Topic: General Xbox Series S Thread

@BlueOcean Thank you! I woke up to a lot of messages about this

@FraserG That's because we like you! 😁

@BlueOcean Haha! Thank you

Series X renders at 4K, 4K is 4 times as many pixels as 1080p. 12 TFLOPS (4K) /4 = 3 TFLOPS would suffice to render 4 times fewer pixels, provided that the CPU is the same. Series S has 4 TFLOPS, more than enough for 1080p at the same frame rate.

It's official now along with the $299 price tag.

@BlueOcean It is also possible Xbox Series S actually loads things faster and gets more performance from XVA/SFS since 1080p/1440p requires much less bandwidth. Lot of possibilities for this console.

@Z3u5000 I think it will outperform Series X and of course PS5 in terms of performance at 1080p.

Now I really don't know if I should get Series X or S. I still play 1080p TV. But, that TV is more than 10 years old, and it could break near future. My Xbox collection is digital, so I could go to Series S. Maybe it depends if my job continues or not.

And the best thing is that it upscales games to 4K. The reveal trailer is the best of the next-gen in my opinion, too bad it has been leaked as well, everything is getting leaked this year.

My TV upscales to 4k too - in fact EVERY 4k TV will upscale from a 'lower' resolution to 4k and believe it or not, even the Xbox One S upscales to 4k - even if the game is running at 1080p and often lower. Its hardly a 'bragging' point.

Unless it says AI upscaling, or more likely ML with Microsoft as that is part of the 'Language' they use, then I wouldn't consider that to be anything to be excited or worth considering. Like I said, the XB1S 'upscales' to 4k too but that is a million miles away from AI/ML upscaling (like DLSS 2.0). As this doesn't say ML (DirectML) upscaling to 4k, I wouldn't expect anything more than 'standard' upscaling (like the XB1S - and even the XB1X for games that are not 'native/CB 4k'). You may get 'some' ML Upscaling in the future of course...

If you have a 1080p TV, chances are it won't offer 120hz input. You will still be limited to 60fps. A LOT of TV's have 'artificial' refresh (engaged by using some form of 'smoothing' which adds Lag due to extra processing).

I think this is a great price for all those on a budget. By that, I don't mean that they 'couldn't' afford a Series X, but that they don't or can't justify spending that money on a Console. Its certainly as 'powerful' if not more than an Xbox One X with a lot of new features that the XB1X can't offer. It was proved by DF that RDNA 1 at 4.1TF was about as capable as a 6TF XB1X and RDNA2 is more efficient (get more performance per TF than RDNA1) so overall, probably going to be more powerful overall. I know the RAM seems to be a drop down but with the Velocity Engine, Sampler Feedback etc and the SSD too, that will be sufficient for the games at that resolution. DirectML has also demonstrated that it can upscale low res textures to high res too which could also cut down the necessary RAM requirements.

I've been reading a lot of articles on other sites regarding Microsoft's situation and I don't think people are seeing the bigger picture with what Microsoft is doing. For every announcement/event they've done thus far, they've given us a bigger reason to invest in them. If you look at each thing separately, it doesn't amount to much. But if you look at it as a whole, and think about all the upcoming announcements they have planned, it's becoming obvious that Microsoft is going to kill it next generation.

For one, they've acquired so many first-party studios and are creating numerous exclusive IPs, as well as making all of them available day one on Game Pass. Not to mention Game Pass itself, which is going to be a huge reason for people to get an Xbox if they just want to play a bunch of games without needing to buy them separately. And if people don't want an Xbox, they can always play via xCloud. On top of that, they announce Series S which is a cheap alternative for people who just want to play certain games, play digitally only or just want to subscribe to Game Pass. Then we have rumours such as Microsoft planning to make online multiplayer free and we're also seeing them investing heavily in bringing more Japanese games to their console (which we'll probably see even more of during Tokyo Game Show), meaning that they're trying to appeal to as many demographic groups as possible.

After reading all of this, it's impossible to not think that Microsoft isn't going to give Sony a run for its money. They're going all out now and Sony is just keeping quiet. Sure PS5 will have great exclusives, but why do I want to invest in a company that's clearly not showing any confidence at all in their product? That just doesn't bode well for the future, because it means that Sony doesn't have many new ideas for PS5 and are just doing what they've been doing so far with PS4. Repeating the same ideas can be good, but when going into a new generation, there will be higher expectations set for you. And I just can't see Sony winning over the casual audience by doing the same thing they've been doing in comparison to what Microsoft is doing right now; a cheaper system, a game service where you can play hundreds of games with good quality, etc. Microsoft is absolutely going to have a strong head start going into the next generation.

Wooo hoo 🥳🥳

@graysoncharles Honestly Forza Horizon series is definitely way better quality with far better gameplay, graphics and game design. Playground games is definitely a flagship studio pushing every bit of juice from the hardware and developing gorgeous photorealistic worlds with extraordinary gameplay. They are also known to show lot of innovations in computer graphics research.
You can go play your pay-again Spiderman stand-alone DLC built on same last gen assets/engine and then wait for the R&C which is basically a tech demo (which can also run on XSX according to a Sony game dev). But everything will be crystal clear for everyone to judge when Digitalfoundry finally runs some real dense open world gameplay of Cyberpunk 2077 later this year.
I like how Microsoft is trying to invest more on titles/platforms whose hype will be here to stay across the decade and won’t die out in couple of months.
We can wait for real next-gen Hellblade 2, Flight Simulator, Fable, Avowed, The Initiative AAAA.... 😍

@graysoncharles I mean it wouldn't be hard at all for PS4 owners to convert to Xbox seeing as how a huge amount of PS4 owners were originally Xbox 360 owners who abandoned Microsoft due to their failings with Xbox One (restrictive policies, always online system, higher price point since the system included the Kinect etc.). Many PS4 owners have a history with Xbox and seeing all this positivity and good word-of-mouth surrounding Microsoft's next-gen devices, they will more than likely flock back. Especially now that Microsoft has announced so many new first-party games, as opposed to Sony who's mostly relying on existing properties such as Horizon, Ratchet & Clank, Spider-Man, God of War etc. Not to mention that Sony keeps pumping out third-person story-driven games that feel really similar and on top of that, they released a bold game in The Last of Us Part II that didn't work out that great among the fans. Microsoft will have familiar IPs available but also a truckload of new IPs coming this way and that's definitely more promising than what Sony is offering simply because there's more variety in genres. They'll have horror games (The Medium), first-person shooters (Halo), Western RPGs (Avowed, Fable), story-driven games (Hellblade II), survival action games (State of Decay 3), the list goes on. I like story-driven games as much as the other guy, but eventually people will get sick of all these sequels because they all feel so similar, there's not much variety in Sony's library.

Also the fact that Sony won't be able to compete with Series S and its price point, as well as the focus on Game Pass Ultimate, at all. The next generation won't be as clear-cut as this one (because we all know Sony won with PS4 this generation) since Sony has very much gone back to the defence while Microsoft is on the offence, meaning that changes between consumer bases will happen eventually.

Xbox Series S (non functional unit) unboxing.

It’s just freakishly small. Amazing to see how much power they were able to pack into such tiny profile.

This is actually a very informative and interesting thread.

@Z3u5000 interesting thread. It seems like if anything is going to have an impact beyond just the resolution it will be the RAM.

“RAM: Well, this is another interesting area, as this isn’t what I was expecting. Truth be told, I was expecting it to be the same speed, just less. However, as you can see, RAM has not only dropped in size, but speed too. 23/41”

We know from analysis of the switch that one of the things that causes it to drop frames is the limited memory bandwidth. It will be interesting to see where the more demanding games like the medium drop more frames on the series S than the series X.

@Ryall Since Switch neither has the GDDR6 memory nor the architecture generational optimisations, I don’t know how much of it is actually comparable. But we have to wait and see how it actually performs IRL. Lot of people who likely don’t have the hardware kit hands-on experience are speculating concerns.