- So I bought the brand new Xbox Series S.
There's not an enormous amount
that's new with this console.
So it is now available in this black colorway,
which is much more similar to the X,
and I think personally, it looks pretty nice.
And it also now has one terabyte of storage.
So that base model Series S only has
about 360 gigs out of the box,
which when you consider that most AAA titles today are
about 100 gigabytes means that three, maybe four games,
and that Series S is completely full.
This with a little over 800 gigabytes free
out of the box is a much more usable console.
But this video is not here just to talk
about the new shiny Series S,
rather to talk about what it's like
to buy an Xbox Series S in 2023.
Holiday sales is right around the corner.
This, while it's $350 right now,
is almost certainly going to be on sale
in the next couple of months.
So I think it's worth just a conversation.
Should you go out and buy the Xbox Series S
or should you save a few extra pennies
and dollars and nickels and dimes
and buy yourself a Series X or PS5?
So I posted this little guy on Instagram the other day,
and one of the overwhelming comments was on the price point.
So if you're not familiar with the original Series S,
the white model with 512 gigs of storage started
out at $300 MSRP.
This is at $350 MSRP compared to $300 on the 512.
But you're looking at $350 compared to 500 for the Series X,
$150 starts to be a little bit more reasonable.
And again, you throw the PS5 digital in there
and this becomes a bit harder to justify,
which is part of the reason
why I think that the killer feature
of this is not so much the one terabyte,
it's not so much the black color,
it's the fact that Game Pass exists and is really good.
I mean, I think a lot of people are gonna really think once,
twice and three times before they spend $70 on a new game.
If I've got Game Pass and I'm vaguely curious about it,
not only could I just try it out using cloud streaming
on my phone or on my Xbox or whatever,
but I also can just download it
on my Series S and give it a try.
And if I don't like it,
oh well, I'll just delete it and move on with my life.
I think that that's a real powerful sort of sales pitch
for the Series S specifically.
You know, it's funny.
When you look at the Series S and its lack of disc drive,
it is a little bit of a shame just
because Xbox has such terrific backwards compatibility.
I'll say that there are a lot of original Xbox and 360
and Xbox One games that are available on Game Pass,
but if you have an Xbox One, a One S,
a One X, or even a Series X,
you'll be able to easily pick up super cheap
like 360 games, throw it in there
and odds are that they will work.
So a little bit of a downside
when it comes to running on the Series S.
But if you're out here
to have the most complete Xbox experience,
let me give you some great news.
The Xbox Series X exists and it is a better console of this
in almost every single way.
But at $500, it's also a more expensive console.
And I think for a lot of people,
the trade off in value is absolutely worth it
to pick up the Series S.
And it's so refreshing to go back to a little console
that just goes underneath my TV
and doesn't require its own spotlight, candelabra,
and music fanfare every time I turn it on.
- [Ken] It can almost fit in Matt's pocket.
- I'm not wearing my JNCOs.
- Unlike the PS5, which has an internal SSD,
which you could swap out yourself,
on the Xbox Series S and X,
you have to use the storage expansion module.
So when it first launched,
there were only a handful of modules available
and they were very expensive.
Thankfully, this has gotten a little bit better.
So right now, you can get yourself a 512-gig expansion
for about 80 bucks or one terabyte for about 150.
And there are now options from both WD and Seagate.
I would still love to have a little bit more
of a DIY experience,
but it is now at least somewhat feasible
to upgrade the Series S or Series X yourself.
Like obviously, we're gonna play a bunch of games.
I'm gonna show some of the sort of performance.
But just the philosophy of the Series S
I think, has really, I've kind of warmed up on a lot.
Like I've always liked this console,
but sort of coming back to it three years later,
seeing games that have been properly optimized for it now
that we've kind of gotten rid of some
of the shackles of last generation.
I feel good about the Series S and its future,
and I wasn't so sure about that in the beginning.
This is a really good time to talk about the Series S
because there are now proper Xbox exclusives
for this generation that are only
on the Series S and the Series X
and the PC, but well, for the purpose of this conversation,
it's only on the Series S and the Series X.
It's one thing to read the speeds and feeds
and to watch Digital Foundry all day,
but it's another to actually play some
of the games on the Series S.
So let's start out with a couple of titles
that are exclusive to this generation of Xbox,
starting with "Starfield".
Now "Starfield" is a game that has gotten some criticism
for its performance not only on PC,
which I'm recording this on launch day.
So probably some patches and some optimization certainly
for Nvidia graphics cards,
but also the fact that both on Series S and Series X,
it only runs at 30 frames per second.
Now this is pretty standard especially for last generation
and certainly for Bethesda titles.
And while of course it's always nice
to have 60 frames per second,
when you look at some of the things that Bethesda are doing
with "Starfield", it is quite next gen.
I mean, I can't get that many potatoes
to fall out my airlock door on an Xbox One, can I?
At least I can't do it at 60 FPS, it would be like potato FPS.
Some of the other things I like about "Starfield"
is the details.
So this is one of these games that's starting
to really show what this generation of console is capable of
without the shackles of Xbox One
and PS4 holding things back.
So with the much improved CPUs
and the very solid graphics even on the Series S,
what we're seeing is incredibly detailed textures.
Now yes, "Starfield" is not running at 4K on Series S,
but honestly yes, if you pixel peep, you'll see that like,
oh, the shadows aren't quite as nice
and there's certainly not as much detail in the distance.
But when you're actually playing the game,
the things that I care about is
how well does it just generally look and also
how well does it play because fluidity is important.
I mean personally, I think this looks pretty nice,
and when I see the arguments,
and there's some validity, I will give you,
but when I see the arguments
about how the Series S is holding back the generation,
to me, I don't fully buy it.
Now yeah, this is certainly a less powerful console,
but you're still getting the same games.
Am I running them at lower resolutions
and slightly lower settings?
Yes, but that's the same thing I would do
when I'm playing on a mid-range PC compared
to a high-end PC, right?
It doesn't hold PCs back as long as they've got
that fast SSD storage, the eight-core CPU.
Like there's a lot of things that are very similar
with the Series S and the Series X,
the main difference is the size of memory
and just how powerful the GPU is.
One thing I notice some people have complained
about is the post-processing with "Starfield".
Yeah, there's quite heavy like depth of field,
and especially like motion blur and like film grain.
But honestly, I feel like it actually helps,
especially the motion blur considering
that this is only a 30 FPS experience,
helps really to kind of improve that fluidity.
I think it looks nice.
And when we're running it slightly lower settings,
I think that that film grain kind of helps
to hide a little bit of the pixeliness.
That definitely a technical term.
In the case of "Starfield",
I feel like I'm getting substantially a very,
very similar experience to what I would be getting
on the Series X just at, you know,
1080ish instead of 4K.
I can live with that,
especially considering how much money I saved.
Where a game like "Starfield" runs fine at 30 FPS,
when it comes to the new "Forza Motorsport",
60 FPS, that fluidity is really important.
Now I will say that this is an early copy of the game,
so this is just a preview build.
I can only do a few races here,
but there are a couple things I do wanna point out.
So Turn 10 do give you two different modes.
So just like with a lot of games for the Series S,
you can run it either Visuals or Performance mode.
Visuals is 30 FPS, Performance is 60.
And they specifically call out
that Performance is recommended and I agree,
not only just because I think that 60 FPS
and that fluidity is important for a racing game,
but also in my opinion,
the Visual mode doesn't look that much better.
And of course, I am just talking
about the Series S version of the game.
If you're playing on X,
maybe the fidelity mode is gonna look a little bit better
with ray tracing and whatnot, but for me,
that fluidity is absolutely what I'm looking for.
And as you're about to see,
it still looks pretty good on Series S, man!
Still looks pretty good.
Now keep in mind that I don't have a apples
to apples comparison with "Gran Turismo" just
because I don't have the same cars and same tracks,
but like the general feeling is certainly
that the cars feel a bit heavier, a little bit more weighty.
You can tell when you overcook in a corner,
you're just gonna understeer,
which is the way it is in real life for most cars at least.
Now you can see here that I've got a very smooth 60 FPS,
and to me, it's really nice.
Now if you wanna pixel peep,
you wanna pull out your Digital Foundry glasses,
you will be able to tell
that it is not the sharpest presentation in the world,
specifically when I'm sitting right
in front of a monitor like this.
So look at the gauges, you look at some of the distance,
it's not massively sharp,
but as far as being able to enjoy the game
and have a great time,
there's nothing here that's bothering me.
I can easily make out everything.
And if I'm sitting even slightly farther away,
the differences are not huge.
So in an actual race scenario,
which is a little bit more demanding,
what you'll see is the performance is still really solid.
Now the game is going to be, oh good Lord.
Okay, okay, okay. All right, all right.
What if I just smash 'em?
Just to test the Series S, of course, let's just smash em.
(cars thud) (car tires screech)
(Austin laughs)
Oh my God, that looks bad, all right. (laughs)
Whoops. Who needs all your paint?
I think paint is optional.
Something else with a Series S is
that you're not really getting a lesser experience
when it comes to playing online titles.
So take something like "Overwatch 2" for example,
which is a terrific version of the game
on Series S that if you want to,
you actually can crank it all the way up to 120 FPS.
I was just playing on the standard model,
which is like 1440p and 60, and it's incredibly smooth.
It's really, really well-optimized,
which mind you, not a graphically-demanding game,
but the same cannot be said for "Call of Duty Warzone 2.0".
That is quite a demanding game.
And when you look at this compared to running
on like a PS4 or something,
it is a night and day difference.
Again, of course, it is not going to look quite as nice
as on your PC or your Series X or your PS5, but importantly,
it's still a very smooth gameplay experience
and it still looks pretty good,
especially the draw distance is plenty good enough
for me to pretend to snipe people from a very long way away.
We are giving up a little bit
when it comes to the raw pixel counts
and just how far the settings have been pushed out.
But at the end of the day,
you're still getting largely the same performance,
not in all cases, but in most cases,
you're still getting a very smooth,
very playable 60 FPS in most of these titles.
And that even comes across to "GTA 5".
So "GTA 5" is now included with Game Pass,
which is part of the reason why I wanted
to try it for this video.
And as someone who played "GTA 5" when it came out
in the Xbox 360 like 10 years ago,
the fact that it's a nice, smooth 60 FPS,
it's high res and yeah,
the Series S is not going to be quite
as nice-looking as the Series X 'cause it doesn't have
like some of the ray tracing and whatnot
and probably not worth actually paying for that upgrade.
But if you've got it including Game Pass,
I think it's actually still a very solid version
of the game.
Out of the games I've tried,
I have not found a single title, whether it's a brand new,
you know, current generation exclusive,
whether it's a modern powerful title,
or whether it's a little bit of an older game that's,
you know, been around for a bit like "GTA 5"
or something that's not super demanding like "Overwatch".
Not one of these games is a measurably worse experience
when it comes to gameplay, not graphics.
All these games are a little less high resolution,
a little less detailed than on the higher end consoles.
Now a lot of people have pointed
to "Baldur's Gate" not supporting the Xbox Series S
when it comes to split-screen mode as an example
of why the Series S is holding this generation back.
I get the argument that this is less powerful,
that it could hold things back, but in reality,
if I'm spending this much less,
I'm expecting a slightly lesser experience.
I don't think it's as big of a negative
as I think a lot of people are trying to make it out to be,
especially when you get consider that this is a $300 box
that with a Game Pass subscription gives you tons of titles
that you simply can't play on like PS5.
I think that's still a very compelling value proposition.
I don't want this video to entirely come off
as I'm a Series S defender,
but I think it's gotten an unfair rap.
And especially now that we're three years
into this generation, the Series S,
I think has really sort of come into its own in a way now
that we're really seeing these games
that are exclusive to this generation.
That's impressive to me, honestly.
And I feel like I'm very happy that there is a entry level
into this generation that's not gonna cost you 500 bucks
because let's be real,
the Series S is gonna be the cheapest version
of any console you can buy for quite some time, maybe ever.
I have the luxury of playing all kinds
of super high-end hardware, and guess what?
I had exactly the same amount of fun playing all these games
on the Series S.
Did they look a little less shiny? Yep.
Did that matter at all to me? Nope.
Have fun, play your games, doesn't matter where you do it,
but the Series S, pretty good place to do it.
That's a conclusion.