X Box Series S Review

 

It's a small, attractive console with a simplistic yet elegant design. Hah.

Although I'm mainly a PC gamer, I purchased an Xbox Series S a while back, mainly so that my Playstation-owning buddy could come over and crossplay Halo Infinite multiplayer between the Xbox and PC. It also functions well as a backup gaming machine, which is something to keep in mind, since if my 5700 xt broke I'd be out at least 600 bucks to replace it with something similar.

As a budget machine, I think the Series S works really well, especially with last generation games. Halo 5 runs at 4k and 60 fps; I ran through the tutorial section of Gears 5 and it seems to hit the advertised 1440p/60 fps that Microsoft claims the console was designed for. However, Halo Infinite is another story. Performance mode in Infinite is a dynamic 1080p/60 fps, and boy, that resolution scaling is pretty noticeable, to the point where I'd say that Halo 5 looks better on the Series S. If you sit a distance away from your tv like I do, that's not a big deal. If you sit closer, however, you'll notice those resolution shifts. Regardless, the Series S is still a great deal compared to a budget PC or a last gen console. An Nvidia rtx 3050 will cost you at least 250 bucks, and realistically you're looking at probably twice that. So for the price of an entry level graphics card you can buy a Series S. Also, the updated Zen 2 8 core CPU will ensure that the Series S ages much better than an Xbox One X or a PS4. However, there's no doubt in my mind that this console will probably be targeting dynamic 1080p/60 fps or native 1080p/30 fps in the next couple of years. The GPU is just too weak. Halo Infinite might not be a well-optimized game, but it's still a cross-gen title, and as developers push the power of the X Box Series X and Playstation 5, that advertised 1440p/60 fps nonsense will be forgotten. Keep in mind that the high end consoles can't even do native 4k/60 fps. Demanding titles such as Halo Infinite, Forza 5, and Deathloop all use dynamic resolution scaling to hit 60 fps, with the resolution often dipping down to 1440p. In the words of the great poet Flavor Flav, don't believe the hype.

So yeah, the Series S is a great budget machine, perfect for Game Pass. It's Quick Resume feature let's you immediately resume a game you've been playing, and the whole process, from turning on the console to resuming your game, probably takes less than ten seconds. If you're a budget gamer or looking for a cheap console, it's a great option. Just don't expect it to rival a mid-range PC.