Is The XBOX Series S WORTH IT In 2023?

the xbox series s is the disc list little brother to the more powerful xbox series x however it's the only next gen console that you can actually walk into a store and buy and today we're going to take an up close and personal look at the xbox series s and find out whether this console is worth it before we get into that though i am actually giving away a brand new xbox series s in fact it's the xbox series s on the shelf behind me if you guys want to enter for a chance to win that console for yourself make sure to subscribe to my channel through the link in the top of the description below and not to ruin the review for you guys but i wouldn't be giving away one of these consoles if i didn't think it was a great console and i didn't think it was worth it overall so to fill you all in on where the xbox series s fits within microsoft's next generation console lineup the xbox series s is the cheaper or lower end version of their next-gen consoles you've got the xbox series s coming in at a retail price of 299 and the more expensive and i guess top of the line xbox series x coming in at a retail price of 4.99 now what's interesting about these two consoles is that the differences between the xbox series s and the series x actually run a little bit deeper than having a disk drive and not having a disk drive the xbox series s is a significantly smaller console footprint wise it features half the storage of the xbox series x at 512 gigabytes and it's a slightly less powerful console graphically the xbox series x on the other hand starts with one terabyte of storage in fact that's the only configuration that it comes with it features a disk drive and it has the full graphical capabilities and while you're probably saying to yourself right now of course i'm gonna go for the xbox series x why wouldn't i go for the better overall console well hold up a second there's actually a pretty big difference between these two consoles besides just tech specs and that's price the xbox series s comes in at a retail price of just 299 or 300 whereas the xbox series x is closer to 500 and 200 bucks is a lot of money to spend for the higher end version of the same console that technically plays the exact same games yeah the xbox series x plays the exact same games as the xbox series s except in a slightly higher resolution and not only that you can actually walk into a store right now and grab an xbox series s you can't do that with an xbox series x it's two years after the console launched so in a lot of ways the xbox series s is your only way to experience next-gen gaming right now in 2022 you can't walk into a store and grab a series x you definitely can't walk into a store and grab any version of the playstation 5. the xbox series s is really it with that being said while the xbox series s might be your only option it's actually a pretty great option but before we get into some of the great things that i love about the console i guess some of the pros let's first talk about the cons so if you've ever downloaded games onto any kind of system whether it's a pc or switch or even xbox you know that some of these games can take up hundreds of gigabytes especially games like call of duty now unfortunately as you've probably already heard the xbox series s only comes with 512 gigabytes and that's before you install the system software after you install the system software which actually comes pre-installed on the console you really only get 360 free gigabytes which if you're a big fan of warzone means you're getting like two games on the console i mean it sucks it's genuinely not a lot of space and even if you grab the xbox series x you're only getting like 800 gigs of storage after all the system files so you're still not getting a lot more storage there either so right now xbox offers three different memory cards that you can use to expand the storage of your xbox series s or xbox series x and these memory cards come in three different flavors you've got 512 gigabytes you've got one terabyte and two terabytes however the problem is these memory cards are incredibly expensive in fact the 512 gigabyte version which doubles the storage of your console comes in at 139 and it just gets worse from there the one terabyte version starts at 219 which is basically the same price as the xbox series s and then you've got the two terabyte version which goes up to 399 dollars which is more expensive than the console itself now obviously these options are not ideal but at the end of the day if you end up grabbing an xbox series s or you get one for christmas or something like that and you need more storage a couple years down the road it's not the worst way to go it means you don't have to buy a brand new console you can just buy storage that's about the same price as a brand new console now you might be thinking to yourself well if i grab an xbox series x i'll have a disk drive and the games can just run off the disk drive that's not really the case in fact if you buy a disk on any of the next gen consoles you actually still install those games on the hard drive regardless and the disk is just a way of checking to make sure that you actually own the game which in my opinion is ridiculous but that's just how things are so if you're buying a hard copy of a game you're really taking up almost the same amount of storage you would take up if you bought the game digitally so grabbing an xbox series x for the disc drive is not really a great deciding factor that being said if you have a disk drive you can still borrow your friends games it's not completely out of the realm of possibility but it's just not as great of a feature as you would think but let's put storage off to the side for a little bit because no matter which console you grab whether it's the s or the x you are probably going to run into storage issues at some point and you're gonna have to find a way to deal with that obviously with the xbox series s it's gonna be much faster than it would be with the xbox series x but i think if you're grabbing the xbox series s you might have a different use case than if you grab the xbox series x but i'll get into that a little bit later on as far as the actual industrial design of the console i actually prefer the look of the xbox series s to the xbox series x the footprint of the console is incredibly small i mean it's almost the same size as my freaking steam deck it's nuts i can't even believe it not only that the xbox series s looks good that little black circular vent on the side of the console might not be for everybody but it definitely has an iconic look and not only that the xbox series s also runs incredibly quietly in fact significantly more quietly than the xbox series x maybe because it doesn't have a disk drive or maybe because it doesn't get as hot but either way it's a lot quieter now speaking of heat the xbox series s can get pretty hot under load it's it's not the coolest console in the world but at the same time it's not unnerving you'll put your hand on it you'll be like oh that's hot and that's that's about it just make sure you keep the console in a well ventilated area and that's pretty true for any of the next-gen consoles ps5 xbox series x pc it doesn't matter you should keep them all in well ventilated areas and not in a tiny little drawer but let's get to another pretty big difference between the xbox series s and the xbox series x and that's graphical capabilities the graphics of the xbox series s are pretty comparable to last generation's xbox one x the highest end version of the xbox one the xbox series x on the other hand does feature the better graphics overall i mean it's the top of the line graphics that you can get for any microsoft console at the moment and there is honestly a noticeable difference when it comes to frame rate and also resolution i mean the xbox series s is just literally not as powerful as the xbox series x and because of that you're not getting like full blown 4k 60 gaming you're getting something that's a similar experience but it just doesn't look as good now in my opinion that is in no way a deal breaker if the xbox series s is your only option it's a great way to go and the games still look good they just don't look as great as the xbox series x but then play those same games on a pc and you'll be like okay well obviously the xbox series x doesn't even look as good as the pc at the end of the day you're just getting good graphics they're just not the best version of those graphics that being said you're getting literally the exact same games the latest games are playable on both the xbox series s and the xbox series x there is no difference between the two consoles when it comes to game library so i mean really for 200 less than the xbox series x you could play all the same exact games and have pretty much the same exact gaming experiences obviously you can't play disc based games on the xbox series s so if you're bringing games over from your original xbox that you have on disks you can't play them in the xbox series s because it doesn't have a disk drive but at the same time i've noticed that people seem to do that a lot less than they think that they would but now let's get to one of the features that i really feel like is microsoft's killer app and that's game pass and this is honestly another reason why i feel like the xbox series s is such a good value because both the s and the x can use game pass and they can both use it the exact same way so if you're not familiar with game pass essentially what it is is it's a 15 a month service that allows you to download games for free and play them on your console and the thing that makes game pass so great is that their library of games is so expansive it spans from like the original xbox all the way up to the brand newest games like literally as soon as a next generation game drops on the same exact day it's available on game pass like halo infinite was available both in stores on launch day and also game pass and if you paid 15 a month you could download halo infinite essentially for free on the day of release and that's not just true for something like halo but it's true for a bunch of brand new games that have come out and have yet to come out in fact most of the must play games on the xbox series systems are available on game pass it's nuts to me and yes 15 a month does add up but if you're buying a game like once a month or once every even four months it's still worth it and again game pass is available on both the xbox series s and the xbox series x which means you can play all the same games on both consoles so you can play all those games on the xbox series s for 200 cheaper so to wrap things up should you get the xbox series s over the xbox series x and is the xbox series s worth it well let me answer that by giving you a couple different scenarios the first scenario is it's coming up on christmas time you need to buy your kid a new next generation console and you walk into the store and all that's available is the xbox series s and while you don't have really any options other than the xbox series s in that scenario i actually think you're getting a great console for a great price and something that's actually available and allows your kid or yourself to play the latest greatest games for like 200 less than the more expensive console another scenario is you want the top of the line gaming experience you have a ton of money you can buy the top of the line consoles for resale in that situation and really only in that situation grab the xbox series x grab the playstation 5. grab those more expensive consoles because you can afford it and honestly overall they will give you the highest level of gameplay experience they're gonna give you the best frame rates they're gonna give you the best graphics but at the end of the day they're still playing the same games and then the final scenario the one that i feel like is the most realistic and the one that most people experience you have 300 you don't really care about the best graphics in the world you just want to play with your friends online and you want to play all the latest games an xbox series s with game pass is 2.99 it's a great console you can buy it right now and i absolutely think it's worth it in that scenario the xbox series s is really a no-brainer it's 299 it's 200 cheaper than the xbox series x you can buy it it plays all the same games and the package is pretty good looking obviously the xbox series s is lacking in the storage department that's something that you can fix but it will be a little expensive but at the end of the day if you want to play the latest games you want to play them online with your friends the xbox series s is the way to go in my opinion the xbox series s is a great entry level console and is absolutely worth it in 2022 but that pretty much wraps up the video for today now i would love to know your thoughts on the xbox series s and what you think about this console so make sure to let me know your thoughts in the comment section down below once again if you want to win a brand new xbox series s for yourself make sure to subscribe to the channel by clicking that link in the top of the description below and as always thank you so much for watching make sure to subscribe if you haven't yet and i'll see you all in the next

Channel: Seth

Views: 705,823

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Id: vcmyL1YKoa0

Length: 10min 46sec (646 seconds)

Published: Fri Jul 08 2022