The Xbox Series S: A Next-Generation Console with Compromises

At $299, the Xbox Series S is the cheapest way to get into the next generation of consoles. All right, let's open up the Xbox Series S and take a closer look at its design.

We have a USB-A port and power button on the front, along with some venting on the sides. Around back, we have two more USB ports, as well as HDMI 2.1, storage expansion modules (which are the same SSDs as the Series X), and a power cable. The console is very clean and sleek.

One of the key differences between the Xbox Series S and its bigger brother, the Series X, is that it doesn't look as good. This makes sense, given that it's $200 less expensive. However, I think this is a bit of an unfair comparison - after all, you'd expect to see some compromises at this price point.

But what really sets the Series S apart from the Series X? Well, for starters, graphics are a big difference. While the Series X has 12 teraflops of performance, the Series S has to make do with four teraflops. That's still significantly better than its predecessor, the Xbox One S, but it falls behind at least on paper compared to the Xbox One X.

So, what is the Series S really trying to achieve? It's not trying to run games at 4k all the time - instead, it's targeting somewhere between 1080p and 1440p. This approach makes sense, given that the original Xbox was also designed for lower resolutions.

When comparing the Series S to the Series X, it's worth noting that while 1440p at 60 frames per second sounds great, that would require about half as many pixels as the Series X - which means that realistically, most games will be running at closer to 1080p. And of course, there's the dynamic resolution thing going on, where you'll always get some level of quality.

So, what does this mean for gaming? The Series S is a little bit more of an 1080p gaming box, while the Series X is more of a 4k gaming box. But both consoles have the same building blocks - ray tracing support, spatial audio, and all that jazz that makes games look and run well.

One thing that's worth noting is that the Series S supports backwards compatible games just like the Series X. That means a lot of original Xbox games, 360 games, as well as Xbox One games can be played on the Series S - although you will need to download them instead of using physical disks.

However, there is one more thing that's a bit disappointing if you were running an Xbox One game that was optimized for the One X. While technically, it would be very close to being powerful enough, the GPU just isn't quite there yet. This means that some games may not run in 4k - and that's why they've opted to keep those games running in standard modes.

Overall, while the Xbox Series S is certainly a step down from its bigger brother, it still has a lot to offer. And with the same building blocks and performance under the hood, it's definitely worth considering if you're looking for a next-generation console on a budget.

WEBVTTKind: captionsLanguage: en- At $299, the Xbox SeriesS is the cheapest wayto get into the nextgeneration of consoles.All right, with the seals offlet's open up the Xbox Series S.Oh okay I like a littleattention to detailso first of all, as we power our dreamswe get the tiny tiny little Series S.It's really hard to getthe sort of scale of thisuntil you actually have it in your handsbut this has gotta be thesmallest console we've hadsince like the slim PS2.It's not that much bigger than slim PS2this is a very clean piece of hardware.So up front, we have aUSB-A port and power buttonnothing but venting on the sidesand around back we have ethernettwo more USB for grand total of threeas well as we have HDMI 2.1,the storage expansion modulewhich is the same storageSSDs as the Series Xas well as the power cable.Now just like with the Series Xyou can set it up verticallyso it has rubber feet thereor you can set it down horizontally.It's nice because unlike on the Series Xwhich has that kind ofbuilt-in foot on the bottomI think this looksequally good either way.So that's what you get insidethe box of an Xbox Series Sbut what is this console all about.When you look at the Xbox Series Scompared to its biggerbrother the Series Xit doesn't look as good.Now that makes senseat $200 less expensiveyou would expect that thereto be some compromisesand they go a lot farther thanjust not having a disc drive.But I think it's a lot more complicatedthan a few minutes with a consolewould really lead you to believe.So the top line is this, the Series Shas a very similar levelof specs to the Series Xwith one big exception, graphics.So where the Series Xhas 12 teraflops of performancethe Series S has to getby with four teraflopsnow to be clear, thatis still significantlybetter than the console itreplaces, the Xbox One Sbut it falls behind at leaston paper, the Xbox One Xwhich for a next gen consoleseems like a little bit ofa bitter pill to swallow.But that being said the Series Shas a very different goal in lifeit is not trying to rungames at 4k all the time.Instead it is really targeting somewherebetween 1080P and 1440Pthe way they're really setting it upis just like with the original Xbox Onewhich was very muchnot really meant to pushsort of 4k resolutionsuntil you got up to the OneX, same thing for the Series Sthis is to be able to bringall those same featuresof next gen, but at a lower resolution.Now, if you comparethat with the Series Xit is supposed to be themost powerful consoleand of course it will takeadvantage of the powerin a big way.So you're getting 4k 60on most games comparedto that 1080P on the Series Sbut regardless of what you hook it up tothe Series S will look goodand it is a majorimprovement over the One Swhere it's not a clearimprovement over though,is the One Xwhich is again, where you haveto temper your expectations.But beyond that,a lot of those samefeatures are all sharedso for example, they both have SSDs.Sure, the Series S has a 512 gig SSDinstead of one terabyte,but hey, you're spending $200 less money.Now they both do support120 FPS, but odds areif you're buying the Series Syou're probably a lot more morelikely to have a 60 Hertz TVinstead of a brand newOLED or something.Now when it comes to playing gamesthat are fully optimized, right?We're not talking about backwards compatibility,we're talking about gameswhich have been designedfor the Series S and the Series X,the X surprise surprise looks better.So if you look at the Microsoft's specsthey're sort of recommendedwhat they've designedthese consoles for.The Series X is designed to run at 4k 60and the Series is designed torun games at 1440P 60 right?But these are simply recommendationsa game developer can do whatever they want pretty much.If you've got a pixel based gameyou could run it at 8Kif you really wanted toI don't think anyone's gonnastop you, but realisticallythese numbers, aren't quite representativeof the kind of experiencesyou're getting on each of these consoles.So take the Series X, for examplepretty much every gamethat I've tried so farhas a pretty robust 4k 60 FPS mode, right?That's pretty much standardand some games havesupport for 120 FPS at 4kor even maybe slightly lower like 1440Pbut really solid performance.Now, on the Series S there are a few gamesthat will support thesehigher frame rates, right?So for example, Gears 5 multi-playerwill run at 1080P 120FPS, which is awesome.But the thing is, if you do themath here on the differenceswhile 1440P at 60 soundsgreat, that would requireabout half as many pixels as the Series X.It only has about onethird the GPU horsepowerwhich means that realisticallymost games reallyare going to be running atcloser to that 1080P number.Of course, there's a thingcalled dynamic resolutionthat's been around for a long timewhich means that you'realways gonna get onat least a lot of games,you're always going to getlike the best resolution.So it may be becausedipping back and forthbetween 1080P and 1440or whatever the case is.But regardless this is a little bit moreof a 1080P gaming boxand the Series X is a littlebit more of a 4k gaming boxbut the thing is, all thebuilding blocks are still there.You still have Ray tracing support,you still have supportfor the spatial audio,you still have all the same thingsthat will make thesegames look and run welland because they have thesame CPU's things like,I don't know GTA 6 should be able tohave massive worlds with tons of NPCs,there's a lot of CPUhorsepower behind that.It's just simply thatthe graphics settingswon't be quite so elaborateand you simply won't seethat same resolution.So the Series S does supportbackwards compatible gamesjust like the Series X.That means a lot of originalXbox games, 360 games,as well as Xbox One games.Although of course, without a disc driveyou are going to haveto download these gamesas opposed to using the physical disksthat you may already own.Now, there is another levelwhich is a little bit more disappointingif you were running an Xbox One gamewhich has been optimized for the One Xwhich means that supports things like 4kthat won't actually run on the Series Sbecause it defaults torunning the standard XboxOne builds of gamesand there are a coupleof reasons for that.So while technicallyit would be very closeto being powerful enough,the GPU is not quite therewith what the One X didand you actually needa little bit above thatto be able to accurately run itto make sure you're notlosing any performancewhich is why they've optedto keep those games runningin these standard modes.So essentially, if you'rerunning a game on your Xbox Oneor your One S it's got a pretty much lookand perform the exactsame way on the Series S.You'll have a little bit more overheadso some games may run at aslightly higher frame ratebut you're not going to getthe added visual benefitof something like 4k,that a lot of games like "RedDead 2", for example offer.So just like with the Xbox Oneyou can install older gamesso Xbox One and earlieronto a USB 3.0 hard driveand plug it into your Series S.This is absolutely what you should dowith both of these consoles realisticallyif you're playing a lot of older gamesbecause even one terabyte on the Series Xisn't that much storage spaceand you look at games like "Red Dead"which can be nearly 100 gigsthat eats up a ton of that really quickly.There's something that I thinkis actually really worth consideringare the sizes of these consoles.Everyone knows that the PS5is about as large as Linus's egobut the PS5 is sort of adifferent school of thoughtwhen it comes to designing a consolethe Series X has thatdual motherboard approachwhich means that it actuallyis a relatively compactsort of chassis.It's a little bit bigger than somethinglike the One or the One X,but still relatively small.However, both of these consolespale in comparison to the Series Swhich is by far the smallestXbox they've ever made.I'll be real, this thing istiny where I actually can't fitI have a fairly small TV cabinet at homeI actually can't fit theone X in the cabinet.I actually, I have to put it onto the sidebeside the TV, but the Series Swill slide right in there no problem.Now that's a really nice thing, right?Not everyone has a ton of spacewhen you're looking at a consolewhich is closer to somethinglike a Wii than an Xbox Onethat is a nice sort of benefit.Now, is that enough of a reasonto buy a brand new console?Just because it's lesspowerful and therefore smaller?No, and of course youdo lose the disc drivebut it's something worth considering.I think the elephant in the roomwhen you're talking about the Series Sis the PS5 digital edition.So the $400 price tag of that consolemeans the Series Sdoes look a little bitquestionable, right?So unlike what Xbox have donewhich is essentially build two consolesone of which is the full-fat Series Xand one of which is the digitalonly less powerful Series SSony have gone with acompletely different approach.Both the PS5 and thePS5 digital editionhad the exact same specs gameswill run the exact same way.There's no difference whatsoeverbetween those two consoles,besides the fact that one ofthem lacks an optical drive.Now, obviously I'm not out here tryingto tell you to buy a PlayStationif you're watching your Series S videoand you're about to clickthe buy button on Amazon.What I do think it issomething to considerthe price to performance on that Series Scompared to the price to performanceon the PS5 digital editionis pretty off the charts.Now it's a little bit weirdbecause we've never really hada console generation like this.Generally speaking, youget the new console,it's great and then, especiallywith the last generationyou get an enhanced model later, right?But this time around, we'restarting right out the gatewith the PS5 and the Series Xwhich are really verypowerful very clearlyon par with a lot of gaming PCsand then you have the Series Swhich is certainly no slouch.It has all the basefeatures, you have the CPU,you have the SSD, but it issignificantly less powerfuland it is certainly an outliergoing into this generationbecause while of coursegames will be supporting the Series Sand the Series X and the PS5for five, six, seven years.I don't think the Series S can get droppedor anything like thatbut your expectations haveto be a little bit lower.I do think Microsoft madea lot of smart decisionswith the S in sort of designing a consolewhich can pretty muchrun all the same gamesjust at lower resolution which I thinkis a reasonable trade-offbut it depends on whatkind of gamer you are.If you want to know aboutthe 4k 120 experienceand you wanna really crankeverything to the maxthe Series S isn't for you.But if you were someonewho maybe wants a secondaryconsole maybe you game on PCand you wanna be able toplay in the living room.Maybe you have a PS4, PS5you want to try out Xbox Game Pass.Maybe you're just someonewho wants to take a lookat next gen and play all these new gamesbut you don't necessarilycare about 4k max out settingsthat I think is where theSeries S makes a ton of sense.It is certainly not as good of a consolein raw power as somethinglike the Series Xbut ultimately, I wouldn'tbe surprised if the Series Scomes very close if not outsells the X.$300 I think is a really easy number to gocool, yeah, yeah whateverbut that's a reallycompelling price point.So recently on Twitter,I actually did a littlebit of a calculationon like looking at inflationand kind of the price of previous consolescompared to todayand the Series S andthe, even the X and PS5but specifically theSeries S is downright cheapcompared to a lot of previous consolewhich is a great thing.Usually you have to wait a fewyears to get like a slim modelfor prices to come down,but right out the gatelooking at a $300 next genconsole, it is not for everyonebut I think a lot of peoplewill be happy with the Series Sas long as you have yourexpectations in check.This is really anevolution of the Xbox Onenot a replacement for the One X,thank you very much for watching,make sure to subscribe to the channelfor lots more Xbox and PS5 contentuntil next time I'm goingto go fit the Series Sin my cabinet because it actually fits.