The Xbox Series S: A PC Replacement Waiting to Happen

I think it was ahead of its time in that regard because I think the Xbox Series S is at a point where it could launch as a PC replacement right now. They could give it the most bare-bones Windows, you know, mini-pocket Windows desktop version possible, get support for Windows Store app versions of apps, get support for ports of popular applications, probably wouldn't be Photoshop because Adobe is super slow to adapt to certain things, so it would have to be like Krita or something. Get some specific apps that will support it to replace some of your more common desktop app functionality and put the rest in the web browser. Build out the Edge web browser to support Chrome extensions and all that within reason because there are security and jailbreaking concerns and all of that to keep in mind.

But within reason, support all those things and I think they have an incredibly powerful console and slash PC replacement that realistically like I could see myself going with, given obviously there are game limitations of what you could run on the Xbox but right now looking at my current gaming situation, I have all this stuff in the studio but when I am over in my house playing games, you know I have a much more slimmed down setup and all that. I could see myself swapping out especially given our limited desk space and the fact that I need to keep everything child-friendly and things like that, I can see myself swapping out my big desktop tower with an Xbox Series S paired with my 1440p 120hz monitor and being mostly fine with that. I would of course miss some of the Steam games that I can't run here but realistically like I would be okay with that and I would be happy to do that should they add more of that desktop functionality back because I still need to do work, like I need access to my Notion and my email and my you know OBS sometimes like I they would have to do a little bit of leg work to build out the desktop experience on it a little bit but I am telling you right now, Phil Spencer or whoever needs to hear it that is that could be listening right now, I will send this directly to you, build out some more support for the Xbox Series consoles as a desktop especially the Series S and you have the most incredible value in computing hardware right now that you could buy.

It's a complete missed opportunity that you will regret not having done if you don't do it. Be it app support bringing over more app compatibility even if you have to reboot so currently the Xbox has the dev mode you have to click enable dev mode and reboot into this separate sandbox version of the operating system to run like retro arch and stuff if you combine that dev mode into just desktop mode and allowed you to run more of those apps and allowed you to do more desktop capability, worst case you have to reboot your Xbox real quick which doesn't take very long at all. Worst case you just reboot your Xbox to then be into that desktop mode and then reboot again to be into normal gaming mode like I'm telling you whoever needs to see this needs to make this change like as soon as possible.

There are so many possibilities unlocked with this right now, and I really think if you can get some open source, open-source apps to port, you know as quickly as possible or ones that are run through the store already or to switch, you know enable normal Win32 support, I realize that there's a little bit of porting work required because it's not a Windows computer, it's not gonna run just native Windows code, but to get some of that desktop experience back, I will buy an Xbox Series S for my living room computer right now and I will praise to high heavens the value of it because I think it is that significant.

There are family members and friends that I know that don't own high-powered desktops that would have greatly benefited from just getting an Xbox instead, I really feel like is the way to go imo. And someone mentioned Geforce Now also works in the browser and I've covered that, uh, Stadia does as well so if you even if you have a big gaming computer like up in your gaming room or whatever and then you have your family desktop that has the Xbox and you can stream everything else like I think there is so much power, so much potential, so much value there and I think it is going to be one of the biggest missed opportunities if Xbox doesn't clamp down and make that happen.

So here's my message right now to Phil Spencer and whoever in the Xbox team can make that happen, the Xbox Series S could be the ultimate PC replacement and now is the time to act on it when no one can get the pc hardware they want.

"WEBVTTKind: captionsLanguage: enwe're starting with one of the titular topics here microsoft edge in the alpha testing beta testing kind of category now supports mouse and keyboard navigation on the xbox and they have been working really hard to implement mouse and keyboard support across everything on the xbox so i just got a notice when i was playing master chief collection that it told me hey you can now switch to playing primarily with mouse and keyboard in master chief collection as well and now they're introducing it to the microsoft edge browser as well and what's really fascinating you can play google stadia with mouse and keyboard on the microsoft edge browser on the xbox so you can play google stadia on your xbox if you want now this seems really silly as a demo but overall this is imo really important and again this is still super for alpha testers it's still not full release yet but this is really important because we were touting a lot of us who were covering the xbox consoles and things like that were touting that with the release of the xbox series s um not the x but the s specifically that suddenly for the first time in what seems like a while and this is ironic to say now in the context of pc parts being unobtainium without that context for the first time in a while the xbox series s allows you to basically get an in a far better value in terms of gaming performance in terms of compute power in terms of general usability especially with the mouse and keyboard support you can actually do you know pc like things and it supports external drives media playback all of that you can run web apps he's sitting here typing up a document the the xbox series s for 300 assuming you can get it which that's improving over time and people are still getting them it creates a point where for the first time in quite a while the xbox series s supplants pcs with value so for 300 you get 1440p 120 hertz gaming you get all of the generations of xbox gaming so you can play xbox games you can play xbox 360 games you can play xbox one games you can play xbox series games you can play the arcade games and now you can play stadia games and you can do general computing on it with a mouse and keyboard to the extent that for a lot of people especially who just want to play games and do occasional computing stuff the xbox series s makes far more sense to buy in place of a computer than a computer they can also run windows store apps and this one person continues to post and chat that it's not a pc unless it runs windows 10 windows 10 i will remind you that there are plenty of computers in the world that are pcs that don't run windows windows is not the defining factor of a pc a chromebook is a pc a mac is a pc a linux computer is a pc brilliant is math and science enrichment learning taking a more active approach to education as many of these skills you learn by doing instead of just listening no more boring lectures are memorizing learning skills comes from doing the thing you're learning and brilliant is a website and app built off of this very principle you solve problems and get coached bit by bit until you've learned a new stem subject without even realizing it this has been super key to me learning to pick up python to enhance my projects as it took me from a passing interest of all that would be cool to a proper learning experience and developing a new skill to get started mastering your own dream skills head over to brilliant.org eposvox to sign up for free and join the community of 8 million learners and educators the first 200 people that use that link will save 20 off the annual premium subscription too happy learning it can run windows store apps you can download vlc on it you can download i think there was like skype support at one point i think teamspeak was trying to get on there you can download emulators for it you can put it into dev mode and run ps2 games and ps1 games and all sorts of games via the retro arc emulator um you can now run web game web browser games you can do pretty much everything and so effectively for a wide variety of people the xbox is turning into much more of a value for being a pc than actually buying a pc and that is really bonkers to me and again i do need to kind of disclaim this a little bit with the obvious issue of can you buy it right now now i will say i keep seeing if you follow uh what's it what's his name um game deals i don't have the exact real cheap game deals there's a lot of these twitter accounts this isn't the one i'm thinking of this one hasn't posted in a while um crap what's cheap ass gamer that's his name yeah so at video game deals cheapassgamer they are always posting when things come back in stock um in terms of consoles games things like that and so they regularly have updates obviously i'm not finding any now but they were just replying to alana pierce about uh the xbox series s being in stock at walmart they are always posting about xbox series x s and x stocks and things like that and you can pick one up for about 300 play 1440p 120 hertz gaming in games like siege and call of duty and battlefield and all sorts of stuff and you can now do normal computing stuff so i really think this is reaching a point where even when pc hardware becomes more available a lot of people essentially how people replace their computers with an ipad or a phone or a tiny little mac mini and you might be looking at that and be like no i could never do that blah blah blah blah and uh there are a lot of people that i think it would make more sense to get a 1440p 120 hertz monitor you know like this one back here set that up get a mouse and keyboard get your controller get a charger set up and then um plug in your mouse and keyboard and treat it as the xbox series s as a pc and it just makes so much more sense it just makes so much more sense i am up and so i really think we're gonna see some stuff um and steggy's pointing out that it was easier to pick up an xbox over ps5 that seems to be the case also he mentioned i forgot oreo64 is the other uh deals account that is also posting about stock and things like that so if you want cheap game deals or to figure out when consoles are in stock that's another account that will post those things as well so pretty powerful imo good stuff there i did want to touch on one thing and i don't think he's even in chat anymore but staggy back when we were talking about the xbox topic mentioned that it would be really neat to see apps like photoshop and things like that get support on the xbox and i do too i really think the playstation 3 this is going to feel out of left field especially we picked this up the playstation 3 launched as a game console that attempted to be more than a game console it attempted to launch as a computer replacement it had a memory card reader it had a photo editor it had a web browser from the get go it supported mouse and keyboard it was trying to be a computer entertainment system rather than just a game console it was 100 trying to be that and it put in all the stops including the linux support out of box to be a computer replacement and between the exorbitant price tag that it launched at and the fact that the market just wasn't ready for it it was not a success at doing that specific thing i think it was ahead of its time in that regard because i think the xbox series s is at a point where it could launch as a pc replacement right now they could give it the most bare bones windows you know mini pocket windows desktop version possible get support for windows store app versions of apps get support for ports of it probably wouldn't be photoshop adobe is super slow to adapt to certain things so it would have to be like krita or or something but get some specific apps that will support it to replace some of your more common desktop app functionality and put the rest in the web browser and build out the edge web browser to support the chrome extensions and all that within reason because there are security and jailbreaking concerns and all of that to keep in mind but within reason support all of those things and i think they have an incredibly powerful console and slash pc replacement that realistically like i could see myself going with like given obviously there are game limitations of what you could run on the xbox but right now looking at my current gaming situation i have all this stuff in the studio but when i am over in my house playing games you know i have a much more slimmed down setup and all of that i could see myself swapping out especially given our limited desk space and the fact that i need to keep everything child friendly and things like that i can see myself swapping out my big desktop tower with an xbox series s paired with my 1440p 120hz monitor and being mostly fine with that i would of course miss some of the steam games that i can't run here but realistically like i would be okay with that and i would be happy to do that should they add more of that desktop functionality back because i still need to do work like i need access to my notion and my email and my you know obs sometimes like i they would have to do a little bit of leg work to build out the desktop experience on it a little bit but i am telling you right now phil spencer or whoever needs to hear it that is that could be listening right now i will send this directly to you build out some more support for the xbox series consoles as a desktop especially the series s and you have the most incredible value in computing hardware right now that you could buy and i think it is a complete missed opportunity that you will regret not having done if you don't do it be it app support bringing over more app compatibility even if you have to reboot so currently the xbox has the dev mode you have to click enable dev mode and reboot into this separate sandbox version of the operating system to run like retro arch and stuff if you combine that dev mode into just desktop mode and allowed you to run more of those apps and allowed you to do more desktop capability and worst case you have to reboot your xbox real quick which doesn't take very long at all worst case you just reboot your xbox to then be into that desktop mode and then reboot again to be into normal gaming mode like i'm telling you whoever needs to see this needs to make this change like as soon as possible there are so many possibilities unlocked with this right now and i really think if you can get some open source open source apps to port you know as quickly as possible or ones that are run through the store already or to switch you know enable normal win32 support i realize that there's a little bit of porting work required because it's not a windows computer it's not gonna run just native windows code but to get some of that desktop experience back i will buy an xbox series s for my living room computer right now and i will praise to high heavens the value of it because i think it is that significant like there are family members and friends that i know that don't own high powerful desktops that would have greatly benefited from just getting an xbox instead that i really feel like is the way to go imo and someone mentioned geforce now also works in the browser and i've covered that uh stadia does as well so if you even if you have a big gaming computer like up in your gaming room or whatever and then you have your family desktop that has the xbox and you can stream everything else like i think there is so much power so much potential so much value there and i think it is going to be one of the biggest missed opportunities if xbox doesn't clamp down and make that happen so here's my message right now to phil spencer and whoever in the xbox team can make that happen the xbox series s could be the ultimate pc replacement and now is the time to act on it when no one can get the pc hardware they wantwe're starting with one of the titular topics here microsoft edge in the alpha testing beta testing kind of category now supports mouse and keyboard navigation on the xbox and they have been working really hard to implement mouse and keyboard support across everything on the xbox so i just got a notice when i was playing master chief collection that it told me hey you can now switch to playing primarily with mouse and keyboard in master chief collection as well and now they're introducing it to the microsoft edge browser as well and what's really fascinating you can play google stadia with mouse and keyboard on the microsoft edge browser on the xbox so you can play google stadia on your xbox if you want now this seems really silly as a demo but overall this is imo really important and again this is still super for alpha testers it's still not full release yet but this is really important because we were touting a lot of us who were covering the xbox consoles and things like that were touting that with the release of the xbox series s um not the x but the s specifically that suddenly for the first time in what seems like a while and this is ironic to say now in the context of pc parts being unobtainium without that context for the first time in a while the xbox series s allows you to basically get an in a far better value in terms of gaming performance in terms of compute power in terms of general usability especially with the mouse and keyboard support you can actually do you know pc like things and it supports external drives media playback all of that you can run web apps he's sitting here typing up a document the the xbox series s for 300 assuming you can get it which that's improving over time and people are still getting them it creates a point where for the first time in quite a while the xbox series s supplants pcs with value so for 300 you get 1440p 120 hertz gaming you get all of the generations of xbox gaming so you can play xbox games you can play xbox 360 games you can play xbox one games you can play xbox series games you can play the arcade games and now you can play stadia games and you can do general computing on it with a mouse and keyboard to the extent that for a lot of people especially who just want to play games and do occasional computing stuff the xbox series s makes far more sense to buy in place of a computer than a computer they can also run windows store apps and this one person continues to post and chat that it's not a pc unless it runs windows 10 windows 10 i will remind you that there are plenty of computers in the world that are pcs that don't run windows windows is not the defining factor of a pc a chromebook is a pc a mac is a pc a linux computer is a pc brilliant is math and science enrichment learning taking a more active approach to education as many of these skills you learn by doing instead of just listening no more boring lectures are memorizing learning skills comes from doing the thing you're learning and brilliant is a website and app built off of this very principle you solve problems and get coached bit by bit until you've learned a new stem subject without even realizing it this has been super key to me learning to pick up python to enhance my projects as it took me from a passing interest of all that would be cool to a proper learning experience and developing a new skill to get started mastering your own dream skills head over to brilliant.org eposvox to sign up for free and join the community of 8 million learners and educators the first 200 people that use that link will save 20 off the annual premium subscription too happy learning it can run windows store apps you can download vlc on it you can download i think there was like skype support at one point i think teamspeak was trying to get on there you can download emulators for it you can put it into dev mode and run ps2 games and ps1 games and all sorts of games via the retro arc emulator um you can now run web game web browser games you can do pretty much everything and so effectively for a wide variety of people the xbox is turning into much more of a value for being a pc than actually buying a pc and that is really bonkers to me and again i do need to kind of disclaim this a little bit with the obvious issue of can you buy it right now now i will say i keep seeing if you follow uh what's it what's his name um game deals i don't have the exact real cheap game deals there's a lot of these twitter accounts this isn't the one i'm thinking of this one hasn't posted in a while um crap what's cheap ass gamer that's his name yeah so at video game deals cheapassgamer they are always posting when things come back in stock um in terms of consoles games things like that and so they regularly have updates obviously i'm not finding any now but they were just replying to alana pierce about uh the xbox series s being in stock at walmart they are always posting about xbox series x s and x stocks and things like that and you can pick one up for about 300 play 1440p 120 hertz gaming in games like siege and call of duty and battlefield and all sorts of stuff and you can now do normal computing stuff so i really think this is reaching a point where even when pc hardware becomes more available a lot of people essentially how people replace their computers with an ipad or a phone or a tiny little mac mini and you might be looking at that and be like no i could never do that blah blah blah blah and uh there are a lot of people that i think it would make more sense to get a 1440p 120 hertz monitor you know like this one back here set that up get a mouse and keyboard get your controller get a charger set up and then um plug in your mouse and keyboard and treat it as the xbox series s as a pc and it just makes so much more sense it just makes so much more sense i am up and so i really think we're gonna see some stuff um and steggy's pointing out that it was easier to pick up an xbox over ps5 that seems to be the case also he mentioned i forgot oreo64 is the other uh deals account that is also posting about stock and things like that so if you want cheap game deals or to figure out when consoles are in stock that's another account that will post those things as well so pretty powerful imo good stuff there i did want to touch on one thing and i don't think he's even in chat anymore but staggy back when we were talking about the xbox topic mentioned that it would be really neat to see apps like photoshop and things like that get support on the xbox and i do too i really think the playstation 3 this is going to feel out of left field especially we picked this up the playstation 3 launched as a game console that attempted to be more than a game console it attempted to launch as a computer replacement it had a memory card reader it had a photo editor it had a web browser from the get go it supported mouse and keyboard it was trying to be a computer entertainment system rather than just a game console it was 100 trying to be that and it put in all the stops including the linux support out of box to be a computer replacement and between the exorbitant price tag that it launched at and the fact that the market just wasn't ready for it it was not a success at doing that specific thing i think it was ahead of its time in that regard because i think the xbox series s is at a point where it could launch as a pc replacement right now they could give it the most bare bones windows you know mini pocket windows desktop version possible get support for windows store app versions of apps get support for ports of it probably wouldn't be photoshop adobe is super slow to adapt to certain things so it would have to be like krita or or something but get some specific apps that will support it to replace some of your more common desktop app functionality and put the rest in the web browser and build out the edge web browser to support the chrome extensions and all that within reason because there are security and jailbreaking concerns and all of that to keep in mind but within reason support all of those things and i think they have an incredibly powerful console and slash pc replacement that realistically like i could see myself going with like given obviously there are game limitations of what you could run on the xbox but right now looking at my current gaming situation i have all this stuff in the studio but when i am over in my house playing games you know i have a much more slimmed down setup and all of that i could see myself swapping out especially given our limited desk space and the fact that i need to keep everything child friendly and things like that i can see myself swapping out my big desktop tower with an xbox series s paired with my 1440p 120hz monitor and being mostly fine with that i would of course miss some of the steam games that i can't run here but realistically like i would be okay with that and i would be happy to do that should they add more of that desktop functionality back because i still need to do work like i need access to my notion and my email and my you know obs sometimes like i they would have to do a little bit of leg work to build out the desktop experience on it a little bit but i am telling you right now phil spencer or whoever needs to hear it that is that could be listening right now i will send this directly to you build out some more support for the xbox series consoles as a desktop especially the series s and you have the most incredible value in computing hardware right now that you could buy and i think it is a complete missed opportunity that you will regret not having done if you don't do it be it app support bringing over more app compatibility even if you have to reboot so currently the xbox has the dev mode you have to click enable dev mode and reboot into this separate sandbox version of the operating system to run like retro arch and stuff if you combine that dev mode into just desktop mode and allowed you to run more of those apps and allowed you to do more desktop capability and worst case you have to reboot your xbox real quick which doesn't take very long at all worst case you just reboot your xbox to then be into that desktop mode and then reboot again to be into normal gaming mode like i'm telling you whoever needs to see this needs to make this change like as soon as possible there are so many possibilities unlocked with this right now and i really think if you can get some open source open source apps to port you know as quickly as possible or ones that are run through the store already or to switch you know enable normal win32 support i realize that there's a little bit of porting work required because it's not a windows computer it's not gonna run just native windows code but to get some of that desktop experience back i will buy an xbox series s for my living room computer right now and i will praise to high heavens the value of it because i think it is that significant like there are family members and friends that i know that don't own high powerful desktops that would have greatly benefited from just getting an xbox instead that i really feel like is the way to go imo and someone mentioned geforce now also works in the browser and i've covered that uh stadia does as well so if you even if you have a big gaming computer like up in your gaming room or whatever and then you have your family desktop that has the xbox and you can stream everything else like i think there is so much power so much potential so much value there and i think it is going to be one of the biggest missed opportunities if xbox doesn't clamp down and make that happen so here's my message right now to phil spencer and whoever in the xbox team can make that happen the xbox series s could be the ultimate pc replacement and now is the time to act on it when no one can get the pc hardware they want\n"