News XBOX Series S trailer leaked

[Hans de Vries]

Wow $299
1440p gameplay at up to 120Hz
Upscaling to 4k, 512GB SSD.

https://twitter.com/x/status/1303252607759130624

And it's official now:

https://twitter.com/x/status/1303230071033880576

 

[blckgrffn]

Yeah if you are excited for it go for it. I'm not here to try and convince anyone otherwise.

I just get excited for games that aren't out yet that I can't play now. I don't get excited to play games I could have played for the past few years if I wanted to, on new hardware. I mean in that Series X video, they are hyping up Gears 5 playing at 120fps. Like wow - you can now play a game that has been out for a year with better performance on newer hardware. That just does nothing for me.

And you are right about MS having no exclusives. That is a big reason IMO as to why the X1 has sold so much less than PS5 and Switch.

If they just had 1 exclusive game coming out at launch, just one, that looked somewhat interesting to me, I would purchase one. I spent $800 at X1 launch for 1 game. And it was a $20 DLC game that was incomplete at launch.

I do feel you man. While I think most launch titles end up being rushed garbage, even a pack in that is really a tech demo/game would be something. Show us the new shiny.

And of course by pack in I mean something you download after you spend an hour setting up the console and getting logged in and all that.

On the flip side, if you go out and buy a Series S and only have physical games at home the unboxing experience is going to be lame AF.

Plug it in, set it up, walk away while it downloads some 20-60GB title, play tomorrow? Yay.

At least with a disc drive you could sling a game in there? I suppose if it is like the 360 support on the One you end up downloading the game anyway. Perhaps this experience is just the accepted way it is for all new consoles electronics these days.

All that said, the Ratchet & Clank video looked really cool and if I am able to get a launch PS5 I will buy that too.

 

[purbeast0]

I do feel you man. While I think most launch titles end up being rushed garbage, even a pack in that is really a tech demo/game would be something. Show us the new shiny.

And of course by pack in I mean something you download after you spend an hour setting up the console and getting logged in and all that.

On the flip side, if you go out and buy a Series S and only have physical games at home the unboxing experience is going to be lame AF.

Plug it in, set it up, walk away while it downloads some 20-60GB title, play tomorrow? Yay.

At least with a disc drive you could sling a game in there? I suppose if it is like the 360 support on the One you end up downloading the game anyway. Perhaps this experience is just the accepted way it is for all new consoles electronics these days.

All that said, the Ratchet & Clank video looked really cool and if I am able to get a launch PS5 I will buy that too.

Yeah Halo: Infinite looking like complete ass and ultimately getting delayed (which is definitely the right move on MS part) was kind of a dagger. That was their killer app and Halo has always been a system seller for Xbox brand. I almost wonder if delaying the console would have been better at that point but they were already in too deep so it was probably too late anyways.

 

[piokos]

Seems like an arbitrary reduction in clock speed in the CPU. Is it configured like that just for segmentation purposes?

They probably had to take care of power consumption/cooling as well. It's always a few W.
Has it already been confirmed that X has an internal PSU? Because that would be fairly impressive. But it would be even more impressive if the S had one.
And for some (me included) a 100W power brick would be a major bummer. Not something that would steer me away, but certainly force to rethink the TV setup.

I would suggest that people use external storage.

Let's just wait for the actual console to hit the stores. Both MS and Sony promised much higher file compression. If the large (50GB+) games shrink by 20-30%, I could totally live with 512GB.
Do I use all of 1TB in my One S? Yes.
Does it contain games that I haven't played for half a year? Yes.

Keep in mind Series S is for digital copies only. Which means reinstalling games is very easy.
Frankly, starting GTA V takes 5min+ on my One S. Series S should be able to install it from scratch in maybe 15 minutes and start almost instantly. I can work with that.

 

[quikah]

They probably had to take care of power consumption/cooling as well. It's always a few W.
Has it already been confirmed that X has an internal PSU? Because that would be fairly impressive. But it would be even more impressive if the S had one.
And for some (me included) a 100W power brick would be a major bummer. Not something that would steer me away, but certainly force to rethink the TV setup.

yes, they both have internal PSU. You can see them in the exploded views they use in the promotions.

Hopefully they develop some sort of automatic game migration so you can attach a cheap external HDD to store games then copy to the internal when you try to play it.

 

[Roland00Address]

Hopefully they develop some sort of automatic game migration so you can attach a cheap external HDD to store games then copy to the internal when you try to play it.

This is not clear how it will work. Yes you can plug in a usb hard drive and play older generation x box games.

But it is not clear if you can use the same hard drive to back up an archive of a next generation game if you have not played it for a while and to make downloads of it to reinstall much easier. This 2nd paragraph is merely a hope of users but Microsoft has not indicated it, while the 1st paragraph Microsoft has talked about.

 

[Aikouka]

Let's just wait for the actual console to hit the stores. Both MS and Sony promised much higher file compression. If the large (50GB+) games shrink by 20-30%, I could totally live with 512GB.

The point is that if you're a data hoarder, external drives should be perfectly fine for storage of the next-generation games.

As for the file size, weren't the remarks that some size reduction would come from avoiding duplication of assets? Or is that just for the disc itself? I guess the game assets could also come pre-compressed for use with the algorithms used by each company. I know Call of Duty usually gets lambasted for its file size, and I've heard that part of the problem is that it uses uncompressed data to increase speed.

Keep in mind Series S is for digital copies only. Which means reinstalling games is very easy.

So, I've been using my PS4 and Xbox One a bit more lately, and in regard to digital services, one thing has really bugged me... download speeds. I'll be rather blunt and say that PlayStation Network's download speed is atrocious and Xbox Live's is decent at best. I always wondered why my friend (who plays Call of Duty on PS4) would take so long to download the updates, and now it makes sense to me. (I figured it was his connection speed.) I tried to download the Fall Guys game, and even though it was a few GB in size, it still took around 15 minutes. (This was after the game's launch.) I downloaded a few Game Pass games the other day, and I saw peaks of around 20MB/s (160Mbps).

Microsoft's number isn't that bad; however, given that I'm used to services on the PC, it's pretty poor to me. On Steam and Blizzard's Battle.Net, I can usually get over 70MB/s. In fact, it took me less time to download Horizon Zero Dawn on Steam than it did to download Fall Guys on PSN. I think what makes it worse is that I don't directly pay for Steam or Battle.Net's online services, but I am subscribed to Xbox Live Gold and PlayStation Plus.

 

[darkswordsman17]

I do feel you man. While I think most launch titles end up being rushed garbage, even a pack in that is really a tech demo/game would be something. Show us the new shiny.

And of course by pack in I mean something you download after you spend an hour setting up the console and getting logged in and all that.

On the flip side, if you go out and buy a Series S and only have physical games at home the unboxing experience is going to be lame AF.

Plug it in, set it up, walk away while it downloads some 20-60GB title, play tomorrow? Yay.

At least with a disc drive you could sling a game in there? I suppose if it is like the 360 support on the One you end up downloading the game anyway. Perhaps this experience is just the accepted way it is for all new consoles electronics these days.

All that said, the Ratchet & Clank video looked really cool and if I am able to get a launch PS5 I will buy that too.

They should have a game that you can play while its setting up. Kinda like how they'd put old arcade games during loading screens. Maybe have a few (Tetris, and there's plenty of mobile games they could ripoff, or even let you play short clips of various games to give a quick trial). For games with character creation they should let you launch that and make your character while you're waiting for the game to download/install.

 

[blckgrffn]

They should have a game that you can play while its setting up. Kinda like how they'd put old arcade games during loading screens. Maybe have a few (Tetris, and there's plenty of mobile games they could ripoff, or even let you play short clips of various games to give a quick trial). For games with character creation they should let you launch that and make your character while you're waiting for the game to download/install.

Something. Anything. Christmas & b-day openings have become pretty meh events for those that aren't savvy enough to get it all prepped ahead of time (and you have to open everything to do so, which even I can get a little leery about).

 

[quikah]

Digital Foundry was shown the console in March when they had their Series X teardown.

 

[piokos]

Hopefully they develop some sort of automatic game migration so you can attach a cheap external HDD to store games then copy to the internal when you try to play it.

That would be pretty weird to implement.
Also, I don't see how such a solution would attract a big crowd. Many people today have internet connections that can comfortably download at 40-50MB/s - more or less matching a cheap 2.5" USB-powered drive.

Those with very slow or metered connections could be tempted, but then again: I'm not sure if they'll get a digital-only console in the first place.

So, I've been using my PS4 and Xbox One a bit more lately, and in regard to digital services, one thing has really bugged me... download speeds. I'll be rather blunt and say that PlayStation Network's download speed is atrocious and Xbox Live's is decent at best. I always wondered why my friend (who plays Call of Duty on PS4) would take so long to download the updates, and now it makes sense to me. (I figured it was his connection speed.) I tried to download the Fall Guys game, and even though it was a few GB in size, it still took around 15 minutes. (This was after the game's launch.) I downloaded a few Game Pass games the other day, and I saw peaks of around 20MB/s (160Mbps).

My Xbox is connected over WiFi (802.11n) and download speeds are in line with that I see on other devices (~50-60Mbps). For me that's really enough.
I've never felt the need to connect it to LAN. But I'll do it later today just for the sake of argument and post the results.

Microsoft's number isn't that bad; however, given that I'm used to services on the PC, it's pretty poor to me. On Steam and Blizzard's Battle.Net, I can usually get over 70MB/s. In fact, it took me less time to download Horizon Zero Dawn on Steam than it did to download Fall Guys on PSN. I think what makes it worse is that I don't directly pay for Steam or Battle.Net's online services, but I am subscribed to Xbox Live Gold and PlayStation Plus.

Or the NIC in the console is just slower than in your PC. I can't imagine either MS or Sony prioritizing this component (we're talking about devices built around the idea of cost cutting).

Try running some connection speed test in console's browser.

 

[piokos]

They should have a game that you can play while its setting up. Kinda like how they'd put old arcade games during loading screens. Maybe have a few (Tetris, and there's plenty of mobile games they could ripoff, or even let you play short clips of various games to give a quick trial). For games with character creation they should let you launch that and make your character while you're waiting for the game to download/install.

Actually this has become pretty common today. There's a "ready to play" status during during installation of many large games. I think Blizzard was the first company to make it a standard on their platform (but they have like 10 titles, so not hard to cover).
I don't know which particular Xbox games offer that, but I've certainly seen it happen.

At least with a disc drive you could sling a game in there? I suppose if it is like the 360 support on the One you end up downloading the game anyway. Perhaps this experience is just the accepted way it is for all new consoles electronics these days.

I would imagine people got used to this long time ago. I mean, how long has it been since mainstream laptops started arriving without an optical drive? 5 years?

In the last decade or so I bought a handful of games on DVDs (no other software). And 2 of these games were Blizzard's, so I just registered the key and never used the discs.

 

[Aikouka]

Many people today have internet connections that can comfortably download at 40-50MB/s

I'm not sure how true that is in the United States as you're talking about a ~400Mbps connection. I'm trying to find some good information on the percentage of the population that fit into specific speed categories, but I'm not finding anything great. But I do hope that recent pushes for low-orbit satellite services helps out those in remote areas, and that we can push incumbents to offer better services or go for more home-grown solutions. Frankly, I think I'm rather lucky to have a good Gigabit offering.

Or the NIC in the console is just slower than in your PC. I can't imagine either MS or Sony prioritizing this component (we're talking about devices built around the idea of cost cutting).

I took a peek to make sure, and supposedly, both the PlayStation 4 Pro and Xbox One X, which is what I use, both have a gigabit Ethernet port. Now, that means they're theoretically capable of going up to a gigabit (ignoring protocol overhead and such), but there are other limitations.

One thing that sprung to mind is... CPU. The CPU is typically what handles the I/O processing on a machine, and I can assure you that when I'm hitting 70MB/s on Steam, I can tell through the 9900K heating up, which subsequently causes my water loop's fans to raise in speed slightly. We know that the aforementioned consoles are saddled with a relatively weak Jaguar-based CPU, which could be one aspect that limits it. Also, if I recall, I believe the consoles only dedicate a smaller amount of resources to the OS. I believe the Xbox One is just a single core dedicated to the OS. However, I don't know how it divvies up resources if you're not running a game.

Another avenue to consider would be available disk I/O. ...or it's quite possible that the services are just really slow.

 

[blckgrffn]

I find the idea of being able to move games to spinning disks and back is a good fit for the US audience.

Many are accustomed to hanging a hard drive (many times portable) off their Xbox One or PS4 now for more space. Drives are sold and branded as such. I use a SSD in an USB 3 enclosure for xbox one for my games and apps just to try to speed things up.

If there is an easy "archive" type button for a game, and then if you go to play it again it automagically archives the game you played longest ago and pulls the desired game onto the SSD that is going to be way faster for many. There is a lot of complicated stuff going on in a console that people manage to muddle through, I expect for those who realize this is an issue for them it will not be different.

The new US broadband standards being funded by the FCC are 25/3 minimum (yikes - but so much better than what so many have access to, its nuts). My dad's rural 15 mb fiber to his farm was so "slow" he was in a loop updating his OG Xbox one because it would time out pulling down the files. We had to call in to the ISP and had them set it the max available speed (40mb) in order to get the update successfully.

I too have had my hardwired xbox one download things at pitiful speed compared to my home internet speed.

 

[purbeast0]

Well this is odd if true.

Xbox Series S won’t run Xbox One X versions of backwards compatible games | VGC

Microsoft confirms cheaper next-gen console will run One S versions with its own enhancements…

www.videogameschronicle.com

 

[blckgrffn]

Well this is odd if true.

Xbox Series S won’t run Xbox One X versions of backwards compatible games | VGC

Microsoft confirms cheaper next-gen console will run One S versions with its own enhancements…

www.videogameschronicle.com

I guess reasonable conclusions, yet only true if those remastered titles are really using all the vram under any circumstances. I would think a lot of them use 4GB-6GB of vram or less having seen them in action. I guess it would come down to a game by game review of which version the S would run, but that seems feasible given the wall garden aspect?

Aslo, didn't One X games often have a 1080p mode for those displays? Given lack of "4K" marketing for the series S I would think that mode might be on the table. Or did they render at 4K and then output at 1080?

 

[piokos]

I'm not sure how true that is in the United States as you're talking about a ~400Mbps connection. I'm trying to find some good information on the percentage of the population that fit into specific speed categories, but I'm not finding anything great. But I do hope that recent pushes for low-orbit satellite services helps out those in remote areas, and that we can push incumbents to offer better services or go for more home-grown solutions. Frankly, I think I'm rather lucky to have a good Gigabit offering.

True, I know the situation with high speed connections in US is very specific. But in majority of Europe and developed countries in Asia this shouldn't be a problem anymore.
I've checked the top 3 ISPs in my country (Poland) and you can't even get anything slower than 300Mbps. AFAIK most people get the mid-range 500Mbps option.
And Poland ranks way behind most of developed countries in internet speed rankings (in other things as well, obviously ).

Heck, I've actually signed up for 60Mbps, but I haven't lived in this flat for a while, so I didn't really care. And at some point they've upgraded me to 300Mbps without asking. I just got an e-mail that 60Mbps isn't available anymore.

I took a peek to make sure, and supposedly, both the PlayStation 4 Pro and Xbox One X, which is what I use, both have a gigabit Ethernet port. Now, that means they're theoretically capable of going up to a gigabit (ignoring protocol overhead and such), but there are other limitations.

Oh yeah, absolutely. The NIC says 1Gbps.
But I also suspect it's the slow CPU. As I said: I'll find some ethernet cable and check how fast it goes.

But yeah... being brutally honest, I hope Series S gets solid WiFi 6, because I have no intent to run a wire.

 

[moinmoin]

Unlike Sony Microsoft is pushing for all games to be compatible across the Xbox family so I doubt software will often contain hard limits like this rumor implies. In the ideal case software scales up and down depending on the available resources like we are used to on PC. Among the One X games that actually push big textures to the max available RAM for 4K displays there may be cases where Series S with size and throughput limited RAM may need to go one step lower. But then again Series S is specifically advertised for 1440p displays, so that'd be no real loss, would it?

 

[piokos]

Unlike Sony Microsoft is pushing for all games to be compatible across the Xbox family so I doubt software will often contain hard limits like this rumor implies. In the ideal case software scales up and down depending on the available resources like we are used to on PC.

Making a game available on all platforms supported by Xbox doesn't mean it's the same actual piece of software (i.e. the same installer, with same config and options). Games still differ.
The one for console (and xCloud) is pre-configured for particular hardware (you get less custom settings etc). Not having to scale and align with available resources is a key strength of consoles.
The one for PC is what you normally get on a PC - a lot of sliders. At very best the game studio gives a hand and offers an in-game benchmark that sets it automatically.

There are some differences in interface as well - console games are set up for a controller. PC ones are for keyboard+mouse (sometimes with a controller mode).

The big goal for MS is to make these platforms compatible. So that you can fully move your profile around (saves) and play with others on different platforms.
And these are some crucial problems to solve - primarily, the games have to be identical. This isn't true yet. Games differ from the start, get different expansions (or the same but on different dates).

 

[zinfamous]

Here is more up to date information that Microsoft just dropped to The Verge and other websites with detailed specs.
View attachment 29510

Microsoft reveals Xbox Series S specs, promises four times the processing power of Xbox One

The Xbox Series S has a different GPU than the Series X

www.theverge.com

wow, 512TB NVME Gen4 on the $300 Series S? ....that future alien tech has got to cost them, what, at least 50 Series S boxes alone?

 

[quikah]

More info in XSS BC

This is how Xbox Series S backwards compatibility really works

UPDATE: For the authoritative take on Microsoft's new flagship console, Digital Foundry's full Xbox Series X review is …

www.eurogamer.net

Auto HDR
OG Xbox 3x res scaling X360 2x res scaling
Xbox One S games require minor update (3 lines of code was given) to see full potential (double FPS)
Dynamic res games should see increases, but game with hard coded res will be stuck there

 

[foghorn67]

Delete, wrong thread!

 

[darkswordsman17]

More info in XSS BC

This is how Xbox Series S backwards compatibility really works

UPDATE: For the authoritative take on Microsoft's new flagship console, Digital Foundry's full Xbox Series X review is …

www.eurogamer.net

Auto HDR
OG Xbox 3x res scaling X360 2x res scaling
Xbox One S games require minor update (3 lines of code was given) to see full potential (double FPS)
Dynamic res games should see increases, but game with hard coded res will be stuck there

That's a bit disappointing really. Would think 720p X360 games should be able to be 3x up to 4K, and OG Xbox 4x (although maybe that'd be more for the Series X). And would be nice if they'd implement adjustable processing (so you could do AA or AF for older games, maybe some sharpening, and possibly some other color adjustments).

 

[moinmoin]

That's a bit disappointing really. Would think 720p X360 games should be able to be 3x up to 4K, and OG Xbox 4x (although maybe that'd be more for the Series X). And would be nice if they'd implement adjustable processing (so you could do AA or AF for older games, maybe some sharpening, and possibly some other color adjustments).

I'm confused about what exactly you find disappointing. XSS is a 1440p box, its cut down GPU and memory made possible by the lower resolution is what makes it that much cheaper than the XSX.

Btw. Auto HDR is an amazing feature, combined with backward compatibility it's a game changer imo. Examples well worth a watch on a HDR screen (TV or mobile):

 

[ultimatebob]

Digital with only 512GB SSD... those expansion cards will be mandatory.

Yeah, that's only enough storage for what... 3 modern AAA titles and the base operating system?

 

[Aikouka]

Btw. Auto HDR is an amazing feature, combined with backward compatibility it's a game changer imo. Examples well worth a watch on a HDR screen (TV or mobile)

I will admit that I'm worried about one aspect of it... how it might make things too bright. As much as I give Sony flak for my TV's slow processor, my 930e has really good picture quality for a non-OLED TV. Given HDR content with high luminescence values, the TV gets quite bright. So, when I'm seeing heat maps of Yakuza 0 with many 1000-nit spots all over the screen, I can only imagine how ridiculously bright it will be. That's sort of the odd thing about it; if your TV cannot get that bright, it won't seem as bad.