Steam deck is current gen, I’ve never heard anyone claim that the Switch is since it came out last gen. Nintendo hasn’t actually made a next gen console yet. Not that they really need to anyway.
If you think about it, Wii U was the console that came out to compete with PS4/XB1 in 2012/13. So the switch being the successor to the Wii U, would mean that it's a generation above the last gen. Lots of folks consider Switch to be current gen/9th gen. Switch 2 will probably spend most of its market lifetime competing with 10th gen consoles.
The argument is made primarily by small developers that don't have the resources to address the feature parity clause. They are a very noisy minority of developers.
@@beanis8624 definitely the case. Most devs like the Series S and can develop for it just fine. Space Marine 2 runs well on it for example, and that is the most visually dense game I’ve ever seen, so there is really no excuse imo.
@@dannypassionUnlikely as no Xbox console has ever sold that many... the 360 got to around 84 million "shipped", but then Microsoft stopped giving updates. Of "home consoles", only the PSone, PS2, PS4 and Wii have ever got above 100m. (The Switch, DS and GameBoy + GameBoy Color not counting as a "home console")
People who claim Series S holds stuff back and shouldn't have happened, but they claim the want an Xbox Handheld that just plays all the same games. How do they not understand they are just asking for a Series S handheld?
No, What's holding Xbox consoles back is continued support for old generation consoles and games not being made specifically for the new generation consoles.
They said the S is hard to develop for, but 3 months later, the game are available and running good, in my opinion, the problem is beyond the series S, if xbox can sell 100 million Series S the story would have been different
Some of the best looking games of last generation were on the Nintendo Switch, you know the ones - publishers just don't want to put forth the resources necessary to get their games running/looking better on series s
Stop 🛑 using hypotheticals to justify living in a fantasy world. Microsoft *never* had the ability to sell 100 million Series S consoles. As a matter of fact, the S was the only console primarily available during the pandemic. If Microsoft couldn’t capitalize on sales then, they never stood a chance.
1. The issue isn't making something run on the Series S. The issue is making it run to meet expectations. Some console players are fine with 30 fps, others demand consistent 60 fps. The demands of the developers audience will determine if the Series S is a pain in the ass. 2. Starfield added this feature 9 months to a year after release. BG3 released on Xbox 3 months after. If people are fine with Xbox getting games / updates months if not years after the competition that is fine, but it is still an issue. 3. From what I have heard is that developers are actually more frustrated with the ram specs more than anything else. Its not only less ram on the Series S, but also slower ram. If Series S had comparable ram to the X it would be far less of a pain in the ass to develop for.
The S pitch is for people who want to play the game, don't care about super high visuals, and don't want to pay $500 for the console. If a dev can't optimize for the machine, they should get a better dev. (note: speaking as dev with 30-odd years experience in c++)
I don't think that it's because they can't. I think that it's just that they want to be lazy and don't want to have to optimise 2 Xbox consoles instead of just the 1. It's "too much work" for them.
You may not care about graphics but resolution is important. Games running 480p is an absolute horror, you cant see shit because all is blurred (even more with shitty FSR).
@@erikouwehandMost of the time, these Devs are under contract for say 18 months, most with some experience with UE. These Devs in AAA, lack experience in even optimizing with UE4/UE5. Games at the first and foremost should run on low end hardware, and look amazing still. Back then you could run Control with a GTX 760 at close to 60 FPS at 1080p MEDIUM settings… WHICH is crazy since Remedy is known to push boundaries for their graphics. And a 760 in 2019 is practically 6-7 year old hardware to hit 60 FPS… which is amazing! To put us in perspective, we are lucky to even hit 60 FPS with graphics cards like the 10 series with 2024 games at native resolution… most of the time we are sub 60 FPS with an upscaler for 1080p gaming! Pascal (10 series) and Polaris GPUs (RX 400/500 series) are much better in terms of performance vs. Kepler (700 series) . Games nowadays being made by these Covid & Post-Covid Era Devs & incompetent execs are what is destroying modern gaming, most games on console with the specs that we have should run most games at 60 FPS at native 1080p resolution and no checkerboard rendering/upscaling. These AAA Devs typically optimize with supremely high end hardware like the RTX 4090, and work down from there; which basically is a terrible way to optimize. They should work with older GPUs (I would say GTX 1060/RX 580) and try to get the game to run at a native 1080p resolution at 60 FPS on medium/low textures. Of course the newer technologies like RTX, lumens, and the extra shadows can be additional settings, but they should focus on rasterized performance first then the additional eye-candy stuff for the people that can spare that expense. All in all, we have less in-house devs that have more experience vs the temporary contract Devs, that bounce around working on these AAA titles. Game optimization back then pre-Covid era was a huge thing. But of course, we still have huge unoptimized shits back in the day like Ubisoft’s AC games post- Black Flag. So how is the PC hardware I’m mentioning relevant to console performance? Because with most titles in AAA space, if it’s terrible in terms of performance, it’s even worse on console. (I.e Hogwarts Legacy, Jedi Survivor, Cyberpunk 2077) My sort of point here is these specific PC graphics hardware that I mention especially, are weaker than or is on par with these consoles in parity, and would definitely help net both audiences a positive gaming experience instead of the shitty ones we get; if we actually put to practice of optimizing around weaker hardware at lower graphical fidelity like medium to low settings at a native resolution while targeting 60FPS.
ya but I assume there's a reason it was Nintendos first and only $70 game, the budget was probably massive and I imagine a large portion of it went to polish
This is IGNORANT to what Devs have been saying about the series S. They've brought up issues with its shortage of ram in combination with Microsoft's policy to have parity between both the Series S and X. It's not just simply look at the Switch, WHICH doesn't have all the big demanding AAA games that are on PS5, PC btw, it's a false equivalence Example Baldurs Gate 3 had to be delayed because Xbox Series simply could not run multiplayer slipscreen like on PC, PS5 and Xbox Series X. Microsoft had to finally relent their policy, because 1. BG3 is a pretty massive AAA game (that would not run on the switch, they didn't bother to port it to the Switch even though they would have loved to). 2. Microsoft also wanted it on GamePass... Which brings up another issue why more and more studios are looking to skip porting to Xbox or just be an after thought... Microsoft has trained its very low user base to not buy games, but subscribe. We can argue how "value" driven GamePass is, (which I think games as a service is a rip off) but you can't argue more and more studios, particularly smaller ones simply are not selling as many of their games on the Xbox as they would on PS5, Switch and PC. Microsoft has made it the Xbox A low user base = mostly subscribers = lower number of people buying games = Microsoft has to sell Xbox games on PS5 because they dont sell enough on Xbox = studios find less incentive to develop on Xbox. A snake that's eating itself. PS5 - 59 million install base Xbox s/x 28 million What do people here think is going to happen when the PS5 Pro comes out and Devs will have to consider commiting resources to supporting 4 x console? Which one do you think they will most likely drop? PS5 PS5 Pro Xbox series X Xbox Series S ? Of course Microsoft doesn't want interconsole exclusitivtiy. Can't have a game for Xbox series X but not for Series S. Coupled with Microsoft's marketing "you don't need an Xbox to play Xbox games"
I can't believe we are still debating this after Baldur's Gate 3 and Wukong. The Series S is trash and to me, represents just how little confidence Xbox had in their product from the very start of the generation. The Series S should have been nothing less than a discless Series X.
Not really. If developers are having issues, they can reach out to Xbox for support. We’ve seen this happen with games like BG3, Matrix Experience, and more recently with Capcom and the MT framework. While I’m not sure if the support is free for lesser-known titles, I would assume it is.
It’s a mistake all across the board. You can’t simply look at price and say that it was a win for the consumer. The S and more specifically, Microsoft’s parity clause, resulted in games not being ported to or delayed for Xbox in comparison to PlayStation. This helped to diminish the overall perception of Xbox as a brand. There is a strong argument that negative perception of the console offsets any positives that may have come from lower cost alone.
Space Marines 2 is coming out in a few days, not once did the developers say WE CAN'T MAKE A SERIES s version because of technical issues. And that game looks and runs amazing on the series S. Technical issues is a cop out buy developers who just don't want to do the work. 😢
No disc drive and half the storage for $100 less but same specs for everything else would've been the better choice. Like, that was how they sold the Xbox360 in the beginning. Same console, but one version came with a hard drive, HDMI cable, and a wireless controller, other version didn't have hard drive included, had composite cables, and had a wired controller. You could upgrade over time to wireless controller or hard drive or HDMI cable, but you could play the same games with no sacrifices in performance.
Remember when J Allard said no games would require the hard drive? Then FFXI happened. It was also extremely common towards the end of the generation. 4 disc games, required hard drives, what a disaster.
i bought the Series S at launch to connect to my 1440p monitor. Worked great for me. In 2023 I upgraded to a 4k monitor and picked up the Series X on a deep discount around christmas. I do not use the S anymore but I can't let it go for some reason. I feel like I'll find some utility for it given the size. Perhaps for travel.
The series s weakness was not an issue at first, but as devs start using more modern tech like ue5 the problem grows constantly. The fact that ps5 has brutally outsold the series only makes things worse since the cost benefit balance of developing for xbox becomes more and more in favor of not even bothering. It's not really that it is impossible to make games work on the series s. The problem is that at some point it may not be worth it for some devs. Look at Wukong, it's sold like 20 million without xbox, so what are the devs going to do? Make a series s version so they can release on xbox? Or maybe focus on buikding dlc for the original platforms to capitalize on the success? What would be their best bet? Both options have their benefits.
I have both the X and the S...and enjoy both experiences. I end up on my S most of the time and have had no issues with it. My hunch is that if you ask the players the vast majority think the S is wonderful.
I bought the Series X and ended up playing Skyrim on it for 6 months because there are no damn games. Sold it for almost what I paid for it, and bought the black 1 terabyte series s, and it’s perfect for me. I will ride out the series s until a new Xbox console comes out and then get that.
Why do people with no understanding of hardware keep making these videos? Modern games can run on 20yo PCs but the Series S is 'too much' somehow. The truth is the devs. don't want to put the work on it but are forced to by their publishers. Nowadays you need your game to be sold everywhere to turn a profit. Xbox shouldn't NOT drop the parity clause because the S is not the problem.
I honestly don't get this argument that "Series S holds games back" when we consider some of the "impossible" ports of AAA games we've seen come to the Switch. If 2015-era hardware can see big-budget games ported to it, I struggle to believe the Series S is that much of an issue. Just target 720-1080p at 30FPS, and reduce texture and model quality accordingly, no? 🤷🏻♂️
I don't think it's holding gaming back. I think it adds more overhead to making an Xbox game but then I would think 1 single code should be able to fit both like website codes will fit both full websites and mobile websites. I'm not a game developer but I assume thaat's how the code works. It's the code's job to recognize what system it's operating under and adjust accordingly.
@@TekkLuthor yup, you got the gist of it. Even websites need to optimize their code and assets (images, icons, etc.) to not have a slow or unresponsive page. When you work in programming, optimization is inevitable.
1. People aren't playing AAA releases of new PC games with 10 GB of shared RAM for both the CPU and the GPU. You've got at least 16 GB of RAM and GPU with 4 GB of RAM if you're playing the newest releases. 2. There is no platform holder enforcing performance requirements or feature parity. If you're trying to play Baldur's Gate or Starfield on a PC with 8 GB of DDR4 RAM and a 10-year-old GPU, you're going to have to sink or swim on your own.
BG3 being held back for a couple months due to the Series S is already a red flag. The fact that developers have to reduce/eliminate graphics, NPCs, splitscreem etc just to run on the Series S is not good at all. I own a series s with a series s monitor attachment which is awesome but once BG3 got held back it really soured my opinion on this console. I won't be surprised when GTA 6 drops and what issues it will have on Series S
Developers still have to get used to the architecture & learn optimisation correctly. With so many still on last gen consoles, devs are waisting resources in that area to maximise ROI. If they didn’t more would purchase the newer systems & they’d have less to develop for. BG3 being a great example of learning architecture & optimisations. From working with the SeriesS, this led to new opportunities that ended up benefiting not just Xbox but also PC & the PS5. Team Xbox also offer resources for any studio that needs/wants extra support with the architecture. There’s still a lot more Microsoft can do to unify the architecture harmony further. SeriesS is still a lot more capable than lower/mid range PC’s that the developers still cater for. Though, for next generation mindset should return to only a single Xbox SKU that everyone will need.
It's a solid machine, the visual difference between the X and S isn't even that huge in most cases (when playing and not doing 400% zoom and side by side comparisons). But, maybe the low memory is giving developers a hard time.
From everything I’ve read I believe the specific issue with the Series S is the amount of RAM. If it came out with 16GB we might have just seen the lower graphical fidelity but we may not have heard of any of these other issues and games like Baldur’s Gate 3 and Black Myth Wukong being delayed.
On the one hand, Microsoft did piss off game devs with two SKUs, they're now splitting their Xbox optimisation time between 2 consoles, which is also the lagging platform, so devs are less willing to put in the work. On the other hand, developers are complaining about RAM on the S, while not using Sample Feedback Streaming that would solve their issues. It's one thing to bitch, it's another to bitch and ignore a solution that already exists.
The Series S opened next-gen gaming to many people who couldn't afford next gen gaming... Many people who would have been stuck on the previous generation now have a Series S. It's sad that greed takes away any focus from that.
Quantum Error was a terrible playing and performing game on the PS5. It was critically panned and the Dev was found to be both a Sony fan boy and using the Series S to get attention for his game.
I have a series S. Didn’t really care too much about the new generation because I had a feeling PS4 was’nt gonna be left in the dust so easily. 151m installed user base. You don’t just up and leave them especially when most of them are kids or people who only play GTA, Fortnite,Minecraft, 2K, Madden, Apex legends. This is why Capcom still release SF6, RE8,RE2:Re on ps4 along with the fighting collections. The parity was the series isnt features. It’s simply release date. MS knows X is stronger and some games will not perform the same. Problem is… KIDS DONT CARE ABOUT NONE OF THIS‼️ only grown ups who hardly play or buy games. PS4 held this generation back no the series S. PC have settings… Xbox is a PC. It’s not hard. Starfield runs 60fps on Series S after the new update. Lie to people better than that.
I’ve bought series s before upgrading to series x. I just wanted Xbox to play games, chat with friends and enjoy couch gaming. Series s is still a blast as gaming experience compared to seres x is the same. Only disadvantage is that some games play in 30fps instead of 60 but this depends on developers optimisation capabilities that these days are hit or miss. Lower resolution don’t bother me at all. I don’t think that series s is a mistake. Most negative comments come from people that never used series s and that’s real problem on YT. People that got no clue have options no based on experience.
To answer the question, I would say no. However, I would say that we were upsold this generation as it relates to performance targets with all of the consoles overall. It's just that the Series S is the worst offender. Disclaimer: I own a Series S, and I don't regret my purchase. I just do have some gripes, however. I also own a Series X, PS5, and Gaming PC so my opinion is from the perspective of a multiplatform user. The Series S is a neat a machine and undoubtedly outperforms plenty of gaming PCs and laptops at the same MSRP price point. However, I think the long term value is what takes a hit for a number of reasons. 1) By removing the disc drive, owners are restricted to digital purchases of games. This makes it more challenging for parents navigating purchasing games for their kids who might find certain physical games cheaper than their digital counterpart. I would've preferred them to have created a detachable disc drive similar to Sony. 2) The storage system is so disappointing. The base Series S only has about 360GB of usable space out of the 512GB. Mainstream AAA games are extremely large. If I have to constantly worry about storage then it takes away from the joy of owning that console. Fortunately, I was able to get the 1TB Carbon Black version. I paired it with a 2TB Expansion Card so I'm able to freely jump around from game to game without the hassle uninstalling games or transferring titles back and forth between hard drives. Although I own an expansion card, its an overly expensive storage solution option. When you add up the cost of a Series S and the Expansion Card then the total reaches PS5/Series X territory. Once you get to that threshold then you have to determine was the Series S really worth it? For me, the PS5 digital was the perfect balance of price and performance. Despite losing the disc drive, you kept the same specs and storage space as bigger brother. Also, upgrading memory is cheaper. 3) Theoretically, the Series S should be able to deliver up to 1440p@120fps. With the PS5/Series X, we should be able to hit 4K@120FPS (and even 8K according to the marketing). Let's not forget about the ray tracing promise with all of the consoles. With the more powerful consoles, you may be able to hit the resolution of 4K, but may be bound between 30 fps(w/ray tracing) to 60 fps(w/out ray tracing). There are a number a titles that also max out at 1440p which still does look good on a 4K screen. For the Series S, the numbers are usually worse. For the most part, you may be stuck at 1080p@30fps without any ray tracing. For the record, there are number of titles that do hit 1440p and 60fps. Some titles can do 120fps, but they are few and far in between. It's just that the Series S has a difficult time handling many AAA games without significant cutbacks at times. Side note: Ori and the Will of the Wisps plays at 4K on the Series S which is awesome. Here why I love the Series S: It's small and portable. It also mounts perfectly on a wall. It still plays plenty of games well. If you don't pixel watch like I do at times or demand high FPS all the time then it's really enjoyable. Personally, I use my Series S in the living room to play games where I'm not concerned about the visual fidelity. I'll admit that I did "hate" on it at the beginning, but I saw how it conveniently fit in with my needs so I now I see why others like it as well.
I have all 3 consoles PS5, SX, SS the series s was the best deal this generation. If you are not a graphics snob the games play so good on it it doesn't even bother me to play on it at all.
The XBOX Series S was Marketed to people to make Gaming Affordable to most! Brad, if you actually earned an MBA, you would know this fact! The XBOX Series S was a Raging Success! Microsoft will do it again!
Then why is it massively undersold compared to PS5? Series S was supposed to be the lowest entry point at the cheapest price. Logic would say it would sell the best. Goes to show Microsoft got it wrong.
@@LouSassol69erMicrosoft is pretty consistent with getting things wrong. The Xbox 360 without a standard hard drive was just as bone headed of a move, they got lucky PS3 was difficult to develop for at first.
@@DP12321 PS3 ended up overtaking them in sales at the end of the generation too. PS3 got costs down per console sale by end of gen and started cranking up the blockbuster exclusives like the Last of us.
Xbox 360 launching with and without a hard drive was a similar issue. Games had to work without the need of the removable hdd. At least for most of its life span I believe. So that limited what could be done, and I think file sizes of digital games and dlc maybe as well.
It was such a huge limit. They limited XBLA games to a paltry 50MB. They held back development. J Allard said it wouldn't be required but FFXI needed it. Then towards the end of the generation, so many games required it. The 360 was rushed out and cheaply slapped together, and it was the beginning of the end for Xbox's dominance. A far cry from the powerful original Xbox. 💪
It already exist's. It's called a Steam Deck. Or an RoG Ally. Or an Aya Neo. There's already dozens of these devices that are likely better than anything that MS will release because they are open platforms.
@@pixeljauntvr7774 those are gaming PCs not gaming consoles, literally like comparing a PC with an Xbox. People still buy an Xbox over a PC, and will buy an Xbox handheld over any of those you mentioned.
@pixeljauntvr7774 those are all sub-par devices. None of those companies have the dollars to build a legitimate handheld. And none of those devices can play all current gen games.
The Series S was always fine barring the lack of a disc drive. The real mistake was releasing the console upgrade (Series X) too early alongside it. Those names are also pretty awful.
Meanwhile, devs are building games for high end and low end PCs, and everything in between and are perfectly fine with doing that. They are also going to make games for the PS5 and PS5 Pro and again, they will be perfectly fine doing that. Its only the Xbox hardware where it will be a problem. 😅
That totally defeats the point of console gaming. If you own a low end PC then the responsibility to play games that function on your system is up to you. Just because a game can run on a potato PC doesn't mean its actually going to run well. And more importantly developers for PC gaming aren't FORCED to compromise their vision of the game to accommodate people with rubbish hardware through feature parity.
I’ve had my Xbox series S since launch touchwood it’s been flawless. I’ve had two Xbox series X consoles both riddled with problems and crashing and nine or 10 reset. To the point where I’ve just sold them both off because I just don’t give a crap anymore and I’m back on the series S which is still amazing with the Seagate drive in the back. Works perfectly for me looking forward to the next generation.
@Brad Sams, You do not listen: Jason Ronald: "The XBOX Series Architecture is Scaleable." Brad, Flight Simulator, Halo Infinite, Forza Horizon 5, Gears 5, Forza Motorsport are All Infinitely more Powerful than Baldeurs Gate!, and have Zero Issues running those applications. Propaganda sells, Reality is, the XBOX Series S is more Capable than the PS5. Also, the makers of Baldurs Gate didn’t read the Directions to XBOX Series of Consoles. Sony paid them Not to Read them.
Are you for real? Running Flight simulator and never had an issue? Common...stop lying Also "running" means nothing...you're loosing details...a lot of them for a game to just "run"...people don't want a game just to run...like in 2015
@rob.ale90 , You don't know wth you're talking about! The games I mentioned don't just "RUN" The Performance is Best of Class! You don't play Excellent Performing Games because your head is Stuck into Sony, this is why no one is purchasing Sonys Awful Exclusives! Ask Heroki Totoki!
I think when Xbox Hardware team calculated the deviations necessary to achieve the $300 price point they used well optimized 1st party games from 8th gen Xbox because the cross gen games generally held up to the promise of "same performance as the Series X only at 1440p" they just failed to gleen that 9th gen development would be so much more RAM dependent
XBOX Series S should have been the 499 option, while XBOX Series X should have been 699 option with better graphical capabilities like the original XBOX ONE S and XBOX ONE X.
The S absolutely was a mistake for developers having to build a game for Series X only to have to dumb it down for the S. It's not how development works. You always build for the lesser hardware and then upscale, not the other way around. Many games this generation have suffered along with many delays that hurt gamers. Every time, one of these console makers makes a step forward. They take two back. MS seems more concerned with making an affordable console for poor people than they do, making a console for gamers. They could've owned this console generation if they had avoided a Series S model and put more emphasis on the x by making it more powerful than it already is.
The Series S is fine barring the fact that it doesn't have a disc drive. The real mistake was launching the console upgrade (Series X) too early alongside it. Those names are also pretty awful.
What do people think is going to happen when the PS5 Pro comes out? Devs have stretch resources to xbox S - PS5/X - PS5 pro For many one those consoles will have to be dropped.
It's fine to have a cheaper less capable console. We've seen in throughout gaming. The Switch, The PSP, The Gameboy. The problem is Microsoft's requirement to retain feature parity for games that run above the Series S system specifications.
Series S should had been designed around (dont know the real meaty numbers) ~ 12gb 192bit bus + slight fast memory , xbox hardware team knew this, they kneecap series S to achieve a very low price. Series S should have been the generation Nvidia mainstream "gtx 1060" of xbox version. By the end When you Brad ask if series S was mistake? i think not cause allow xbox to learn they need to give some "breeding room" with specs for the devs even if it cost a bit more to the end consumer next time. xbox knew gaming is an expensive hobby and they gambled with a 299$ low entry point.
It makes absolutely no sense to develop a game for a console that has half the customer base as it’s competitors and the vast majority of the users only play game pass games.
Whilst I am not a fan of Sony, I agree that Xbox Series consoles should have been like that, as you alluded too... Same specs but 512gb ssd and no disk drive. Admittedly, it'll push the price to around £400, but gamers would have won, spec wise at least, and Developers wouldn't be moaning. Microsoft should really poll players...
The latest sales-data I can find for Xbox Series is "around 23 million worldwide". Series S typically (in most countries) accounts for about two-thirds of all Xbox sales. Without Series S existing, Series X alone would therefore account for about 8 million units... versus nearly 62 million PS5. At that number, they'd surely have left the console-market. It's only by the Series S existing I'd say they are still even in the race. Without it, as the cheaper option, would anyone bother getting an X (if that were the only option that existed) over a PS5?
The only main issue I see with the Series S was the lack of a disc-drive, meaning no easy access to second-hand games. That means anyone who wants to do that can then only consider a Series X... and at that point will ask "given the similar prices, should I go for an X or just get the PS5 model which also offers the disc-drive?".
@@dftfireThat's some weird logic. Just because XSX isn't selling as well doesn't mean it wouldn't have sold more if XSS didn't exist. Sad the plebs have to hold the rest of us back.
@@DP12321 You seem to have misread me: I'm in support of the Series S as I'm saying had it not of existed, Microsoft would have far-less marketshare this generation as Series X and PS5 are usually around the same price, so if only the X existed, more people would have just gone for a PS5 instead. Series S being the cheapest option has offered a reason for people to still go Xbox this generation.
I don't think it was. There are loads of different PC configurations and they nail that so it's hard for me to understand how this is a problem. Also, maybe they should build them for the S and then crank them up for the X but it seems they are doing it backwards.
The job of Microsoft as a console maker is to make the best possible hardware at the time and price then make the best games to blow peoples mind. If Microsoft is not doing that then they are not doing their job. Traditionally first party develop the greatest games of that generation. Mario,Zelda,sonic, shenmue, uncharted, gran Turismo , halo, gears. Two console one with lower spec is not moving the industry forward.
Series S has meant the difference between the previous generation and this one is hardly noticeable and probably part of the reason why people play older games more than the newer games
When I first saw the specs for Series S my first thought was "omg why make a new console less powerful than the X1X!" Less GPU grunt less RAM less Storage but in reality the 4Tflops of Rdna 2 is far more powerful than the 6 Tflops of GCN 2 and after playing Starfield and Jedi Survivor and other on my nephews Series S it performs amazing.....for the price
Yes. Series S accounts for like 16% of consoles sold this generation. Too little to make it good value to target, too many in combination with Series X to ignore. Microsoft have to repeatedly go round throwing cash at publishers to stop ignoring Xbox, they couldn't afford to put another roadblock in the way of supporting their console.
I'm actually more concerned about Series S holding back the next generation system. Inevitably there will be another cross generation period. Meaning that games have to run on the weakest system. Unless they make significant changes to the way certification works a lot more games will be delayed or flat out skip Xbox entirely.
The attach rate for the series S is probably a lot lower than with the X. That is not going to help with applying developer resources to it. Think about who buys or gets an S.
Not a mistake. First party titles run great. 3rd party title are optimized for PS5 then Series X, so Series S gets left behind. It’s the most portable of the current gen systems. I take it everywhere. Paired with Gamepass it’s the best deal in gaming ever. Microsoft needs to turn it into a handheld and it’s the best thing in gaming.
Agree with what you’re saying. I don’t think we will ever see Microsoft saying the S was a mistake for a very long time. The problem I see is Xbox always says the X and S version of a game. Also keep in mind X and S owners pay the same amount for games and Gamepass. Microsoft cannot release more features on one console and not the other.
All that is a huge bull sh....t!The real problem is sales number ,if u have over 100 millions of series s sold nobody would mention the lack of power and the difficulty to develop a game for it !As allways it's about money! Look at Switch Nintendo everyone is trying to put any possible game on that device and they find the way to do it without complaining about the lack of power!
I have bought 2 sieries S consoles and 1 X. No the series s was not a mistake. If it wasn't for the series S i may not have ever entered the xbox world. I have been a pc gamer since the late 80s and 90s until i night my series s at the beginning of this generation
THE MICROSOFT'S X-BOX SERIES S IS GETTING A BAD RAP!! VIDEO GAME INDUSTRY DEVELOPERS NEED TO GET THEIR ACT TOGETHER. STOP HATING ON THE X-BOX SERIES S AND GET THE JOB DONE.
With rumours of a handheld device with the next generation, Xbox is about to repeat the same model. Hopefully they have learned form the current two sku development model
If execs at Xbox thought game development worked by targeting higher specs and scaling down then they are so out of touch first thing ya learn is too work from your lowest target spec then scale up
I actually have both of them too because I couldn’t get the series x at launch because of the shortage but I definitely think the S was a mistake with the amount of games being delayed for Xbox
Devs are lazy + xbox didnt sell enough to justify being less lazy. Thats all it is. Even Bethesda was not able to release Starfield correctly at launch and suddenly now we have a 60 fps on both consoles. The mistake is not the Series S being too weak, its not weak at all... its an annoying additional console to develop for and on top of that Microsoft is forcing devs to have the game available on X AND S. I think the Series S is hurting much more the Series X than anything else.
Yeah Series S was too conservative with its performance target. It needed more beefed up hardware. At the very least RAM parity and maybe a little bit more powerful GPU. Then it would probably be feasible. Their hardware would make even more of a loss though.
Yep, it's a mistake. If they don't do next gen what what they did this gen with two different spec machines, they know it was a mistake. The rumored hand held doesn't count in this.
Funny how people complain about the series s when they are still porting games for PS4 and Xbox One to this day so this whole series s is more work is just media grifting for attention and clicks
1. Xbox gets to make a weak console for the masses. 2. Devs get to skip it if it's too much pain in the ass to optimize for. I think both things are fair. If 8/10 games work well on Series S, and remaining 2 come 6 months later, I think that's okay for Series S owners. What's not okay is Series X owners getting shafted coz of its malnourished sibling. If the 2 games are that important, it would be understandable for MSFT to eat their feet and just allow games to release on Series X under some "Game Preview" label and skip Series S. I think X/S thing worked really well. They just underestimated their memory choices. Series S is an excellent console for its price point, even better for emulation on Dev Mode. If only it has 16GB ram pool.
IMO the Series S does a great job. I think it should have been marketed as a 1080 device. Bulders Gate 3 launched on the Steam Deck before the Series S. I think its all a load of hog wash and developers cowing to Sony for many dumb reasons. Indy studios port games to steam deck all the time as well. I just dont buy it.
@@gejamugamlatsoomanam7716 I own a Series S and X. S is in my bedroom, running at 1080p games run great and I have a steamdeck. I love my Steam deck but it can't run games as well as my Series S.
@@nanfoodles how it runs depends on the cpu and gpu. Issue is some games need more ram then is available on series S. Steam deck has same ram as xbox series x and ps5
Most if not all minimum specs for modern games on PC are less than what the specs on a Series S is. If Black Myth Wukong amongst others run on the steam deck , they can run on Series S . Video Game media is just as bad as political media.
I think that these developers just don't know how to make these things work... Of course if Microsoft was more available to help, they just don't want to do the extra work! The S is the main Xbox, X just add bells and whistles for bells and whistles sake. Needing such aggressive specs just to play a base game in the long run just means you're making games wrong
The problem with the Xbox S is that largely the people that bought it were people that had owned a Xbox One. That isn't growing your market. And it's why we are where we are.
Short Answer: YES! Long Answer: It was a mistake that Xbox didn't had the luxury to make, based on sales performance of the Xbox One generation. They should had offer a single, easy-to-develop-for platform. The way they handled the Series S, it's causing more damaging than helping the Xbox.
@@drakewilliams6069 they use the Series S as a cheap scapegoat when it’s been shown multiple times to be a capable console to run games. Also, big games have been ported to the SWITCH in the past, which may as well be a microwave compared to the Series S! There is no excuse.
@@bandanna2388 Not excuses. Reasons. The Series S is below the minimum requirements for a lot of games. Developers shouldn't be required to scale back the vision of their game for a cheap console.
I sold my Series X for a used Series S to put some money back in my wallet beyond resolution I’ve not missed it I don’t even care about the physical games my setup is so declutterred now
Asside from Baldurs Gate none of the other games claimed to be held back by the series S turned out to be true! Its all moronic fanboys on the internet console waring. Devs big and small have to target a wider variety of hardware than series s on Pc. The Direct X SDK makes it fairly quick to take PC code and get it up and running on Series X and S. Yes you will still have to optimize and trouble shoot but as long as you are using Direct X on your PC game the Xbox consoles ports should be much less work than the PS5.
how can this argument be made when the Switch and Steam Deck are doing so well and are considered current gen 🤔
Steam deck is current gen, I’ve never heard anyone claim that the Switch is since it came out last gen. Nintendo hasn’t actually made a next gen console yet. Not that they really need to anyway.
If you think about it, Wii U was the console that came out to compete with PS4/XB1 in 2012/13. So the switch being the successor to the Wii U, would mean that it's a generation above the last gen. Lots of folks consider Switch to be current gen/9th gen. Switch 2 will probably spend most of its market lifetime competing with 10th gen consoles.
The argument is made primarily by small developers that don't have the resources to address the feature parity clause. They are a very noisy minority of developers.
Finally someone with a brain...bravo
@@beanis8624 definitely the case. Most devs like the Series S and can develop for it just fine. Space Marine 2 runs well on it for example, and that is the most visually dense game I’ve ever seen, so there is really no excuse imo.
It's strange to hear people always trashing the S, I've had nothing but a good experience with it
If there was 100 million series S sold, nobody would have a problem developing for the series S
@@dannypassionUnlikely as no Xbox console has ever sold that many... the 360 got to around 84 million "shipped", but then Microsoft stopped giving updates.
Of "home consoles", only the PSone, PS2, PS4 and Wii have ever got above 100m. (The Switch, DS and GameBoy + GameBoy Color not counting as a "home console")
@@dannypassionI agree!
@@dannypassion10000 percent true
@@dannypassion Still companies leaving money on the table since they won't make it for MS consoles.
People who claim Series S holds stuff back and shouldn't have happened, but they claim the want an Xbox Handheld that just plays all the same games.
How do they not understand they are just asking for a Series S handheld?
Yeah. It doesn't really address the issue.
No, What's holding Xbox consoles back is continued support for old generation consoles and games not being made specifically for the new generation consoles.
There are no next gen games running on 10gb of ram, hardware s*cks
both consoles are lacking this gen only games
idiot consumers should move on from their dinosaur ass gaming console
Exactly.
Black Myth wukong isn’t available on
Last gen consoles, and Baldurs gate. Stop defending the series S.
They said the S is hard to develop for, but 3 months later, the game are available and running good, in my opinion, the problem is beyond the series S, if xbox can sell 100 million Series S the story would have been different
Some of the best looking games of last generation were on the Nintendo Switch, you know the ones - publishers just don't want to put forth the resources necessary to get their games running/looking better on series s
@@Stefantius exactly
@Fafnir2000 You are aware developers get paid to put their games on gamepass right? Yes that's right you knew that. You're a pony that hates gamepass.
Stop 🛑 using hypotheticals to justify living in a fantasy world. Microsoft *never* had the ability to sell 100 million Series S consoles. As a matter of fact, the S was the only console primarily available during the pandemic. If Microsoft couldn’t capitalize on sales then, they never stood a chance.
and the reason it doesnt sell 100 million units is because games skip xbox and xbox games also now go to PlayStation
1. The issue isn't making something run on the Series S. The issue is making it run to meet expectations. Some console players are fine with 30 fps, others demand consistent 60 fps. The demands of the developers audience will determine if the Series S is a pain in the ass.
2. Starfield added this feature 9 months to a year after release. BG3 released on Xbox 3 months after. If people are fine with Xbox getting games / updates months if not years after the competition that is fine, but it is still an issue.
3. From what I have heard is that developers are actually more frustrated with the ram specs more than anything else. Its not only less ram on the Series S, but also slower ram. If Series S had comparable ram to the X it would be far less of a pain in the ass to develop for.
Release games later. Release a game on alpha status even PS5 Pro has problem to run.
The S pitch is for people who want to play the game, don't care about super high visuals, and don't want to pay $500 for the console.
If a dev can't optimize for the machine, they should get a better dev.
(note: speaking as dev with 30-odd years experience in c++)
Tbh they should hire you. Atleast you have common sense🤦🏾
Literally this
I don't think that it's because they can't. I think that it's just that they want to be lazy and don't want to have to optimise 2 Xbox consoles instead of just the 1. It's "too much work" for them.
You may not care about graphics but resolution is important. Games running 480p is an absolute horror, you cant see shit because all is blurred (even more with shitty FSR).
@@erikouwehandMost of the time, these Devs are under contract for say 18 months, most with some experience with UE. These Devs in AAA, lack experience in even optimizing with UE4/UE5. Games at the first and foremost should run on low end hardware, and look amazing still. Back then you could run Control with a GTX 760 at close to 60 FPS at 1080p MEDIUM settings… WHICH is crazy since Remedy is known to push boundaries for their graphics. And a 760 in 2019 is practically 6-7 year old hardware to hit 60 FPS… which is amazing! To put us in perspective, we are lucky to even hit 60 FPS with graphics cards like the 10 series with 2024 games at native resolution… most of the time we are sub 60 FPS with an upscaler for 1080p gaming! Pascal (10 series) and Polaris GPUs (RX 400/500 series) are much better in terms of performance vs. Kepler (700 series) .
Games nowadays being made by these Covid & Post-Covid Era Devs & incompetent execs are what is destroying modern gaming, most games on console with the specs that we have should run most games at 60 FPS at native 1080p resolution and no checkerboard rendering/upscaling.
These AAA Devs typically optimize with supremely high end hardware like the RTX 4090, and work down from there; which basically is a terrible way to optimize. They should work with older GPUs (I would say GTX 1060/RX 580) and try to get the game to run at a native 1080p resolution at 60 FPS on medium/low textures. Of course the newer technologies like RTX, lumens, and the extra shadows can be additional settings, but they should focus on rasterized performance first then the additional eye-candy stuff for the people that can spare that expense.
All in all, we have less in-house devs that have more experience vs the temporary contract Devs, that bounce around working on these AAA titles. Game optimization back then pre-Covid era was a huge thing. But of course, we still have huge unoptimized shits back in the day like Ubisoft’s AC games post- Black Flag.
So how is the PC hardware I’m mentioning relevant to console performance? Because with most titles in AAA space, if it’s terrible in terms of performance, it’s even worse on console. (I.e Hogwarts Legacy, Jedi Survivor, Cyberpunk 2077)
My sort of point here is these specific PC graphics hardware that I mention especially, are weaker than or is on par with these consoles in parity, and would definitely help net both audiences a positive gaming experience instead of the shitty ones we get; if we actually put to practice of optimizing around weaker hardware at lower graphical fidelity like medium to low settings at a native resolution while targeting 60FPS.
If TOTK can run on a Switch I do not see how any AAA can't work on a series S
ya but I assume there's a reason it was Nintendos first and only $70 game, the budget was probably massive and I imagine a large portion of it went to polish
This is IGNORANT to what Devs have been saying about the series S.
They've brought up issues with its shortage of ram in combination with Microsoft's policy to have parity between both the Series S and X.
It's not just simply look at the Switch, WHICH doesn't have all the big demanding AAA games that are on PS5, PC btw, it's a false equivalence
Example Baldurs Gate 3 had to be delayed because Xbox Series simply could not run multiplayer slipscreen like on PC, PS5 and Xbox Series X.
Microsoft had to finally relent their policy, because 1. BG3 is a pretty massive AAA game (that would not run on the switch, they didn't bother to port it to the Switch even though they would have loved to).
2. Microsoft also wanted it on GamePass... Which brings up another issue why more and more studios are looking to skip porting to Xbox or just be an after thought...
Microsoft has trained its very low user base to not buy games, but subscribe.
We can argue how "value" driven GamePass is, (which I think games as a service is a rip off) but you can't argue more and more studios, particularly smaller ones simply are not selling as many of their games on the Xbox as they would on PS5, Switch and PC.
Microsoft has made it the Xbox
A low user base = mostly subscribers = lower number of people buying games = Microsoft has to sell Xbox games on PS5 because they dont sell enough on Xbox = studios find less incentive to develop on Xbox.
A snake that's eating itself.
PS5 - 59 million install base
Xbox s/x 28 million
What do people here think is going to happen when the PS5 Pro comes out and Devs will have to consider commiting resources to supporting 4 x console?
Which one do you think they will most likely drop?
PS5
PS5 Pro
Xbox series X
Xbox Series S
?
Of course Microsoft doesn't want interconsole exclusitivtiy.
Can't have a game for Xbox series X but not for Series S.
Coupled with Microsoft's marketing
"you don't need an Xbox to play Xbox games"
@AdmiralBison if there were as many series s as ps5 I promise you any developer would ship a properly optimized game on series s as well.
@@AdmiralBison Why is it when I see people trying to make the argument the S is such a problem, all they can really come up with is BG3.
Nintendo talent > Xbox talent sadly
Brad - the last haven of honest, straightforward and authentic content creators on YT, finally gives in to the click bait narrative.
I can't believe we are still debating this after Baldur's Gate 3 and Wukong. The Series S is trash and to me, represents just how little confidence Xbox had in their product from the very start of the generation.
The Series S should have been nothing less than a discless Series X.
Not really. If developers are having issues, they can reach out to Xbox for support. We’ve seen this happen with games like BG3, Matrix Experience, and more recently with Capcom and the MT framework. While I’m not sure if the support is free for lesser-known titles, I would assume it is.
Here’s the answer. From developer standpoint the Series S is a mistake. But from consumer standpoint, it’s not.
Small customer/user base because less and less developers will commit resources developing games for Xbox.
@madking3289 it's a mistake for a few indeed devs but not for everyone
It’s a mistake all across the board. You can’t simply look at price and say that it was a win for the consumer. The S and more specifically, Microsoft’s parity clause, resulted in games not being ported to or delayed for Xbox in comparison to PlayStation. This helped to diminish the overall perception of Xbox as a brand.
There is a strong argument that negative perception of the console offsets any positives that may have come from lower cost alone.
Facts
Actually series X consumers keep getting screwed
No because they keep making games for the previous generation
Space Marines 2 is coming out in a few days, not once did the developers say WE CAN'T MAKE A SERIES s version because of technical issues. And that game looks and runs amazing on the series S. Technical issues is a cop out buy developers who just don't want to do the work. 😢
Runs amazing.. 30fps…
No disc drive and half the storage for $100 less but same specs for everything else would've been the better choice.
Like, that was how they sold the Xbox360 in the beginning. Same console, but one version came with a hard drive, HDMI cable, and a wireless controller, other version didn't have hard drive included, had composite cables, and had a wired controller. You could upgrade over time to wireless controller or hard drive or HDMI cable, but you could play the same games with no sacrifices in performance.
Remember when J Allard said no games would require the hard drive? Then FFXI happened. It was also extremely common towards the end of the generation. 4 disc games, required hard drives, what a disaster.
i bought the Series S at launch to connect to my 1440p monitor. Worked great for me. In 2023 I upgraded to a 4k monitor and picked up the Series X on a deep discount around christmas. I do not use the S anymore but I can't let it go for some reason. I feel like I'll find some utility for it given the size. Perhaps for travel.
Series S is perfect for the bedroom
The series s weakness was not an issue at first, but as devs start using more modern tech like ue5 the problem grows constantly. The fact that ps5 has brutally outsold the series only makes things worse since the cost benefit balance of developing for xbox becomes more and more in favor of not even bothering. It's not really that it is impossible to make games work on the series s. The problem is that at some point it may not be worth it for some devs. Look at Wukong, it's sold like 20 million without xbox, so what are the devs going to do? Make a series s version so they can release on xbox? Or maybe focus on buikding dlc for the original platforms to capitalize on the success? What would be their best bet? Both options have their benefits.
I have both the X and the S...and enjoy both experiences. I end up on my S most of the time and have had no issues with it. My hunch is that if you ask the players the vast majority think the S is wonderful.
I love the Series S, it's great console.
I bought the Series X and ended up playing Skyrim on it for 6 months because there are no damn games. Sold it for almost what I paid for it, and bought the black 1 terabyte series s, and it’s perfect for me. I will ride out the series s until a new Xbox console comes out and then get that.
Why do people with no understanding of hardware keep making these videos? Modern games can run on 20yo PCs but the Series S is 'too much' somehow.
The truth is the devs. don't want to put the work on it but are forced to by their publishers. Nowadays you need your game to be sold everywhere to turn a profit. Xbox shouldn't NOT drop the parity clause because the S is not the problem.
I honestly don't get this argument that "Series S holds games back" when we consider some of the "impossible" ports of AAA games we've seen come to the Switch.
If 2015-era hardware can see big-budget games ported to it, I struggle to believe the Series S is that much of an issue.
Just target 720-1080p at 30FPS, and reduce texture and model quality accordingly, no? 🤷🏻♂️
@@dftfire so basically do a game from 2015...what's the point?
I don't think it's holding gaming back. I think it adds more overhead to making an Xbox game but then I would think 1 single code should be able to fit both like website codes will fit both full websites and mobile websites. I'm not a game developer but I assume thaat's how the code works. It's the code's job to recognize what system it's operating under and adjust accordingly.
@@TekkLuthor yup, you got the gist of it. Even websites need to optimize their code and assets (images, icons, etc.) to not have a slow or unresponsive page. When you work in programming, optimization is inevitable.
@@dftfireHe literally mentioned Starfield at 432p. How pathetic. Just because you could, doesn't mean you should.
You optimize for PC with infinite deviations, what is the deference here?
1. People aren't playing AAA releases of new PC games with 10 GB of shared RAM for both the CPU and the GPU. You've got at least 16 GB of RAM and GPU with 4 GB of RAM if you're playing the newest releases.
2. There is no platform holder enforcing performance requirements or feature parity. If you're trying to play Baldur's Gate or Starfield on a PC with 8 GB of DDR4 RAM and a 10-year-old GPU, you're going to have to sink or swim on your own.
BG3 being held back for a couple months due to the Series S is already a red flag. The fact that developers have to reduce/eliminate graphics, NPCs, splitscreem etc just to run on the Series S is not good at all. I own a series s with a series s monitor attachment which is awesome but once BG3 got held back it really soured my opinion on this console. I won't be surprised when GTA 6 drops and what issues it will have on Series S
GTA 6 will run perfectly on the Series S
Developers still have to get used to the architecture & learn optimisation correctly. With so many still on last gen consoles, devs are waisting resources in that area to maximise ROI. If they didn’t more would purchase the newer systems & they’d have less to develop for.
BG3 being a great example of learning architecture & optimisations. From working with the SeriesS, this led to new opportunities that ended up benefiting not just Xbox but also PC & the PS5.
Team Xbox also offer resources for any studio that needs/wants extra support with the architecture.
There’s still a lot more Microsoft can do to unify the architecture harmony further.
SeriesS is still a lot more capable than lower/mid range PC’s that the developers still cater for.
Though, for next generation mindset should return to only a single Xbox SKU that everyone will need.
It's a solid machine, the visual difference between the X and S isn't even that huge in most cases (when playing and not doing 400% zoom and side by side comparisons). But, maybe the low memory is giving developers a hard time.
Even Stevie Wonder can see the difference. Imagine defending Starfield in 432p in the era of 4K. Pathetic system.
@@DP12321 I've played Starfield on both systems (og 30fps mode) and there isn't much of a difference without direct comparison.
@@Virgil_G2 Then you have a terrible TV or you need your eyes checked.
From everything I’ve read I believe the specific issue with the Series S is the amount of RAM. If it came out with 16GB we might have just seen the lower graphical fidelity but we may not have heard of any of these other issues and games like Baldur’s Gate 3 and Black Myth Wukong being delayed.
On the one hand, Microsoft did piss off game devs with two SKUs, they're now splitting their Xbox optimisation time between 2 consoles, which is also the lagging platform, so devs are less willing to put in the work. On the other hand, developers are complaining about RAM on the S, while not using Sample Feedback Streaming that would solve their issues. It's one thing to bitch, it's another to bitch and ignore a solution that already exists.
The Series S opened next-gen gaming to many people who couldn't afford next gen gaming... Many people who would have been stuck on the previous generation now have a Series S. It's sad that greed takes away any focus from that.
Series S is a great experience!
Xbox will have 3 SKUs for next generation!
It will be even better!
Quantum Error was a terrible playing and performing game on the PS5. It was critically panned and the Dev was found to be both a Sony fan boy and using the Series S to get attention for his game.
I have a series S. Didn’t really care too much about the new generation because I had a feeling PS4 was’nt gonna be left in the dust so easily. 151m installed user base. You don’t just up and leave them especially when most of them are kids or people who only play GTA, Fortnite,Minecraft, 2K, Madden, Apex legends. This is why Capcom still release SF6, RE8,RE2:Re on ps4 along with the fighting collections. The parity was the series isnt features. It’s simply release date. MS knows X is stronger and some games will not perform the same. Problem is… KIDS DONT CARE ABOUT NONE OF THIS‼️ only grown ups who hardly play or buy games. PS4 held this generation back no the series S. PC have settings… Xbox is a PC. It’s not hard. Starfield runs 60fps on Series S after the new update. Lie to people better than that.
I’ve bought series s before upgrading to series x. I just wanted Xbox to play games, chat with friends and enjoy couch gaming. Series s is still a blast as gaming experience compared to seres x is the same. Only disadvantage is that some games play in 30fps instead of 60 but this depends on developers optimisation capabilities that these days are hit or miss. Lower resolution don’t bother me at all. I don’t think that series s is a mistake. Most negative comments come from people that never used series s and that’s real problem on YT. People that got no clue have options no based on experience.
To answer the question, I would say no. However, I would say that we were upsold this generation as it relates to performance targets with all of the consoles overall. It's just that the Series S is the worst offender.
Disclaimer: I own a Series S, and I don't regret my purchase. I just do have some gripes, however. I also own a Series X, PS5, and Gaming PC so my opinion is from the perspective of a multiplatform user.
The Series S is a neat a machine and undoubtedly outperforms plenty of gaming PCs and laptops at the same MSRP price point. However, I think the long term value is what takes a hit for a number of reasons.
1) By removing the disc drive, owners are restricted to digital purchases of games. This makes it more challenging for parents navigating purchasing games for their kids who might find certain physical games cheaper than their digital counterpart. I would've preferred them to have created a detachable disc drive similar to Sony.
2) The storage system is so disappointing. The base Series S only has about 360GB of usable space out of the 512GB. Mainstream AAA games are extremely large. If I have to constantly worry about storage then it takes away from the joy of owning that console. Fortunately, I was able to get the 1TB Carbon Black version. I paired it with a 2TB Expansion Card so I'm able to freely jump around from game to game without the hassle uninstalling games or transferring titles back and forth between hard drives. Although I own an expansion card, its an overly expensive storage solution option. When you add up the cost of a Series S and the Expansion Card then the total reaches PS5/Series X territory. Once you get to that threshold then you have to determine was the Series S really worth it? For me, the PS5 digital was the perfect balance of price and performance. Despite losing the disc drive, you kept the same specs and storage space as bigger brother. Also, upgrading memory is cheaper.
3) Theoretically, the Series S should be able to deliver up to 1440p@120fps. With the PS5/Series X, we should be able to hit 4K@120FPS (and even 8K according to the marketing). Let's not forget about the ray tracing promise with all of the consoles. With the more powerful consoles, you may be able to hit the resolution of 4K, but may be bound between 30 fps(w/ray tracing) to 60 fps(w/out ray tracing). There are a number a titles that also max out at 1440p which still does look good on a 4K screen. For the Series S, the numbers are usually worse. For the most part, you may be stuck at 1080p@30fps without any ray tracing. For the record, there are number of titles that do hit 1440p and 60fps. Some titles can do 120fps, but they are few and far in between. It's just that the Series S has a difficult time handling many AAA games without significant cutbacks at times. Side note: Ori and the Will of the Wisps plays at 4K on the Series S which is awesome.
Here why I love the Series S: It's small and portable. It also mounts perfectly on a wall. It still plays plenty of games well. If you don't pixel watch like I do at times or demand high FPS all the time then it's really enjoyable. Personally, I use my Series S in the living room to play games where I'm not concerned about the visual fidelity. I'll admit that I did "hate" on it at the beginning, but I saw how it conveniently fit in with my needs so I now I see why others like it as well.
I have all 3 consoles PS5, SX, SS the series s was the best deal this generation. If you are not a graphics snob the games play so good on it it doesn't even bother me to play on it at all.
The XBOX Series S was Marketed to people to make Gaming Affordable to most!
Brad, if you actually earned an MBA, you would know this fact!
The XBOX Series S was a Raging Success!
Microsoft will do it again!
Don't think you need an MBA to know this info but kudos to you. Hey this guy has an MBA!! 🤣
@@jbivvy420 ,
Agreed, you don't need an MBA for common information. 2nd part Brad said he does...
Then why is it massively undersold compared to PS5? Series S was supposed to be the lowest entry point at the cheapest price. Logic would say it would sell the best. Goes to show Microsoft got it wrong.
@@LouSassol69erMicrosoft is pretty consistent with getting things wrong. The Xbox 360 without a standard hard drive was just as bone headed of a move, they got lucky PS3 was difficult to develop for at first.
@@DP12321 PS3 ended up overtaking them in sales at the end of the generation too. PS3 got costs down per console sale by end of gen and started cranking up the blockbuster exclusives like the Last of us.
Xbox 360 launching with and without a hard drive was a similar issue. Games had to work without the need of the removable hdd. At least for most of its life span I believe. So that limited what could be done, and I think file sizes of digital games and dlc maybe as well.
It was such a huge limit. They limited XBLA games to a paltry 50MB. They held back development. J Allard said it wouldn't be required but FFXI needed it. Then towards the end of the generation, so many games required it. The 360 was rushed out and cheaply slapped together, and it was the beginning of the end for Xbox's dominance. A far cry from the powerful original Xbox. 💪
@@DP12321 please the Xbox 360 was incredibly powerful and efficient, a far cry from the overly complicated Cell processor of the PS3.
@@codezero7981 It was a PC in a box that would be known for the red ring error, the most unreliable system ever made.
When the Series S handheld comes out, and it plays 8000 games, including all current gen games, the Series S will look a lot less like a mistake.
Totally! Problem is Microsoft fails to hint this roadmap and that's why most people don't understand the existance of the SS
@@0ni0ng0ld-g6i You're not wrong. I think the internal power struggles between Phil and Nadella have a lot to do with that.
It already exist's. It's called a Steam Deck. Or an RoG Ally. Or an Aya Neo. There's already dozens of these devices that are likely better than anything that MS will release because they are open platforms.
@@pixeljauntvr7774 those are gaming PCs not gaming consoles, literally like comparing a PC with an Xbox. People still buy an Xbox over a PC, and will buy an Xbox handheld over any of those you mentioned.
@pixeljauntvr7774 those are all sub-par devices. None of those companies have the dollars to build a legitimate handheld. And none of those devices can play all current gen games.
The Series S was always fine barring the lack of a disc drive.
The real mistake was releasing the console upgrade (Series X) too early alongside it.
Those names are also pretty awful.
Not the Series S, but the decision to have game parity with the S and X.
Meanwhile, devs are building games for high end and low end PCs, and everything in between and are perfectly fine with doing that. They are also going to make games for the PS5 and PS5 Pro and again, they will be perfectly fine doing that. Its only the Xbox hardware where it will be a problem. 😅
That totally defeats the point of console gaming. If you own a low end PC then the responsibility to play games that function on your system is up to you. Just because a game can run on a potato PC doesn't mean its actually going to run well. And more importantly developers for PC gaming aren't FORCED to compromise their vision of the game to accommodate people with rubbish hardware through feature parity.
I’ve had my Xbox series S since launch touchwood it’s been flawless. I’ve had two Xbox series X consoles both riddled with problems and crashing and nine or 10 reset. To the point where I’ve just sold them both off because I just don’t give a crap anymore and I’m back on the series S which is still amazing with the Seagate drive in the back. Works perfectly for me looking forward to the next generation.
Well it's Xbox, being an unreliable piece of junk isn't a bug, it's a feature 😂
@Brad Sams,
You do not listen:
Jason Ronald: "The XBOX Series Architecture is Scaleable."
Brad, Flight Simulator, Halo Infinite, Forza Horizon 5, Gears 5, Forza Motorsport are All Infinitely more Powerful than Baldeurs Gate!, and have Zero Issues running those applications.
Propaganda sells, Reality is, the XBOX Series S is more Capable than the PS5.
Also, the makers of Baldurs Gate didn’t read the Directions to XBOX Series of Consoles. Sony paid them Not to Read them.
You either are very young or you have mental issues.
Are you for real? Running Flight simulator and never had an issue? Common...stop lying
Also "running" means nothing...you're loosing details...a lot of them for a game to just "run"...people don't want a game just to run...like in 2015
@rob.ale90 ,
You don't know wth you're talking about!
The games I mentioned don't just "RUN" The Performance is Best of Class! You don't play Excellent Performing Games because your head is Stuck into Sony, this is why no one is purchasing Sonys Awful Exclusives!
Ask Heroki Totoki!
I think when Xbox Hardware team calculated the deviations necessary to achieve the $300 price point they used well optimized 1st party games from 8th gen Xbox because the cross gen games generally held up to the promise of "same performance as the Series X only at 1440p" they just failed to gleen that 9th gen development would be so much more RAM dependent
XBOX Series S should have been the 499 option, while XBOX Series X should have been 699 option with better graphical capabilities like the original XBOX ONE S and XBOX ONE X.
Series S isn't a mistake. The Series X is powerful enough to eat the parts of the game that isn't optimized correctly.
The S absolutely was a mistake for developers having to build a game for Series X only to have to dumb it down for the S. It's not how development works. You always build for the lesser hardware and then upscale, not the other way around. Many games this generation have suffered along with many delays that hurt gamers.
Every time, one of these console makers makes a step forward. They take two back. MS seems more concerned with making an affordable console for poor people than they do, making a console for gamers. They could've owned this console generation if they had avoided a Series S model and put more emphasis on the x by making it more powerful than it already is.
The Series S is fine barring the fact that it doesn't have a disc drive.
The real mistake was launching the console upgrade (Series X) too early alongside it.
Those names are also pretty awful.
What do people think is going to happen when the PS5 Pro comes out?
Devs have stretch resources to xbox S - PS5/X - PS5 pro
For many one those consoles will have to be dropped.
It's fine to have a cheaper less capable console. We've seen in throughout gaming. The Switch, The PSP, The Gameboy. The problem is Microsoft's requirement to retain feature parity for games that run above the Series S system specifications.
They should have released it with 16 GB of RAM and just reduce the power of the GPU.
10 GB of RAM isn't acceptable for a AAA gaming device.
Series S should had been designed around (dont know the real meaty numbers) ~ 12gb 192bit bus + slight fast memory , xbox hardware team knew this, they kneecap series S to achieve a very low price. Series S should have been the generation Nvidia mainstream "gtx 1060" of xbox version.
By the end When you Brad ask if series S was mistake? i think not cause allow xbox to learn they need to give some "breeding room" with specs for the devs even if it cost a bit more to the end consumer next time.
xbox knew gaming is an expensive hobby and they gambled with a 299$ low entry point.
The Series S has ruined my childhood ...
It makes absolutely no sense to develop a game for a console that has half the customer base as it’s competitors and the vast majority of the users only play game pass games.
Whilst I am not a fan of Sony, I agree that Xbox Series consoles should have been like that, as you alluded too... Same specs but 512gb ssd and no disk drive. Admittedly, it'll push the price to around £400, but gamers would have won, spec wise at least, and Developers wouldn't be moaning. Microsoft should really poll players...
The latest sales-data I can find for Xbox Series is "around 23 million worldwide".
Series S typically (in most countries) accounts for about two-thirds of all Xbox sales.
Without Series S existing, Series X alone would therefore account for about 8 million units... versus nearly 62 million PS5. At that number, they'd surely have left the console-market.
It's only by the Series S existing I'd say they are still even in the race. Without it, as the cheaper option, would anyone bother getting an X (if that were the only option that existed) over a PS5?
The only main issue I see with the Series S was the lack of a disc-drive, meaning no easy access to second-hand games.
That means anyone who wants to do that can then only consider a Series X... and at that point will ask "given the similar prices, should I go for an X or just get the PS5 model which also offers the disc-drive?".
@@dftfireThat's some weird logic. Just because XSX isn't selling as well doesn't mean it wouldn't have sold more if XSS didn't exist. Sad the plebs have to hold the rest of us back.
@@DP12321 You seem to have misread me: I'm in support of the Series S as I'm saying had it not of existed, Microsoft would have far-less marketshare this generation as Series X and PS5 are usually around the same price, so if only the X existed, more people would have just gone for a PS5 instead.
Series S being the cheapest option has offered a reason for people to still go Xbox this generation.
I don't think it was. There are loads of different PC configurations and they nail that so it's hard for me to understand how this is a problem. Also, maybe they should build them for the S and then crank them up for the X but it seems they are doing it backwards.
The job of Microsoft as a console maker is to make the best possible hardware at the time and price then make the best games to blow peoples mind. If Microsoft is not doing that then they are not doing their job. Traditionally first party develop the greatest games of that generation. Mario,Zelda,sonic, shenmue, uncharted, gran Turismo , halo, gears. Two console one with lower spec is not moving the industry forward.
Series S has meant the difference between the previous generation and this one is hardly noticeable and probably part of the reason why people play older games more than the newer games
When I first saw the specs for Series S my first thought was "omg why make a new console less powerful than the X1X!" Less GPU grunt less RAM less Storage but in reality the 4Tflops of Rdna 2 is far more powerful than the 6 Tflops of GCN 2 and after playing Starfield and Jedi Survivor and other on my nephews Series S it performs amazing.....for the price
Some people are (sadly) ok with McDonald's, I'd rather have a steak.
Yes. Series S accounts for like 16% of consoles sold this generation. Too little to make it good value to target, too many in combination with Series X to ignore. Microsoft have to repeatedly go round throwing cash at publishers to stop ignoring Xbox, they couldn't afford to put another roadblock in the way of supporting their console.
I'm actually more concerned about Series S holding back the next generation system. Inevitably there will be another cross generation period. Meaning that games have to run on the weakest system. Unless they make significant changes to the way certification works a lot more games will be delayed or flat out skip Xbox entirely.
The attach rate for the series S is probably a lot lower than with the X. That is not going to help with applying developer resources to it. Think about who buys or gets an S.
It should've been a 1080p powerhouse. Some of us are satisfied with 1080p.
I think it was. They should just focus on one console, and after 4, 5 yesrs doing a refresh...
Not a mistake. First party titles run great. 3rd party title are optimized for PS5 then Series X, so Series S gets left behind. It’s the most portable of the current gen systems. I take it everywhere. Paired with Gamepass it’s the best deal in gaming ever. Microsoft needs to turn it into a handheld and it’s the best thing in gaming.
Agree with what you’re saying. I don’t think we will ever see Microsoft saying the S was a mistake for a very long time. The problem I see is Xbox always says the X and S version of a game. Also keep in mind X and S owners pay the same amount for games and Gamepass. Microsoft cannot release more features on one console and not the other.
All that is a huge bull sh....t!The real problem is sales number ,if u have over 100 millions of series s sold nobody would mention the lack of power and the difficulty to develop a game for it !As allways it's about money! Look at Switch Nintendo everyone is trying to put any possible game on that device and they find the way to do it without complaining about the lack of power!
I have bought 2 sieries S consoles and 1 X. No the series s was not a mistake. If it wasn't for the series S i may not have ever entered the xbox world. I have been a pc gamer since the late 80s and 90s until i night my series s at the beginning of this generation
THE MICROSOFT'S X-BOX SERIES S IS GETTING A BAD RAP!! VIDEO GAME INDUSTRY DEVELOPERS NEED TO GET THEIR ACT TOGETHER. STOP HATING ON THE X-BOX SERIES S AND GET THE JOB DONE.
With rumours of a handheld device with the next generation, Xbox is about to repeat the same model. Hopefully they have learned form the current two sku development model
If execs at Xbox thought game development worked by targeting higher specs and scaling down then they are so out of touch first thing ya learn is too work from your lowest target spec then scale up
I actually have both of them too because I couldn’t get the series x at launch because of the shortage but I definitely think the S was a mistake with the amount of games being delayed for Xbox
Of course it is, but not as much because companies won't let last-gen die. The Xbox 360 Core pack was the same crap.
Devs are lazy + xbox didnt sell enough to justify being less lazy. Thats all it is. Even Bethesda was not able to release Starfield correctly at launch and suddenly now we have a 60 fps on both consoles. The mistake is not the Series S being too weak, its not weak at all... its an annoying additional console to develop for and on top of that Microsoft is forcing devs to have the game available on X AND S. I think the Series S is hurting much more the Series X than anything else.
Personally I think the series S should have been a series X without the disk drive (digital). Lol as they are doing now
They should discontinue the Series S and offer only these new Series X models.
Yeah Series S was too conservative with its performance target. It needed more beefed up hardware. At the very least RAM parity and maybe a little bit more powerful GPU. Then it would probably be feasible. Their hardware would make even more of a loss though.
Yep, it's a mistake. If they don't do next gen what what they did this gen with two different spec machines, they know it was a mistake. The rumored hand held doesn't count in this.
Funny how people complain about the series s when they are still porting games for PS4 and Xbox One to this day so this whole series s is more work is just media grifting for attention and clicks
1. Xbox gets to make a weak console for the masses.
2. Devs get to skip it if it's too much pain in the ass to optimize for.
I think both things are fair. If 8/10 games work well on Series S, and remaining 2 come 6 months later, I think that's okay for Series S owners.
What's not okay is Series X owners getting shafted coz of its malnourished sibling. If the 2 games are that important, it would be understandable for MSFT to eat their feet and just allow games to release on Series X under some "Game Preview" label and skip Series S.
I think X/S thing worked really well. They just underestimated their memory choices. Series S is an excellent console for its price point, even better for emulation on Dev Mode. If only it has 16GB ram pool.
Love my series s. Have that, PS4 and switch.
If PS made a similar console, this wouldn't be a talking point.
IMO the Series S does a great job. I think it should have been marketed as a 1080 device. Bulders Gate 3 launched on the Steam Deck before the Series S. I think its all a load of hog wash and developers cowing to Sony for many dumb reasons. Indy studios port games to steam deck all the time as well. I just dont buy it.
Stop being ignorant, the RAM amount is the issue, steam deck has more ram than xbox series s
@@gejamugamlatsoomanam7716 I own a Series S and X. S is in my bedroom, running at 1080p games run great and I have a steamdeck. I love my Steam deck but it can't run games as well as my Series S.
@@nanfoodles how it runs depends on the cpu and gpu. Issue is some games need more ram then is available on series S. Steam deck has same ram as xbox series x and ps5
@@gejamugamlatsoomanam7716 Your talking to a network engineer going on 25 years. Thanks for the lession.
@@nanfoodles so what???? I work in software developement
Most if not all minimum specs for modern games on PC are less than what the specs on a Series S is. If Black Myth Wukong amongst others run on the steam deck , they can run on Series S . Video Game media is just as bad as political media.
Hey clueless people in the comments. I cost more to dev for xbox vs ps. More with minimal return on the smallest platform out.
I think that these developers just don't know how to make these things work... Of course if Microsoft was more available to help, they just don't want to do the extra work! The S is the main Xbox, X just add bells and whistles for bells and whistles sake. Needing such aggressive specs just to play a base game in the long run just means you're making games wrong
They're making games wrong!!!
The problem with the Xbox S is that largely the people that bought it were people that had owned a Xbox One. That isn't growing your market. And it's why we are where we are.
Should the series s should have just been an updated one x?
Short Answer: YES!
Long Answer: It was a mistake that Xbox didn't had the luxury to make, based on sales performance of the Xbox One generation. They should had offer a single, easy-to-develop-for platform. The way they handled the Series S, it's causing more damaging than helping the Xbox.
Lazy devs
Lazy devs? If your boss told you to do twice as much work for the same pay even if you don't have enough time to do it, does that make you lazy?
@@drakewilliams6069 they use the Series S as a cheap scapegoat when it’s been shown multiple times to be a capable console to run games. Also, big games have been ported to the SWITCH in the past, which may as well be a microwave compared to the Series S! There is no excuse.
@@bandanna2388 and many have been cancelled and lost parity. Or looks like shit.
@@bandanna2388 capable of 720p....ewwwww
@@bandanna2388 Not excuses. Reasons. The Series S is below the minimum requirements for a lot of games. Developers shouldn't be required to scale back the vision of their game for a cheap console.
No, it's not.
Xbox should have made a series x with a disk drive and a series x digital for less money. They should have had the same specs.
Xbox series s has held back the series X since day one and only a fool can't see that
Speaking as more of a hardcore gamer I wish they nuked the S like Kinect. However from a business standpoint it makes sense.
I got s flat tire this morning🤔, im blaming the series s for it 😁..!
I've enjoy my series s with no issues. Great console
The Series S is now being used as a marketing tactic.
The series s was not a mistake. The mistake was forcing feature parity
Spot on!
I mean, they'd split the player base even further by not having it
I mean is the series s actually really any better than a Xbox One
@8:45 "you need to launch a console that has half the storage and no dvd drive for about a hundred bucks less"
so, basically what Sony did lmao
I sold my Series X for a used Series S to put some money back in my wallet beyond resolution I’ve not missed it I don’t even care about the physical games my setup is so declutterred now
Asside from Baldurs Gate none of the other games claimed to be held back by the series S turned out to be true! Its all moronic fanboys on the internet console waring. Devs big and small have to target a wider variety of hardware than series s on Pc. The Direct X SDK makes it fairly quick to take PC code and get it up and running on Series X and S. Yes you will still have to optimize and trouble shoot but as long as you are using Direct X on your PC game the Xbox consoles ports should be much less work than the PS5.
Like the Steam Deck is holding games back....
Oh no wait!