Tuesday, September 8th 2020
Microsoft Unveils the Xbox Series S: The Smallest Xbox Ever
Microsoft today surprised us with the Xbox Series S announcement. The Xbox Series S offers "next gen performance" and is the "smallest Xbox ever." The company promised to share more details, but when it goes on sale, it will cost just USD $299 (ERP). The announcement teaser had a pretty clear image of the finished product, revealing it to be barely more than two controllers in volume. A large fan intake makes up one of its side panels. It retains the general design of the larger Xbox Series X. Microsoft stated it will share more details about the new console.
Source:
Microsoft Xbox (Twitter)
113 Comments on Microsoft Unveils the Xbox Series S: The Smallest Xbox Ever
Honestly, it'd be hard for me to find a TV that is above ~40" and NOT 4K.
Your comparison to PCs is also a complete false equivalency: here we're talking about two performance tiers (three in terms of games that also launch for the high end versions of previous gen consoles), with essentially one fixed set of variables (either tier A with attributes x, or tier B with attributes y), while for PCs the performance tiers are essentially endless - there are at least three generations of GPUs from two vendors that are still relevant, with anywhere from a handful to a dozen SKUs per generation, with vast performance gaps, and several models come in different VRAM configurations too. There are a decade's worth of CPUs, ranging from 4c4t to 16c32t, at widely varying frequencies, with different levels of cache and other relevant attributes. There are at least three relevant RAM levels - 8, 16 and 32GB - three major 16:9 resolutions, a jumble of 21:9 resolutions, and even 32:9 cropping up. Even just simplifying this down to simple base variables - CPU, GPU, RAM and resolution - you have a vastly more complex system than an A/B choice of console performance tiers.
1080p on a 4K display vs 4K on a 4K display, fine you can argue that it's not that bad from far back.
1080p on a 1080p display vs 4K on a 4K display or even 1080p on a 4K display is worlds apart.Just because one has more configurations it doesn't mean it's not the same idea. And really you can reduce those "endless" tiers to just a few that really matter or that make a difference. The point is, it used to be that there was 1 console from each vendor that you'd buy and that was it. It's a paradox, the mantra was that supposedly the typical console buyer doesn't care about higher resolutions and performance, he just wants to play games and yet now he has to chose based on those metrics.
Just like on a PC ...
LG has quite a few heck I got a cheapo 43" class 300.us it's actually a pretty good smart t.v. and yes 4k UHD with HDR
Not worth it ? well depends on your needs this was just a cheap replacement for 40" that finally died after 6 years that was a heck of a lot more.
Primary Display Resolution
@Vya Domus this console can do upscaled 4K so it probably looks good enough on a 4K TV.
But yeah, 95% of what's coming through the Xfinity "standard" cable is garbage. Most isn't even 1080p yet, it's 720.
Buying a 1080p TV at today's prices is foolish.
And yes, cable is just compressed till all detail is lost, no upscaler can make that look good.
Seems fine to me although I disable hdr feature and use cinema mode
Other than that for 300.us t.v picture is good better than prior sony 40" which cost double at the least and was pc capable with vga port.
Also on hdmi scales nicely using old 980ti.
There is no negative to giving consumers more options...
$299 is indeed crazy for the spec.
Secondly, who on earth sits two meters away from a 65" TV? The most frequently quoted tip for TV viewing distance I've seen is as close as possible to 3x the diagonal size of the TV away from it - which for a 65" TV thus becomes five metres. Of course not many people have living rooms that huge, but two metres for that size of TV is ridiculous.
As for your display/render resolution comparison, I think you're partially right, but it very much depends on the quality of the TV too. 1080p on a cheap/bad 4k TV looks far worse than 1080p on a good 1080p TV. Still, at that point you should agree that rendering at a lower resolution is an entirely acceptable approach towards providing a comparable gaming experience at a lower cost, right?MS cares about their install base for their console ecosystem, not sales numbers for specific pieces of hardware - game sales and subscription service sales are what you make money on in the console business, not hardware sales. So MS will be happy no matter which console you buy from them as long as they can then sell you Xbox Live Gold or Game Pass. Which is going to be a huge proportion of buyers of even the cheaper console. Game Pass Ultimate is a killer deal even for PC gamers, after all.
In my opinion 100 is much closer to the same magnitude that 2 is, instead of the "millions" like you argue.
Consoles used to be sold on the premise that there is going to be just one hardware configuration which will last for years, 2 > 1, so that principle is already broken. Xbox One games look like mud (720p and even less) compared to their Xbox One X counter parts. Xbox Series S games will look the same compared to whatever higher end console they'll make (which you know they will, eventually) or maybe even to Series X right now.
You view it as a compromise, I view it as MS selling underpowered crap and creating a bunch of platforms delivering inconsistent quality.They don't have a "million" options, they have very few, it's rare that I see a game with more than 5 options say, maximum about 10. It doesn't matter because the same idea applies, out of those 10 options, maybe 3-4 have a noticeable impact in quality/performance. But you don't even need to touch those, there are presets anyway.One, two, ten, who cares. It was just an example, large 1080p displays look horrid in comparison with 4K ones, that's just the reality. No matter how far you get away, the pixel grid remains visible, a 65" 1080p TV has 33 PPI for Christ sake. 33
That's dismal.If you are talking about scaling that's a non issue, you can always do the scaling on the GPU and avoid anything the TV does to the image. 1080p on a 4K display never looks worse than on a 1080p one, I've seen really cheap 4K TVs ,like under 250$ cheap and I wound't trade it for the most expensive 1080p TV in the world. It just doesn't compare, the PPI is simply not there.
And let's not forget the latency, the FPS.... they all take a back seat if you really want 4K native.
1080p is a very decent res still. Whether for a living room at 2M view distance on any panel between 32-46 inch, or in a study room at normal monitor distance up to 24 inch. Its fine. Pixel density is very close to whatever you got from going bigger in res+diagonal. Its an uphill battle for more real estate of which most isn't fully utilized, and diminishing returns apply.
Also... the adoption rates aren't very high. Yes, 4K TVs are pushed in our face so everyone who gets a TV, gets a 4K TV. But that doesn't mean there is adoption for gaming. That relies on GPU progress, and the barrier of entry is still extremely high.