- If you've been shopping around for a new gaming device,
whether it's a PC or console,
you've definitely noticed just how expensive
the market has gotten.
How in the world am I supposed to play the latest "Halo"
when there are an infinite number of scalpers,
but in this dark era, a new kind of segment has emerged,
one that I believe will change gaming forever. (coughs)
Since the very beginning of game development,
there's always been a race
to have the fastest hardware around, but lately,
there's been a new trend toward taking a step back in power
and shrinking down that gaming experience.
One example of that is the Xbox Series S.
Unlike its bigger brother, this little box sips power,
plays everything that the Series X does and comes in
at the low price of $300.
Almost more importantly, it actually is $300.
I've seen it on store shelves several times,
and while it's usually available for MSRP,
other scalpers have taken things like the PS5
and the Xbox Series X to routinely hit $700 to $800
or even more.
With the availability of the S, the question really is,
is the Series S that much worse than the Series X?
Now, there is a considerable difference between the two.
Although the CPU's are nearly the same,
the GPU and RAM have been cut down significantly.
Because of this,
the Series S tends to target lower resolutions,
like 1080P instead of 4K on the X.
However, what is it like in real life?
Can you even tell the difference between the $300 Series S
and the $800 Series X?
So now, we're going to determine just how much
of an upgrade you truly get by going from the Xbox Series S
to the Series X.
Jared has put together a simple test.
Can we tell the difference between the Series S
and the Series X?
To make things a little more fair,
we're on a 24 inch 1080P monitor, because on paper,
there should be a massive difference in power
that goes far beyond just running it HD.
First up is console A, running "Halo Infinite."
- [Jared] No, no, no, you can't get that close.
- It's 1080P. - You can't get that close.
- The same amount of pixels. - No, no, no.
You've gotta stay three feet away.
Pixel peeping is cheating.
Do you think gamers are really doing that?
- Yeah. - No.
- Even though the Series X is outputting at 1080P,
it still can super sample from 4k down,
which theoretically gives a cleaner, crisper image.
First thought.
I saw a little texture pop in there
and I'm seeing some aliasing, so you see in the back here,
it's out of focus.
Some of those lines, like right over here,
it's a little aliased,
which would make me think that we're running at 1080P
as opposed to anything that's being super sampled.
Oh God, oh God, oh God, oh God, that was bad,
that was bad, okay.
I'm pretty heavily leaning toward the S right now,
but I will make my final determination after switching
to console B.
Oh, that's X, X, X, definitely X.
Yeah, so I can see the super sampling.
Console B is the Series X.
Well, to be fair, I'm playing on a different map,
so it's not a perfect one-to-one comparison.
- [Ken] How confident are you?
- I'm 80% confident that I'm on a Series X right now.
- All right, so this is console B, right?
- Console B.
- Okay, if this is a Series S, it looks really good.
- And remember, this is theoretically with the Xbox Series X
being three times more powerful. (laughs)
- [Austin] Find the extra pixels there, chief?
- That's chief.
My name's Ken.
(group laughing) (upbeat music)
- I'm not responding to that.
I'm not even gonna...
- Ah, no, this has to be Series S.
For example, this rope,
there's definitely some aliasing going on for sure.
It doesn't seem as high resolution.
- [Jared] See, that's the fun thing
about video game graphics,
is every time someone needs to point out a difference,
they're like, "Look at this rope." (laughs)
- So the first game, "Halo Infinite,"
you guys were both absolutely correct.
- [Both] Yes.
- It was subtle,
but there were differences that you could spot.
- So now, I want to say, I was maybe about 10 feet away,
which is way farther than you wanna be from this monitor,
but even just from that distance,
I could not even tell there was a difference
between the games, it was identical.
- The main thing is that for "Halo Infinite,"
maybe not so much in the campaign context,
but the multiplayer context,
that detail won't necessarily matter.
You can argue maybe slight competitive advantage
to see more detail, but honestly,
I think that for 300 bucks,
especially getting into next gen titles and it playing
at a constant frame rate, yeah, it absolutely looked fine.
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Next up, we've got "Forza Horizon 5,"
a game that both Ken and I are very familiar with.
- Wow, this is 30P, ladies and gentlemen,
but that looks quality if I've seen quality before.
I think this is Series S,
but I do want to see what the other version is.
- All right, ready?
- Series X.
- It's been seconds.
- Dude, the car detail is way better.
- Are you sure?
- It is way better.
It is miles better.
- It looks like the same amount of pixels to me.
- The reflections on the car, the sharpness of everything.
If I stop, the wheel does not look as aliased.
It looks like there's way more lighting detail
on the wheel alone.
I'll say though that in 1080P,
it's a little less obvious that things like the grass
and the shrubs and whatnot are aliasing.
- The fact we're playing at 30P is slightly disgusting,
but whatever, it's fine.
So I'm guessing this is quality mode in Horizon, right?
Well, I don't need to ask.
It is quality mode.
I think I've seen enough with console B.
Let me switch to A and see.
First impressions, close, not a massive difference.
I'm going to put a call in that right now I'm playing
on the Series S instead of the X.
I don't care which one this is.
I'm impressed by the Series S,
because the difference between the two consoles
on this monitor for this test, incredibly minimal.
- Well, you've heard it here from the...
We have Digital Foundry at home.
I think I agree too.
- Yeah, right? - 100%.
- A is S, B is X.
- You've gotta see it in the road lines too.
- [Austin] Yeah, yeah.
- [Ken] It's a little more obvious with the night shot.
- [Austin] But there's no difference
besides just that little bit of sub-pixel detail
on a 1080P display.
Lighting, the car models,
almost everything looks the same sort of quality.
- I think they definitely emphasize the car model more,
which is probably for the better.
- Now, Forza...
- Dramatic reveal.
- You're both correct.
- See, I told you.
I want to see what it's like in the performance mode,
when the graphic fidelity goes down
and has a more constant frame rate,
but in the quality mode, it looked great.
- It looked absolutely great.
- It looked really good.
- The toughest test by far though is Ori.
Ori's a good game to test this,
'cause it is incredibly smooth and nice looking.
I'm going to say,
I'm probably not gonna be able to tell the difference.
It's a little soft, some of the detail,
but I think that's just the way that the game is designed.
- I'm going to try to stay right here and get a sense
of the detail.
I don't want to pixel peep too much.
This looks really great already,
but Ori already looked good on the One X as well.
If I had to hedge my bets though, I think it's Series S.
- You think it's Series S?
- I think I have a good sense of resolution.
I don't think that was subsampled.
- All right, this is console B?
- This is console B.
- Okay.
- Nevermind, oh, wait.
- [Austin] Dude, that looks the exact same.
- Stop moving, stop moving, stop moving, stop moving,
stop moving, stop moving.
If you look at this little tiny piece of grass over here,
it's not aliased.
The problem is that it doesn't look as sharp,
which is throwing me off.
I don't know what the hell's happening.
I'm going to try to stay right here and get a sense
of the detail.
I don't want to pixel peep too much.
- This is Series S, but by literally, I am this close.
- You know what?
There is slightly less texture in this, I agree, yeah.
I think that this is Series S.
Oh my God, what the hell?
- I think it's 52% chance that this is Series S.
I'm going to go with Series S, console B.
- Austin, Austin, we're right.
- [Austin] Wait, are you cheating right now?
- [Jared] What the hell?
- Did he just cheat? - Did you just...?
- Did you just look at the HDMI?
Well, I didn't put my call in that this is Series S.
- [Ken] No, no, we made our call.
We made our call. It was fine.
- For me, this experiment has really opened my eyes
to something that's been kind of developing
over the last few years,
but this is the first time that it really crystallized
for me, which that gaming has spent so long chasing
after gigahertz and gigabytes of RAM and pixels,
and while all that is absolutely important,
especially if you're an enthusiast
and you want to push the maximum performance out
of your gaming PC, or you want to play on a PS5 or Series X
and get 4k and 120 Hertz, that's all important,
that's all great,
but we're no longer in the era where cheaper,
especially portable devices, are at a huge, huge handicap.
Think about the Game Boy.
The Game Boy had four colors and a terrible screen
with giant amounts of battery drain and everything,
and when you look at a game on that compared
to the Super Nintendo, there was no comparison, but today,
I can play a game on the Switch or on a Steam Deck
or even on my phone, and while, sure,
it might not quite match up to the exact performance
of my console or my PC,
but it does give me a very playable experience,
to the point where in a lot of titles,
you can get almost the exact same.
Like you look at Ori on the Series S versus the X.
Yeah, we can tell a difference, but you know,
the difference of pixel peeping four pixels
of a frickin plant or something.
It's to the point where if you're looking for differences
and you want the max, you can get that,
but what I think is easy to overlook is the fact
that so much has gotten so good,
that a lot of games aren't down to the exact resolution
or whatever the case is, it's about the art style,
it's about the experience,
and when you have a device in your pocket,
whether it be a phone or a Steam Deck or a Switch,
or if you have a more affordable device, like a Series S,
which while it might not have the raw performance
of the Xbox Series X,
it has all the capability of running games,
just at that lower resolution and frame rate and whatnot.
I think it goes to show the gaming has really evolved
in a way that feels almost strange,
if we would've talked to ourselves five, 10 years ago,
where it was all about more and more and more,
because now, I think one of the biggest trends
in gaming is less.
Still the same experience in a lot of ways.
Some ways, it's actually better.
When it's portable, it's easy to take with you,
but it's not about just pushing the envelope
on what you can do,
but it's about being smart about what you have
and the form factors that you're putting it in.