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[Bernoulli]

is this normal or are they changing something to the Series S could it be a hardware refresh and remove the current one from the market?

More details on the video :
Microsoft released a video that takes an in-depth look at the Xbox Series S with Jason Ronald, Director of Program Management. The video in question discusses the goals of the Series S and X and why the console came to be—a next-gen capable console and at a low price point was important for Xbox’s vision of gaming on the many platforms that we use in our daily lives.

The video also entails information about the Xbox Velocity Architecture, the “ultimate solution for game asset streaming in the next generation”, according to Microsoft. We can see the console’s SSD in action as well, with a comparison of the Xbox One S and Xbox Series S loading into The Outer Worlds. Watching the One S struggle to resume a saved game compared to the Series S is key to understanding why an SSD is important for games moving forward.

Inside the Xbox Series S

Earlier today, Microsoft released a video that takes an in-depth look at the Xbox Series S with Jason Ronald, Director of Program Management. The video in

xboxera.com

There is still a backup from IGN

 

[gametimedecision]

They literally have a 1tb series S coming out September 1st

 

[VitoNotVito]

They finally understand Series S was a mistake.

 

[Bernoulli]

They literally have a 1tb series S coming out September 1st

i know that but why remove the video of the lead architect presentation of the hardware

 

[Zheph]

True legend, scoring goals and fucking the gen with this underpowered console... what is the limit for this man?

 

[mrmustard]

The most interesting question about this topic: Who even finds stuff like that and why?

 

[Bernoulli]

They finally understand Series S was a mistake.

it's a great console and idea behind it is good, cheap access to next gen games but there are some other issues that could have been avoided like less ram and split ram speed and that is on both X and S

 

[Thick Thighs Save Lives]

They finally understand Series S was a mistake.

It's too late for that, probably 50% or more of the Xbox consoles sold are Series S.

 

[Dick Jones]

True legend, scoring goals and fucking the gen with this underpowered console... what is the limit for this man?

Xbox Series SIUUUUU

 

[Bernoulli]

True legend, scoring goals and fucking the gen with this underpowered console... what is the limit for this man?

 

[Panajev2001a]

it's a great console and idea behind it is good, cheap access to next gen games but there are some other issues that could have been avoided like less ram and split ram speed and that is on both X and S

What would make it great would be the execution and to reach that price point the sacrifices they made I do not think were worth the effort. It adds complexity to devs and helps fragment their offering… so yes you limit next gen games but make them more accessible… albeit storage limitations will force you to spend money on the additional expensive additional storage cards and you are close to what PS5 Digital costs… so … eh…

 

[mrmustard]

albeit storage limitations will force you to spend money on the additional expensive additional storage cards and you are close to what PS5 Digital costs… so … eh…

I don't think everybody wants to upgrade the storage. When i was a peasant i never installed more than 2-3 games and even my gaming pc only has 1TB and it's not even half full.

 

[Bernoulli]

What would make it great would be the execution and to reach that price point the sacrifices they made I do not think were worth the effort. It adds complexity to devs and helps fragment their offering… so yes you limit next gen games but make them more accessible… albeit storage limitations will force you to spend money on the additional expensive additional storage cards and you are close to what PS5 Digital costs… so … eh…

I think it would've been better if they made a digital series x with less storage and sell it at loss at 350, if the PS5 digital can be sold at 399 the X digital can make 350 easily with Microsoft's money

 

[Three]

is this normal or are they changing something to the Series S could it be a hardware refresh and remove the current one from the market?

More details on the video :
Microsoft released a video that takes an in-depth look at the Xbox Series S with Jason Ronald, Director of Program Management. The video in question discusses the goals of the Series S and X and why the console came to be—a next-gen capable console and at a low price point was important for Xbox’s vision of gaming on the many platforms that we use in our daily lives.

The video also entails information about the Xbox Velocity Architecture, the “ultimate solution for game asset streaming in the next generation”, according to Microsoft. We can see the console’s SSD in action as well, with a comparison of the Xbox One S and Xbox Series S loading into The Outer Worlds. Watching the One S struggle to resume a saved game compared to the Series S is key to understanding why an SSD is important for games moving forward.

Inside the Xbox Series S

Earlier today, Microsoft released a video that takes an in-depth look at the Xbox Series S with Jason Ronald, Director of Program Management. The video in

xboxera.com

There is still a backup from IGN

They did this a while ago. I noticed it back in April but my conclusions and assumptions are different to yours. My post in some other thread from April:

Kind of off topic but I'm not sure they pushed that so much. The PR blurb the person poked fun at is from a since deleted MS video. It's telling that they removed that video because over time Series S cut other things like framerate modes, raytracing, and lowered settings. Probably deleted it for legal reasons they didn’t want to bite them in the ass.

The removed video if you can do some cache or wayback machine magic or something :



Screengrabs if you can't :

they talked about smart delivery too (mainly with xbox one) but the PR at the time was heavily focused on same features just lowered rendering resolution for Series S at 1440p. The guys post was only poking fun at that PR which didn't really turn out to be true.

I think they removed it because it amounted to misinformation. MS at the time was adamant that the Series S just meant lower res and they pushed that in videos like this. Over time it became apparent this wasn't true. Framerates halved on Series S compared to the other consoles and features like raytracing started to go missing. We just had Remnant 2 with half the framerate as an example. I don't think it means Series S is no more.

 

[Bernoulli]

They did this a while ago. I noticed it back in April but my conclusions and assumptions are different to yours. My post in some other thread from April:



I think they removed it because it amounted to misinformation. MS at the time was adamant that the Series S just meant lower res and they pushed that in videos like this. Over time it became apparent this wasn't true. Framerates halved on Series S compared to the other consoles and features like raytracing started to go missing. We just had Remnant 2 with half the framerate as an example. I don't think it means Series S is no more.

I didn't know you can get a law suit for things like that, is that in america only?
But it explains also the removal of the most powerful console for the x

 

[VitoNotVito]

They did this a while ago. I noticed it back in April but my conclusions and assumptions are different to yours. My post in some other thread from April:



I think they removed it because it amounted to misinformation. MS at the time was adamant that the Series S just meant lower res and they pushed that in videos like this. Over time it became apparent this wasn't true. Framerates halved on Series S compared to the other consoles and features like raytracing started to go missing. We just had Remnant 2 with half the framerate as an example. I don't think it means Series S is no more.

I don't think MSFT cares about it at all.
The bottom line is that developers are getting f*cked by the limitations. Plus the gamers who probably are being restricted from what they could enjoy/see if series S didn't exist.

 

[Three]

I didn't know you can get a law suit for things like that, is that in america only?
But it explains also the removal of the most powerful console for the x

I'm not sure if it would be successful but you can get one for all sorts. Sony landed in a lawsuit just for using temporal reprojection to achieve 1080p in Killzone and having it printed on the back of the game case as 1080p.

 

[damidu]

if the video had the “same game, just at lower res” bullshit in it, they might needed to remove it for possible legal issues at this point

 

[Bernoulli]

if the video had the “same game, just at lower res” bullshit in it, they might needed to remove it for possible legal issues at this point

Just watched it again and it says multiple times that everything is same as Series X in detall ray tracing frames just at lower res

 

[Ronin_7]

Series S was a huge mistake.

Microsoft clearly made a mistake here.

 

[Black_Stride]

They finally understand Series S was a mistake.

Series S was a huge mistake.

Microsoft clearly made a mistake here.

They literally just announced a Carbon Black Series S?

And its probably gonna make them a killing if they actually manage to sell this thing for 350 dollars.

 

[Kakax11]

Probably because it's a 720p machine now

 

[DenchDeckard]

The most interesting question about this topic: Who even finds stuff like that and why?

exactly :/

Probably because it's a 720p machine now

So is the Series X and PS5.

 

[Black_Stride]

Probably because it's a 720p machine now

Like the Series X and PS5?

 

[Bernoulli]

They literally just announced a Carbon Black Series S?

And its probably gonna make them a killing if they actually manage to sell this thing for 350 dollars.

It won't work if the ps5 digital is at 399

 

[Black_Stride]

It won't work if the ps5 digital is at 399

Mate.
The economics of the Series S has never made sense, but that thing still sells.

For some consumers (read as most) simply being cheap is a major selling point.....they wont/dont have a Series X to do side by side comparisons of how the framerate/resolution/raytracing is lower on their Series S, they are just happy to be there having paid less money.

Consider at launch the Series S and a 512GB expansion card cost 450 dollars.
The Series X that comes with a disk drive, 1TB out of the box and much more potent GPU cost 500 dollars.

 

[Bernoulli]

Mate.
The economics of the Series S has never made sense, but that thing still sells.

For some consumers (read as most) simply being cheap is a major selling point.....they wont/dont have a Series X to do side by side comparisons of how the framerate/resolution/raytracing is lower on their Series S, they are just happy to be there having paid less money.

Consider at launch the Series S and a 512GB expansion card cost 450 dollars.
The Series X that comes with a disk drive, 1TB out of the box and much more potent GPU cost 500 dollars.

It sells alot because it was the only console available at the start of this gen
Let's take iPhones for example, the best selling one is the Iphone Pro max each year because people always buy the highest end possible
So i doubt Series S was only because of the price, it's mostly because when everything was out of stock the S was always available

Now that there are no more supply issues and the S will receive a price increase to 350 i doubt it well sell well anymore

 

[Horseganador]

Normal, you couldn't lie more in less time.

 

[Tomeru]

Nah, I think theyre just finding their balls with the abk buy.

 

[Black_Stride]

It sells alot because it was the only console available at the start of this gen
Let's take iPhones for example, the best selling one is the Iphone Pro max each year because people always buy the highest end possible
So i doubt Series S was only because of the price, it's mostly because when everything was out of stock the S was always available

Now that there are no more supply issues and the S will receive a price increase to 350 i doubt it well sell well anymore

Range toppers are almost never the best selling anything.
The car industry has had to fight this shit by basically eliminating base models.

I used to follow phone sales quite heavily, the best selling Android was never the range topper, it was usually something from Samsungs A series in the west, and a Xiaomi phone in Asia.

 

[Aion002]

Mate.
The economics of the Series S has never made sense, but that thing still sells.

For some consumers (read as most) simply being cheap is a major selling point.....they wont/dont have a Series X to do side by side comparisons of how the framerate/resolution/raytracing is lower on their Series S, they are just happy to be there having paid less money.

Consider at launch the Series S and a 512GB expansion card cost 450 dollars.
The Series X that comes with a disk drive, 1TB out of the box and much more potent GPU cost 500 dollars.

It makes sense in 3rd world countries.

For example, here in hell (aka Brazil), the price difference between the Series S and the X/PS5 is gigantic, the Series S can be usually bought for less than 400 usd, while the SX and the PS5 are usually priced for more than 900 usd. The Series S is even cheaper than the ps4 in most cases, a brand new ps4 usually is priced 500 usd.

 

[ToTTenTranz]

They finally understand Series S was a mistake.

A lot of people - me included - saw the Series S as a potentially genius move because Microsoft could very quickly convert that hardware into a low-power portable form and ~3 years down the generation they'd release a handheld console with the exact same specs running the Series S settings.

There couldn't be any other reason to clock the Series S' GPU so low. I bet they could clock that iGPU to the Series X's 1.825MHz and power consumption for a home console would barely move (+15W at most?), so they left like 17% GPU performance on the table.

Instead, they... didn't launch anything.
The Series S is now just this awkward piece of hardware that holds Microsoft's portfolio back, needs immense optimization to go around the 8GB RAM limit available for games and is simply unable to follow its big brother's IQ settings at a lower resolution which is what Microsoft had initially promised.

I used to follow phone sales quite heavily, the best selling Android was never the range topper, it was usually something from Samsungs A series in the west, and a Xiaomi phone in Asia.

Top-ends actually used to be best-sellers for non-chinese brands up until 2017-2018 when phone makers decided to cross the ~700€ mark for those models. Then Samsung released their A-series which have 99% of the functionality of the S-series and things turned around pretty steeply.

 

[Edmund]

A lot of people - me included - saw the Series S as a potentially genius move because Microsoft could very quickly convert that hardware into a low-power portable form and ~3 years down the generation they'd release a handheld console with the exact same specs running the Series S settings.

There couldn't be any other reason to clock the Series S' GPU so low. I bet they could clock that iGPU to the Series X's 1.825MHz and power consumption for a home console would barely move (+15W at most?), so they left like 17% GPU performance on the table.

Instead, they... didn't launch anything.
The Series S is now just this awkward piece of hardware that holds Microsoft's portfolio back, needs immense optimization to go around the 8GB RAM limit available for games and is simply unable to follow its big brother's IQ settings at a lower resolution which is what Microsoft had initially promised.




Top-ends actually used to be best-sellers for non-chinese brands up until 2017-2018 when phone makers decided to cross the ~700€ mark for those models. Then Samsung released their A-series which have 99% of the functionality of the S-series and things turned around pretty steeply.

3rd party games will be held back by the Series S until at least 2030 since this gen would last till 2028, and most 3rd party developers will have to develop cross gen games till 2030 with the shit specs of the Series S in mind.

 

[Razvedka]

They did this a while ago. I noticed it back in April but my conclusions and assumptions are different to yours. My post in some other thread from April:



I think they removed it because it amounted to misinformation. MS at the time was adamant that the Series S just meant lower res and they pushed that in videos like this. Over time it became apparent this wasn't true. Framerates halved on Series S compared to the other consoles and features like raytracing started to go missing. We just had Remnant 2 with half the framerate as an example. I don't think it means Series S is no more.

This is my assessment too. It's very clear the things they said and promised consumers were patently false.

I wonder if eventually there could be a class action lawsuit or something.

 

[Heisenberg007]

lol. Too late, Microsoft.

There are way too many screenshots and videos out there already that show claims of features parity and other failed promises.

 

[violence]

I like it because it’s white. It matches my PS5 and panda colored computer. I’m sure it’s a pain in the butt for the devs though.

 

[drganon]

Not encouraging.

 

[cireza]

Plus the gamers who probably are being restricted from what they could enjoy/see if series S didn't exist.

Series S gamers would definitely be quite restricted in what they could see if Series S didn't exist.

So i doubt Series S was only because of the price, it's mostly because when everything was out of stock the S was always available

So this was super smart from MS.

Series S is still selling a lot, so they most probably identified and successfully targeted a different market. Super smart x2.

 

[lostinblue]

it's a great console and idea behind it is good, cheap access to next gen games but there are some other issues that could have been avoided like less ram and split ram speed and that is on both X and S

Mileage will vary, but RAM amount and different pools are not an issue as big as some developers make it out to be if you take that into account from the get go.

The issue is always when you wanted to assign very little budget and resources to a Xbox Series S version because you know most reviewers are not gonna play on a budget console anyway. And can't do that because you either do the game with a 8 GB of RAM (which means a bit of work if your code is not optimised enough), or you have to retool stuff into 8 GB (fast ram)+2GB (slow memory). It's the less optimised games on the big consoles that are suffering the most when being adapted.

But this is quite dumb, 2GB is not that much RAM against the main pool and is certainly not all accessible with at least 1GB being used for Operating system stuff, just put sound processes, and some repeating assets on those 1/1,5GB and call it a day.

The only caveat here is that not dealing with S is actually an advantage for some AAA titles choosing to be only on PS5, moreso than if only the series X existed

 

[thismeinteil]

Series S gamers would definitely be quite restricted in what they could see if Series S didn't exist.


So this was super smart from MS.

Series S is still selling a lot, so they most probably identified and successfully targeted a different market. Super smart x2.

So smart it's getting outsold 2+:1 by a system $200 more expensive. The only thing the S has done is thrown an anchor around devs that has forced basically a cross-gen situation throughout the entire gen. Which may be the reason SE isn't porting some games, even though the exclusivity argument with Sony has run out.

@OP
Gotta remove that false advertising now that we know the "everything is the same, just at 1440p" was just BS.

 

[Banjo64]

It makes sense in 3rd world countries.

For example, here in hell (aka Brazil), the price difference between the Series S and the X/PS5 is gigantic, the Series S can be usually bought for less than 400 usd, while the SX and the PS5 are usually priced for more than 900 usd. The Series S is even cheaper than the ps4 in most cases, a brand new ps4 usually is priced 500 usd.

What does a switch cost?

 

[Bernoulli]

What does a switch cost?

a friend from africa explained me this
if the consoles or phone are sold in the country the same as in europe but their minimum wage is way lower
like PS5 costs 500 euro but the minim wage is 100/month
but if the console is not sold in the country and have to import it costs way more 700 or even 800 euro
thats why there they rely alot on old gen , now they are on PS4
what he does is when he travels there he bring a console to his family there

 

[Duchess]

Maybe all those expert engineers sent over to Larian Studios returned to Microsoft HQ with some bad news ...

 

[lostinblue]

So smart it's getting outsold 2+:1 by a system $200 more expensive.

Well, if you go to a store to buy a PS5, you'll leave with a PS5. That's it.

If it wasn't for the S it would be even worse as Sony this generation is quite strong.

 

[Unknown?]

I think it would've been better if they made a digital series x with less storage and sell it at loss at 350, if the PS5 digital can be sold at 399 the X digital can make 350 easily with Microsoft's money

They could have given away tons of Series consoles for free if they had used that 70b right.

 

[ChorizoPicozo]

is sony going to do something about all the videos talking about the speed of the SSD?

is this thing even a big deal anyway?

 

[Onironauta]

3rd party games will be held back by the Series S until at least 2030 since this gen would last till 2028, and most 3rd party developers will have to develop cross gen games till 2030 with the shit specs of the Series S in mind.

PC games are already developed with this kind of constraints and it's not an issue. They just need to lower resolution, asset quality and other effects.
Keep in mind AAA games still run on Steam Deck which is way more underpowered than Series S. Yes, it has more RAM but it also has to run a heavier OS and less optimized games.

 

[Crispy Gamer]

Well they definitely miscalculated it's not the first time a hardware manufacturer oversold its hardware and definitely will not be the last

 

[cireza]

So smart it's getting outsold 2+:1 by a system $200 more expensive.

If a car doesn't sell as much as some other car, then it is failing ? This dumb reasoning should die.

Series S represents half of the sales of Xbox Series. If you can't understand how important this is for MS, then we can't help you.

We really needed to necrobump a 2 years old video to shit a bit more on MS.

Oh my God, MS have removed a video ! The world needs to know.

 

[Bernkastel]

Lots of schizo discussion. Microsoft often removes old Xbox/surface promo videos because the licence for the music they use expired, or if there's an updated promo. I am outside on a phone, but are there any soundtracks in that video? Or maybe there will be a new promo.