With a small form factor, great internal hardware, an affordable price and access to hundreds of games through Xbox Game Pass, the Xbox Series S is the perfect console for a casual gamer.
The Xbox Series S sits in a unique area within the gaming market. At R6999, it is in the same price bracket as the Nintendo Switch (R6999) and the Oculus Quest 2 (R6495).
The Series S offers a more traditional, sitting-on-the-couch gaming experience compared to Nintendo’s portable Switch and the Oculus Quest 2’s VR.
Not only is the Xbox Series S affordable, but it is also more widely available, unlike the pricier Xbox Series X (R11999) or PlayStation 5 which is suffering from global shortages.
Specifications
The following table outlines the hardware in the Xbox Series S:
| Tech Specs | |
|---|---|
| CPU | 9 core 3.6GHz (3.4GHz with SMT) custom AMD 7nm |
| GPU | 4 teraflops at 1.550GHz |
| RAM | 10GB GDDR6 |
| Framerate | Up to 120 fps |
| Resolution | 1440p with 4k upscaling |
| Optical | No disk drive |
| Storage | 512GB NVMe SSD |
| Price | R6 999 |
The only downside is that the Xbox Series S suffers minor visual differences compared to the Xbox Series X and cannot put out a true 4k experience.
But for the casual gamer who does not ‘pixel peek’ or who doesn’t have a 4k TV, this console is perfect.
When playing at 1080p, these visual differences are even harder to notice.
Capable of running games at 120FPS
Between 30 and 60FPS at 1080p for a casual weekend gamer who plays long-form RPG’s and does not compete in first-person shooters is smooth enough to have an enjoyable time.
The Xbox Series S does, however, offer the ability to play at 120FPS on certain titles, such as:
- A Plague Tale: Innocence
- Ori and the Will of the Wisps
- Overwatch (at 1080p)
- Battle Chasers: Nightwar
- Call of Duty Warzone
- Doom Eternal (set at dynamic 1080p)
- Fortnite
- Gears 5
- Hyper Scape
Xbox Game Pass
As a decisive move towards a fully digital gaming experience, the Xbox Series S does not have a disk drive.
Xbox Game Pass gives players access to an ever-growing catalogue of at least 100 games.
The standard Xbox Game Pass costs players R99/month.
If you want to play paid games (any game that is not free-to-play) online with friends, you will need an Xbox Live Gold subscription.
The Xbox Game Pass Ultimate subscription includes Xbox Live Gold and all that the standard Xbox Game Pass subscription brings for R150/month.
A year’s worth of Xbox Game Pass Ultimate would cost a player R1800.
Storage
The primary concern reviewers or potential buyers have is that only 364GB of the 512GB SSD storage is available.
The system OS takes up 148GB, and by the time you have downloaded a handful of games, you would need to be constantly deleting and reinstalling other games, which takes a long time.
Microsoft paired with Seagate to make dedicated external storage for the Series S.
The Seagate 1TB Game Drive Storage Expansion Card for the Xbox Series S costs R4799 which is very expensive for a casual gamer.
If you were to purchase the extra storage card, the Xbox Series S itself and a yearly subscription to Xbox Ultimate Game Pass, it would cost R13598.
R1599 more than the Xbox Series X.
It is possible to use a standard external hard drive. However, you will not be able to store Xbox Series S optimised games on it.
Here are some of the best budget storage systems for the Series S:
Design
The meme-worthy design of the Xbox Series S with its giant black circle air vent has grown on me.
Being smaller than all the other next-gen consoles and preferably being stored horizontally, the console would fit perfectly in a media cabinet or underneath a gaming monitor.
- Height – 27.5cm
- Length – 15.1cm
- Breadth – 6.5cm
- Weight – 1.92kg
The controller remains similar to the Xbox One X edition and still has two disposable AA batteries. You could, however, purchase a rechargeable battery pack or charge it through the USB type C port.
For its small design, insane power, affordable price and access to Xbox Game Pass, the Xbox Series S is, in my opinion, the perfect console for a casual gamer in 2022.
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Read: PC vs Console – The pointless war
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