Xbox Series: Part One - The Series S Announcement
Discussing the Xbox Series S Announcement
9/8/20
DISCLAIMER: I know many of you who keep up-to-date on my @randomcrazystudios Instagram account were expecting more reviews, but I had to discuss this. It caught me off-guard, and it's looking like I'll finish the August reviews by the end of September... yikes.
Prior to the rumors about the Xbox Series S, fans had already known about the company's big ninth-gen console: the Series X. It was revealed in June of 2019 as "Project Scarlett", which, granted, is a much better name. Though this year has brought with it new rumors of a smaller all-digital version of the bigger console. This was known as "Project Lockhart" alongside the older name, but was later found to probably be the "Series S". Since then, rumors have been wild and sporadic, but this global reveal trailer from Xbox themselves proves that we had basically predicted everything. Of course there are some slight tweaks to what we thought, but nonetheless, almost everything here is worth going over.
First, we are given two vague terms about how this console has "next-gen" features. Then, we see that it's literally the smallest Xbox ever, even though it still needs almost as much space as the jokingly large Xbox Series X if this console can't be set on its side. Some more non-descriptive words are thrown around until we see that this console can run up to 120 frames per second. Many were predicting that this console would run at a solid 60 frames per second when the display was set to 1080p, and when in 1440p, it would average around 45. Later in the presentation, we learn the console displays full 1440p and will reach anywhere up to 120 frames per second depending on the game. Just before the one-minute mark, we see a small advertisement for Xbox's Game Pass Ultimate; basically a streaming service for games. Following this is a slew of general information.
The first item in this nine-point list of features, we see that the console is all digital, though we practically knew this even before the trailer. We then see the console's consistent 1440p, and that it does indeed get up to 120 frames per second. This is very interesting, and certainly impressive for its price. I have no problem with this, but it makes far more sense to save the higher frame rates and graphical capabilities for the better version of the console. Of course your players would like a smoother gaming experience, but this could easily be done with 1080p and a 60 frames per second lock. After this came a few more somewhat minor technical specifications, and a release date of November 10th.
Right after this trailer was over, I rushed over to Xbox's YouTube channel to see if they had announced anything else about the Series X, particularly its price and launch date. Strangely enough, they hadn't said anything. The rumors clearly stated that the two consoles would launch aside each other, but the fact that neither a price nor release date has been established for the main console leaves me confused. My theory is that the Series X will be delayed until March of 2021, and will launch aside a perhaps unfinished "Halo: Infinite". Pulling a Nintendo, in a sense. This might happen because of the multiple delays on "Halo: Infinite", as they would wanted to launch their big new console along side its big new first-party title. It's hard to believe this potential delay being due to the coronavirus because the Series S seems to have been pushed out just fine. As of yet, the reason is still unknown, but looking at the way game-related news has been announced, they could drop this trailer tomorrow. Though, I'll save this for a more specific discussion later incase we don't receive any information soon.
The biggest personal controversy I have with this system is its incredibly low amount of storage. The rumors stated this console would launch with one terabyte of system storage for 300 dollars, but we received only 512 gigabytes; half of what made sense to everyone. They did say this was custom, but the price will most likely be increased along with the storage. The main reason for this being so strange is this system is completely digital. Something like this would be fine with games only needing to store the players save data on the system, but here, they're storing the entire game.
An example I used to put this into perspective during my Instagram live discussion was "DOOM Eternal". According to the "steampowered.com" store, "DOOM Eternal" requires a minimum of 50 gigabytes of storage to download, excluding space for save data. If we round the storage of the Series S to an even 500GB, we find that you could download this game only 10 times before your storage completely caps out. Obviously, you naturally wouldn't download a game more than once at a time. The point being that with such big games running with such high specs, you need more storage. One of the games I'm most excited for on this new console is "Microsoft Flight Simulator". This is likely one of the biggest games set for the system as it features an open world to fly over centered around the size of the Earth. This game comes in at 150GB. This will take up a whole 30 percent of the entire storage on the Xbox Series S system. There will not be many games bigger than this one, but major games like this usually span anywhere from 10 gigabytes to maybe 80. Saying every game you would buy for this system averages at a size of 50GB, you could only buy 10 games before you have to get a micro-SD card.
The prices of micro-SD cards have certainly gone down over the years, and they go on sale very frequently. Though, an actually good micro-SD card that carries enough room to push this console's storage to a terabyte would cost around 100 dollars. If I buy the system, it's outrageous that I'll have to spend this much money on it so soon. Transferring the data from card to card on my 512GB Macbook Air is yet another story. For my Nintendo Switch though, this is fine. Nintendo is also way different in their methods of game compression. Even a grand and beautiful experience like "Super Mario Odyssey" only takes up 5.6GB, and could easily hold hundreds of hours of content. I bought a 200GB micro-SD card on sale for around 30 dollars, and it may easily last me until the end of my Switch's lifespan if I buy the very large games physically. Like Bill Gates says, with bigger consoles comes more bigger video games. This is certainly a big console, but there's hardly a point to it if it's unable to store said bigger games.
In conclusion, this announcement was certainly interesting, and is certain to spark a lot of controversy and discussion over the internet. Though, I haven't gone searching YouTube for the general consensus on the announcement as to not influence my opinion at the time of writing this. For 300 dollars, it's hard to say that I'll buy this instantly because of all the micro-SD cards I'll be buying alongside of it. For now, though, I'll hold off until perhaps an even less powerful variation of this console comes out with a goddamn disc drive. Overall, this announcement was a nice surprise, and included a lot of intriguing information. More importantly, it's nice to have this big thing finally announced and out of the "rumor" phase, though more rumors about it are bound to come soon.
Image sources (in order):
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KHLfCFMKxPg (3 screenshots taken by me)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KHLfCFMKxPg (one more screenshot taken by me)
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