Xbox Series X.
We still don’t know the official release date or price of the Xbox Series X. But with Microsoft promising to share more soon we should hopefully find out. It will also be interesting the see what Sony will price the PlayStation 5 at now the first shot has been fired on the price front.
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