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According to Microsoft, the Xbox Series X can support resolutions up to 8K, but the console will aim to achieve a 4K “target” of 60fps up to 120fps. It will be interesting to see what frame rate the X Series will achieve within that target range. For an Xbox Series S, you would prefer to be able to play at 1440p resolution with a stable speed of 60fps or higher. For me, 1440p offers the right amount of detail while keeping gameplay and cut scenes smooth. And while there’s a lot of hype around the X-Series ray tracing support, the feature sometimes affects frame rates. If the S Series avoided ray tracing in favor of keeping the highest frame rates and lowest prices, I would agree with that.
The rumor that an Xbox Series S will be a fully digital machine is welcome as long as it is priced lower. There’s a sacrifice to be made with all-digital consoles – backward compatibility access to boxed games you already own is lost, so hopefully there will be a couple of variations offered with the S-Series, just like than the standard Xbox One S and its fully digital version. For me, my days of collecting physical games are over. I once wanted to keep my collection of games on display and visible, but as time went on, I realized two things: not dust close enough, and game cases take up a lot of space. In the past few years, I’ve bought maybe two or three physical games with the exception of a special edition here or there (looking at them now, they’re all wrapped in dust).
Ever since I got an Xbox One, Xbox Game Pass has meant that I have not needed to purchase any games. There is no dust; Everything is clean and tidy on my shelves, it is perfect. The idea of having a fully digital Xbox Series S is great. The console form factor would likely be smaller due to the lack of a disk drive, which means you wouldn’t have to have an industrial-size TV mount to support it, unlike the X Series monolith. There is always the Fear that a game may be completely removed from the Microsoft Store, which means it will no longer be available for download. All-digital also prevents me from buying second-hand games. For me, that is not a big problem, but I can understand why this would be a deciding factor for others.
The gaming landscape is currently changing. PC gaming has been predominantly digital for years, and I think it’s only a matter of time before console games do the same. Video game subscription services are becoming increasingly popular and are seeing large numbers of people signing up. Xbox Game Pass is expected to be bundled with a fully digital S Series. The two surely go hand in hand, and it makes sense. Having a good 12-month subscription included with purchase at launch, especially now that Xbox Game Pass will soon include Project xCloud, would be an attractive package. The only problem here is the storage space. It would be great to see a larger capacity hard drive than just 1TB in the S-Series. Some bigger titles are starting to take up over 100GB, we’re all looking at Call of Duty: Modern Warfare, so that 1TB quickly fills up. Of course, more storage space probably equals a higher price.
Of course, until Microsoft makes an official announcement, the S Series (and a fully digital version) could be just a dream. However, it makes sense. The gaming landscape is slowly starting to change, with a number of publishers offering video game subscription services. We’ve also seen several iterations of the Xbox One, including the all-digital Xbox One S, so why not an Xbox Series S that is diskless, more affordable, but still has a big impact in terms of graphics fidelity and power. ? Hopefully we’ll see more news about a second next-gen Xbox in the coming months.
