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Now that we are two years into the current gen, was the XBOX Series S a smart move?

Mr Moose

Member
GYggwqd.jpg
What?

PlayStation 5 was the only one trailing behind the previous gen. It will likely catch up late 2023.

Xbox is still doing very well, they just had an awful quarter in the EU. Don’t make assumptions on one region, ever. Xbox is strong in the US, always has been.
VGChartz?
giphy.webp
 
GYggwqd.jpg
What?

PlayStation 5 was the only one trailing behind the previous gen. It will likely catch up late 2023.

Xbox is still doing very well, they just had an awful quarter in the EU. Don’t make assumptions on one region, ever. Xbox is strong in the US, always has been.

Thanks for the fake news, i challenge you prove your numbers, where has Microsoft said how many units it has sold lol, look at ms yearly reports gamepass growth has stalled, hardware units is also down from last year. Even if they are tracking Xbox one numbers, imagine if they did not have series s,
 
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Tough to say. I don't think it was very smart atm. It was the only console that was relatively easy to find compared to PS5, switch and XSX and it seemed to sit on shelves for a bit. While all others were basically sold out the moment more stock came in. Kind of shows the demand wasn't really there.

That could change in the future. If MS can get it down to 199 and start to consistently release compelling games I could see it becoming very appealing. But it also could be too late at the point.
 

Mr Reasonable

Completely Unreasonable
I don't think this tells you anything though. The people who think it's a good idea and like it would obviously buy one and those who don't won't.

The point I'm making is that the people who say that the machine is no good aren't generally the ones who have experience of it (certainly not around here). In that sense, their opinion is probably less useful in the assessment than that of people who do know what they're talking about.

jimmy fallon lol GIF by The Tonight Show Starring Jimmy Fallon
 

Blade2.0

Member
Sony should've released a PS5-S instead of the stupid all digital edition which was only like £100 cheaper than the standard model. They really shot themselves in the foot there. Don't tell me that a weaker and cheaper PS5 at £200-250 wouldn't have done well lol.
Haven't PS5s been sold out for like 2 straight years now? Seems to me, digital edition was the way to go, it also doesn't split the base hardware requirements causing more work for devs.
 

ChorizoPicozo

Gold Member
Of course it was. It's been in stock since launch. Some people will think "Lol nobody wanted it that's why!" but for a long time it was the only next gen console you could easily buy AND it's cheap. It was £100-150 cheaper than the cheapest PS5 (if you could find one at retail price). It is even cheaper than a Switch except the Lite model.

Sony should've released a PS5-S instead of the stupid all digital edition which was only like £100 cheaper than the standard model. They really shot themselves in the foot there. Don't tell me that a weaker and cheaper PS5 at £200-250 wouldn't have done well lol.
oh is a joke. for a moment i thought your were cereal
 

Lasha

Member
Thanks for the fake news, i challenge you prove your numbers, where has Microsoft said how many units it has sold lol, look at ms yearly reports gamepass growth has stalled, hardware units is also down from last year. Even if they are tracking Xbox one numbers, imagine if they did not have series s,

Can you link the raw numbers? All I have seen is YoY numbers for revenue instead of a breakdown of sales. I've also not seen where Microsoft stated that game pass has stalled if you can grab that. I have only seen that MS missed internal targets.
 

The_Mike

I cry about SonyGaf from my chair in Redmond, WA
I want one for my bedroom, but the tiny storage and being a mixed upgrade /downgrade from one x feels weird
 

Rykan

Member
Isn't the generally accepted situation that most people who have a series S think it's a good machine, while those who don't have one think it's a bad machine that can't play games, and it's holding the developers back in a way that the steam deck isn't (well, those around here maybe)?

Meanwhile Microsoft say that they're bringing new people to their brand with the machine.

And it remains the least expensive way to play next gen games costing around half the other consoles.

Aside from the people who don't have one and say it's terrible, it seems like it's been a success in a number of ways.
Nobody thinks that the Series S can't play games. Nobody. Plenty of people know that Series S games often lack modes or graphical features that are present on other systems, which is a fact.

Comparing it to the Steam Deck is silly. Nobody specifically develops for or targets the Steam Deck. The Steam Deck is just a PC and if it happens to run the game then that's nice, but no developer is going out of their way to develop for Steam Deck.
 
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Jormatar

Member
It's whatever. Maybe a bit overrated when it was announced. People expected it to do Switch numbers due to its low price but as far as I'm concerned all of the Series S boxes are just collecting dust on the shelves and it's the more expensive Series X what people really care about.
 

Lasha

Member
I want one for my bedroom, but the tiny storage and being a mixed upgrade /downgrade from one x feels weird

The Series S's limited storage is my only gripe with the system. My kids hold negotiations on what gets to be installed since they ran into the limit fairly early. Microsoft's price for expansion is usurous. I wish the company would back down and offer an official SSD adapter.
 
The Series S's limited storage is my only gripe with the system. My kids hold negotiations on what gets to be installed since they ran into the limit fairly early. Microsoft's price for expansion is usurous. I wish the company would back down and offer an official SSD adapter.
Yeh fitting 3 or 4 of the most popular games, and it’s done, reminds me of the vita, no thought to user experience, well that’s ms for you,
 
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Mr Reasonable

Completely Unreasonable
Yeh fitting 3 or 4 of the most popular games, and it’s done, reminds me of the vita, no thought to user experience, well that’s ms for you,
While you're sort of right, if you choose the three or four games with the biggest install sizes available on the market, you can eat up the storage space quite easily, that's true.

...but the vast majority of games aren't over 100gb in size so it's a slightly disingenuous argument to be making. I don't think it's a good use of my time to start googling install sizes to create a list of the smallest AAA games available on Series S to try and score internet points with you but I think everyone knows that you'd have to be quite selective to eat up the 364gb of storage in 3 games. It's doable, no argument. But games of that sort of size will eat up any console's storage quite quickly. You can probably eat up a PS5's storage with Black Ops Cold War and a few other carefully selected big games and yet we don't see much complaining about the PS5 standard storage only having room for 5 games.

The Series S storage size is obviously all about cost. You may as well complain that consoles don't come with a second controller anymore. It's not like Microsoft are tricking people or lying, it says on the box how much storage you're getting. You can use cold storage if you like.

There's got to be trade offs to put out a system that costs half what Series X / PS5 does, and storage is more expensive than it used to be.

Great point about Microsoft not putting any effort into user experience. Perfectly illustrated with an example of a product made by someone else. "Man, this whopper isn't really doing it for me today" "that's KFC for you! :messenger_tears_of_joy::messenger_tears_of_joy:"
 
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Yep. Shouldve undercut the series x by 100 usd like what sony did to them with the ps4. Fuck it, you gonna be in distant 3rd place anyway might as well swing for the fences.
 

Skifi28

Member
The Series S's limited storage is my only gripe with the system. My kids hold negotiations on what gets to be installed since they ran into the limit fairly early. Microsoft's price for expansion is usurous. I wish the company would back down and offer an official SSD adapter.
Yeah, you save money by buying the S, but the storage is so expensive you might as well have bought the X in the first place.
 
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Rickyiez

Member
I would think that it's a great MP games machine like Fortnite, Apex, FIFA, Warzone 2 and soon Diablo 4 as well as indies with such a low entry cost. Not everyone likes or have time to play AAA
 
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Chukhopops

Member
Do we know the Series X vs Series S ratio?
Just curious, because for the PS5 it is around one digital on four disc editions.
There’s no official numbers, there’s only the Ampere analysis data and what you can see from retailers (reviews).
well it’s been 2 years, series s has not exactly set sales records, clearly most don’t want it, no matter how cheap it is, they want the best, not second best,

Xbox is clearly declining from last gen, it would have been a bloodbath without series s, so I guess it helped, they need to focus on games, it’s only thing that’s going to help them.
MS is making almost double the revenue they made during the 2014 to 2017 period:
yRnWpms.jpg

Nice decline there lmao
 
From an economic point of view for M$: Absolutely.

From the point of view of infrequent and budget gamers: Absolutely.

For people who just use it as a second console for exclusive titles and backward compatible games: Absolutely.

For game developers: Draw.
On the one hand, they have to put up with a little more effort in development and optimization, but on the other hand, more (cheaper) consoles in circulation mean more sales for the game.

For basement dwellers and hardcore gamers like me: Irrelevant.
In my opinion, the Series S doesn't slow down other consoles. Details, resolution and frame rate are simply adjusted downwards. If necessary, also to a considerable extent, as has already happened. In the long run, Sampler Feedback Streaming and FSR 3.0 could also help.
 

jm89

Member
GYggwqd.jpg
What?

PlayStation 5 was the only one trailing behind the previous gen. It will likely catch up late 2023.

Xbox is still doing very well, they just had an awful quarter in the EU. Don’t make assumptions on one region, ever. Xbox is strong in the US, always has been.
Do you think these are accurate numbers?
 

spons

Gold Member
GYggwqd.jpg
What?

PlayStation 5 was the only one trailing behind the previous gen. It will likely catch up late 2023.

Xbox is still doing very well, they just had an awful quarter in the EU. Don’t make assumptions on one region, ever. Xbox is strong in the US, always has been.
The graph makes it seem like we know the official numbers per month, which is not true.
 

LordOfChaos

Member
Not beating Sony in sales so the Series S not being a good move is flawed reasoning.

Where do you think they'd be without the Series S? Without the cheapest current gen console option? It's making them a player in a few emerging markets the SX didn't
 

Duchess

Member
Okay, to be perfectly fair, I don't think we've actually seen a real world examples of games that have been hamstrung by the existence of the machine.

Seems devs are targeting the PS5 and XSX, and then porting their games to make them run on the Series S (lower frame rate, geometry, resolutions, etc), but we've not seen any games being hampered outright.

Have we..?

Of course, if devs were scaling stuff back, I imagine MS have some EULA with the SDK that forbids them from mentioning it.
 
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j.k.2021

Banned
It was the best move Xbox made financially.Consider this, 50% of series s owners are new to Xbox ecosystem.That's massive and only possible because of series s.
 

Hestar69

Member
yes a great move..

I got a series X for cheap and gave him my series S & he loves it.

He can play COD and pubg on his tv with our friends (yes this is the only 2 games he plays)...

so for ppl who just want to play pubg,cod,fortnite its great console....He also pays for game pass but doest play any games lol. we did play SOT last year all of us with him on PC..he has it installed but friends and him are WAY too addicted to pubg atm.
 

damidu

Member
doesnt look so, since it has trouble moving even with all those insane fire sales etc.
as gen moves on, even its sibling will be delegated to native 1080p category, have fun reconstructing from 500p on series s by then.
selling it as a gamepass device with storage to hold only 3 games is also beyond dumb. by the time you buy the overpriced "memory card" you are already within seriesx territory price-wise
 

Sethbacca

Member
I got one for my bedroom only because it hit $200 over the holidays, and I got 3 years of gamepass for like $90. That said, they probably took a loss selling the hardware to me, and I doubt I'll be buying anything that's not already on gamepass so I can't see how they're making any money off people like me.
 
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ksdixon

Member
Everyone knows you need compelling games to move hardware and Xbox has very few of those this gen. Right now it’s impossible to say if that specific sku was a good idea or not. If Microsoft starts releasing great games regularly, then we’ll know if it was a smart move or not, because in theory, it should sell extremely well.

However from my perspective, people that have one love it, and people that hate Xbox really dislike the Series S.
Those that have it, are happy it was cheaper than more real games machines, are they casual gamers who don't need a Series X?

Those that hate it, are annoyed multiplaform games are hamstrung by it.
 
Yes, it's not ideal for the type of people that frequent forums like this, but it was a fantastic move for the average gamer, it's amazing value and once the games start coming out left and right it will be a necessity in order to play all the best games, for those who don't play on PC or already have a Series X.
 

SScorpio

Member
$299 and frequently down to $250 that you can download the latest Halo and play multiplayer for free? Same with Fortnite?

It's the Trojan horse to get people into the Xbox eco system. College students and younger can get something to inexpensively play with their friends. Oh, by the way, for only $15/month you can have access to play all these other awesome games.
 

yamaci17

Member
Okay, to be perfectly fair, I don't think we've actually seen a real world examples of games that have been hamstrung by the existence of the machine.

Seems devs are targeting the PS5 and XSX, and then porting their games to make them run on the Series S (lower frame rate, geometry, resolutions, etc), but we've not seen any games being hampered outright.

Have we..?

Of course, if devs were scaling stuff back, I imagine MS have some EULA with the SDK that forbids them from mentioning it.
we will only understand this if an enormous graphical delta between PS 1st party games and Xbox 1st party games occurs

if you want my honest opinion, i already see such deltas with last of us 2 and gears 5, but thats another discussion.

we may also understand this if 3rd party games lag quite behind PS studios far into the generation. for example rdr 2 had great parity with the likes of last of us 2. but will the next rockstar game have parity with best ps exclusive graphics? will baseline series s hold them back to a point their game will lag behind in graphics departmant in general? we will see

ps 1st studio will have ps5 as a baseline. 3rd party and xbox 1st studio will have series s as a baseline.

problem would be the memory, once again. you can always pair back resolution for lack of gpu power, but resolution is not the only answer to scaling. the game code still has to run. there's only so much you can do.
 
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I thought the Series S was a bad idea from the start, but of course sales might prove me wrong. However, if PlayStation continues to grow market share then the Xbox platform might start missing releases because of the S. Since MS requires games release on S and X, if the S version can’t keep up then they may drop the whole Xbox release entirely and make the game PS and PC only. This scenario would be the best evidence of “Series S was a bad idea”.
 

JackMcGunns

Member
Definitely a smart move for MS, they're selling them like hot cakes. But there's also the question on whether it was beneficial to gamers and the transition of the generation. Anyone recall when neither MS nor Sony could keep up with demand, Sony increased production of the PS4 in response while MS increased Series S sales? That alone was an indicator of how smart of a move it was, not only for MS, but putting more PS4's out there is not the answer to help move the generation forward.
 

onQ123

Member
GYggwqd.jpg
What?

PlayStation 5 was the only one trailing behind the previous gen. It will likely catch up late 2023.

Xbox is still doing very well, they just had an awful quarter in the EU. Don’t make assumptions on one region, ever. Xbox is strong in the US, always has been.
According to MS market share chart Series S/X is below 20 million
 
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