The moment gamers have all been waiting for has finally (sort of) arrived.
The stalemate between Sony and Microsoft – which has led to neither company wanting to show its hand in terms of release date and price for its next-gen hardware before the other – has been broken. So, what’s the goss, exactly? Well, while the news sadly doesn’t involve Microsoft’s flagship Xbox Series X device, consumers now know much more about the console’s smaller, slightly less-powerful brother, the Xbox Series S.
Akin to the discless PlayStation 5 revealed by Sony back in the summer, the Series S also eschews the traditional disc drive and the considerable bulk of its sibling, making it the smallest Xbox console ever made. We’ll get to specifications in just a moment but first, check out the sleek white box for yourself in the gallery down below.
As for the parts housed inside that slim shell, they’ll be able to support 120 fps as standard for most games, but only at 1440p. Likewise, native 4K will be replaced with upscaling technology and media playback, while DirectX raytracing will remain intact. As for storage, a custom NVME 512gb SSD will come installed as standard. And the price you’ll be expected to pay for all of that? $299 or, for those across the pond, £249.
For a brand new, albeit ‘weaker,’ version of next-gen, that’s a fantastic price point and one that gamers unable or unwilling to shell out for the inevitably more expensive Series X when both arrive on the purported release date of November 10th will appreciate. Speaking of which, Thurrot and Windows Central – the source of yesterday’s leak – suggests that the latter will retail at $499, a considerably higher but not unexpected figure.
You can no doubt expect further details to start coming at a much faster pace, now that the silence has been broken, but in the meantime, let us know what you think of the Xbox Series S down below!