Xbox Series S

Nightfire

2[H]4U
Joined
Sep 7, 2017
Messages
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Microsoft Xbox team has revealed their new light duty console:
https://www.techpowerup.com/271914/microsoft-unveils-the-xbox-series-s-the-smallest-xbox-ever

Things known so far:
It's small, diskless, and only $300. That is a very good price for casual gamers.

Unknowns:
Pretty much all else. Rumors had it at 4TF of RDNA 2 with 10 GB ram and a clock reduced cpu. Nothing confirmed, though.

No doubt this will be less powerful than the Series X, but could outmatch the One X in some CPU heavy scenarios. .

All in all, looks like MS has a potential winner.
 
Biggest question mark for me is the 512 GB SSD size and going disc-less. There's not going to be much space to save a game to it.

I wonder what pricing on the proprietary memory cartridges will be like (and how expensive). I wonder if MS could release a 'game cartridge' variant of the memory card. Say a retail boxed version of the game will all of the game files saved to the memory card. The storage space would be smaller (but perhaps keep enough space to install a day 1-style patch/critical patches) to reduce costs.
 
Based on what? Profitability or your approval?
What reason would people have to buy this when their old system will still get the new games? they would be giving up a bunch for something that won't be much more powerful the a Xbox oneX. Sure you have people on the base Xbox. If they cared enough they would of upgraded to the X.
 
What reason would people have to buy this when their old system will still get the new games? they would be giving up a bunch for something that won't be much more powerful the a Xbox oneX. Sure you have people on the base Xbox. If they cared enough they would of upgraded to the X.

Are you serious? First of all, the OneX is still around $400. While it loses the 4kBR support, the Series S gains much more. The internal nvme will load games at a fraction of the time. Also, even 10 1080p, the One X struggled to hit 60 fps in some games due to the ancient Jaguar cores. This console will not have that problem and may even do 1080p at 120 fps.

Overall, it will be a better balanced, smaller and quieter console perfect for quick boot up and play in the living room.
 
Biggest question mark for me is the 512 GB SSD size and going disc-less. There's not going to be much space to save a game to it.

512 GB seems sufficient for the target audience while getting the advantages of nvme. Most will only play a few games at a time and rotate out every few months with the library on their external drives.
 
512 GB seems sufficient for the target audience while getting the advantages of nvme. Most will only play a few games at a time and rotate out every few months with the library on their external drives.

I guess another factor is that previous owners likely already have an external HDD, hopefully it will be a quick 'plug in and play' console migration experience.
 
It'll be interesting to see how this does. Sony has time to adjust their pricing and strategy accordingly, too.
Honestly, if I was them, I'd go ay them like Sega back in the early 90's. MS basically has no exclusives and they're about to pitch you an underpowered system that the diskless PS5 should curb stomp. They're going to be competing on price alone and we're still not sure how much cheaper it'll be.
 
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What reason would people have to buy this when their old system will still get the new games? they would be giving up a bunch for something that won't be much more powerful the a Xbox oneX. Sure you have people on the base Xbox. If they cared enough they would of upgraded to the X.

Who says their old system will get all the new games? Once we are past the launch window, we're going to stop seeing games being released on the old consoles. Fir One S owners, this will be a significant upgrade at a reasonable price. For One X owners, it keeps performance in line with what what are used to, and allows them continued access to games once support for Xbox One ends. Given that game consoles are increasingly popular among younger people, this is the system parents grab for their kids.

Also, the size seems like a big win. Ms can almost spin this is an ultra powerful set top box that happens to play games.

Check your bias at the door and look at things like your typical consumer instead of an enthusiast pc gamer, and you'll find this checks a lot of the right boxes to be a successful product. Ms will sell a ton of these. Honestly, I bet it outsells Series X.
 
It will be fine with that bandwidth.
10 GB at 224 GB/s. It seems kind of low considering the overhead of the o/s, but perhaps the velocity architecture helps here.

I didn't here him confirm the 4 TF performamce, but it looks very likely that it is.


It's fine, they use the same bus for the RX 5500 XT, The CPU bandwidth cut will slow things down a bit, but not massively.
 
New leak shows that Microsoft will also have a more "midrange" Series E that has 12 GB vram and 8.5 TF of performance. $399 is the rumored price.

Series S
Series E
Series X
 
Everyone claiming the Xbox One X is better because of the slightly higher tflops needs to watch this. Raw performance isn't the only thing that matters anymore.

"Sampler feedback streaming...on average a 2.5x increase in I/O bandwidth and memory efficiency beyond what the hardware suggests."

So, not only will the Series S play games at 120 fps at lower res (something Jaguar couldn't dream of doing), but it may even outmatch the One X in higher res fidelity.

Looking forward to a Digital Foundry analysis on this.
 
Interview with Dirt 5 developer:

21:20 - "Can you share some insights on how it is to develop for the Series S alongside the Series X"

"Too be honest it is really easy."

 
I'm starting to sound like a fanboy, but the Series S looks to be a retro gamer's dream:
https://www.eurogamer.net/articles/...is-how-xbox-series-s-back-compat-really-works

- OG Xbox games at 480p are scaled up to 1440p, presumably with other performance benifits.

- Xbox 360 games scaled up from 720p to 1440p.

- One S games will not get the same One X enhancements, but unique enhamcements

- Double frame rates over One S and One X. (Most One X games run around 1800p at 30-60 fps, so it would be nice to have those run at 1440p at 60-120 fps!)

- Faster loader times for all

Biggest kicker is here though:
"There's no real perf tuning necessary when you do this, and so often it's just as easy as changing three lines of code, and then the game works." Goossen [system architect] adds. Even when it's not that easy, the fixes are still pretty minor."
 
Also been reading up on the storage size of the S series and if what I am reading is true it may be a non issue. The goal is that with xbox smart delivery it know there's no point in sending the high res 4k textures and only sends the lower textures saving it alot of space, no idea if this is true or not (trying to find a source atm) but if true that would answer why its only a 512gb drive.

edit: found it, they are claiming the same game will be up to 30% smaller on the Series S due to smart delivery knowing what your console needs. For the price they are selling the S at and the smart ways they are cutting prices I see them selling some good numbers this gen

https://www.gamespot.com/articles/g...ving-ssd-space-on-install-sizes/1100-6482295/
 
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I guess another factor is that previous owners likely already have an external HDD, hopefully it will be a quick 'plug in and play' console migration experience.

It will be a easy migration just like the Xbox One consoles, but the Series S and X's games will need to be on the SSD if you want to have that ultra-fast loading and "Sleep" mode for games. So basically if you want the latest features for your Xbox games they need to be on the internal SSD. Which with the Series S will mean a lot of transfers back and forth between the external and internal if you have a decent library you play regularly. Good thing about it though is that with the 1TB expansion cards... they will roughly be about $150 according to some estimates so that will give a terabyte extra... so really the Series S turns into a $450 console and not a $300 one if you factor in that expansion SSD. I think most people bought the Series X and with all the photos i've seen online of Gamestops posting on their store doors how many of each they have for pre-order the Series X will have stock on a 3:1 ratio. So the Series S will have all the features of the X but I think is a great purchase @ $300 for what you get. It's essentially as good as the One X only it's being targeted for 1440p gaming instead of 4K gaming, and that price is really great for what you get.
 
Well the PS4 is 1.8TF so 4x would be 7.2 TF compared to 4.0 tf of the Serirs S. So maybe not quite 4x even with the tf efficiency advantage of RDNA.
PS4 Pro is 4tf, it struggles to hit 60fps. But you think this is gonna get you 120... on a next gen game? Like i said i got bad news for you.
 
PS4 Pro is 4tf, it struggles to hit 60fps. But you think this is gonna get you 120... on a next gen game? Like i said i got bad news for you.
I wasn't talking about the PS4 pro. I said the PS4. PS4 renders most games at 1080p while the pro renders most at 1440p.
 
PS4 Pro is 4tf, it struggles to hit 60fps. But you think this is gonna get you 120... on a next gen game? Like i said i got bad news for you.

Reportedly the next gen version of Gears 6 MP runs at 120 fps on the Series S. There's more to performance than flops.
 
PS4 Pro is 4tf, it struggles to hit 60fps. But you think this is gonna get you 120... on a next gen game? Like i said i got bad news for you.

Series S has a faster CPU, more memory, faster memory, and an NVME SSD that the PS4 Pro lacks. A ~4TF XSS should be able to outperform a ~4TF PS4 Pro, for games that are optimized to take advantage of its hardware. I don't expect to see many games support it, but we'll see a few devs get really down to the metal (primarily first party) and get 1080p 120fps out of it. 1440p 60fps should be pretty common, and it wouldn't surprise me to see some titles supporting 4k 30fps.
 
https://www.theverge.com/21549021/xbox-series-s-review

One trend with the Xbox Series S I’ve also spotted is that most optimized games appear to be targeting 1080p at 60fps instead of 1440p at 60fps. Microsoft made a big deal about this being a 1440p console, but Sea of Thieves, Forza Horizon 4, Fortnite, Watch Dogs: Legion, and For Honor will all run at 1080p instead. Yakuza: Like a Dragon and Gears Tactics are exceptions to what looks like the normal, but Yakuza only hits 1440p at 30fps.

Like i said in september, bad news.
 

All you said is it won't hit 120fps. I could be mistaken, but I thought there were a few games that could hit 120 fps on series s. I know it's stuff like Ori and Fortnite, but it's still happening. I don't think anyone expected 1440p or 120fps to be common with the S... it should be a solid 1080p 60fps console. 1440p60 probably will become a reality as devs get more time with.
 
All you said is it won't hit 120fps. I could be mistaken, but I thought there were a few games that could hit 120 fps on series s. I know it's stuff like Ori and Fortnite, but it's still happening. I don't think anyone expected 1440p or 120fps to be common with the S... it should be a solid 1080p 60fps console. 1440p60 probably will become a reality as devs get more time with.
yup.

Like an xbox one x. MSFT hyping this as a 1440p next gen console seems... off to me
 
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