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Rich and John discuss it in the latest DF Direct.
Microsoft seemed to take forever to finally decide to unveil its second, long-rumored, next-gen console: the compact, cut-price Xbox Series S. to respond to a leak of its form factor and price.
Rich Leadbetter and John Linneman of Digital Foundry first met the machine over six months ago, when they traveled to Microsoft’s headquarters in Redmond, Washington for an exclusive look at Xbox Series X. Now they can finally break their silence on this novelty. most unusual. console in a special episode of Digital Foundry Direct, which you can watch in the insert below.
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With segments filmed in Redmond in March, as well as a recorded conversation this week breaking down all of the latest information, including Microsoft’s pricing and positioning of the S Series, there’s a lot to chew on in the video. (As a bonus, check out the Crimewatch-style reconstruction of the moment the S Series was revealed to the couple in Richmond, when a Microsoft representative pulled the tiny console out of a bag.)
Despite its unplanned departure, the S Series has had a fairly warm reception this week, and it’s no wonder. It’s an attractive little machine that offers compelling value, and it harks back to an earlier era of gaming consoles, both in its price (the same launch price as the PlayStation 2 and the first Xbox) and its neat form factor. , similar to a toy. It’s also surprisingly comprehensive, sharing the fast storage, ray-tracing hardware, and next-gen X-Series CPU technology, aiming to deliver images at lower resolutions (and with much higher power efficiency). . This week, we also got to see some decent footage of games supposedly running on the S Series, including the Gears 5 at 120fps.
The compromises? Beyond the lack of an optical drive, its 8GB of memory will be a bit of a bind for games developed for the next generation, as will 500GB of onboard storage. Beyond that, there’s still a lot we don’t know and it’s hard to say how the gaming experience might be affected on the S Series. It’s worth noting, amid Microsoft’s talk about the S Series’ 1440p target resolution. , that the famous Unreal Engine demo on the much more powerful PlayStation 5 also ran at 1440p. Could S offer something like that experience? Time will tell.
What we do know now is that Microsoft’s release for the Xbox Series S, and to some extent Series X as well, is quite different from anything we’ve seen before for a next-gen console. Rather than aspiring to wow top gamers with new experiences, he’s targeting a much wider market and talking about the value offered by Game Pass and the All Access subscription plan, and the affordable and lovable S Series is a perfect fit. that message, especially in today’s economic climate. It may be the right console at the right time.
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