Note: Retail console purchased for review. There'll be a score at the end based on how I feel about the console at launch.

Microsoft has spent the last few years leading the pack when it comes to gamer-friendly business practices, using their mid-gen Xbox One X upgrade as a launchpad. Despite constantly being told no one wants to play old games, their backward-compatibility program has ensured this is now an important feature on both major consoles. They’ve worked to improve accessibility on the hardware, operating system, and software level. Perhaps most significantly, they’ve taken the original premise of game-streaming and turned it into a high-value, low-cost subscription service with Xbox Game Pass, which provides access to console (and PC) Microsoft exclusives on day-one, with a rotating selection of third-party and backward-compatible games.

No doubt a lot of these initiatives were driven by a need to recover from a rough start to the last generation, but it resulted in a lot of goodwill, media coverage, and even granted them the underdog status in the eyes of many. That said, the Xbox brand still has a lot to prove when it comes to hardware power and delivering a steady flow of quality exclusives from their first- and second-party developers. With the Xbox Series X, they’ve conclusively addressed the hardware concerns. However, when it comes to exclusive games, several recent developer acquisitions have shown the potential of what’s to come, but the launch window and year ahead still remains light on content.

...the Xbox brand still has a lot to prove when it comes to hardware power and delivering a steady flow of quality exclusives from their first- and second-party developers.

The Xbox Series S shares the same content weaknesses but also sports a lower-powered GPU and less storage to hit that budget price. At first glance, these compounded limitations might make you dismiss the console outright, but I’d argue it’s still a compelling choice when you consider it a part of Microsoft’s accessibility push.


Stacked up alongside its premium sibling and a gamepad, you can get a feel for how small the Series S is.

Starting with the hardware itself, the Series S is tiny, despite the next-gen internals (6.5 x 15.1 x 27.5 cm), and it feels dense at just over 2 kg. It has a similar design to the Xbox One S, just cut in half and slightly thicker, with the extraction fan highlighted by a black finish. It can be stood vertical or horizontal (which seems safer to me) and the build still feels as premium as its premium sibling. The new gamepad is a refinement of the Xbox One X|S version, with a hybrid octagonal d-pad, textured grips and triggers, and a dedicated share button the standout features. You can check out our full impressions in the Xbox Series X|S unboxing article.

It has a similar design to the Xbox One S, just cut in half and slightly thicker, with the extraction fan highlighted by a black finish.

It’s an all-digital console, so there’s no Blu-ray drive taking up space and the power supply is internal, keeping the hardware compact. Setting it up is as simple as plugging in the power and HDMI cables, pressing the power button, then connecting to the internet via Wi-Fi or the ethernet port to begin the initial setup (which defaults to accessibility features for the visually- or hearing-impaired – a nice touch). The gamepad automatically syncs to the console without the need for a data cable. While not “portable” in the conventional sense, it’s small enough that you could easily pack it in your hand luggage when travelling.


With no Blu-ray drive and an internal power supply, the Series S is seriously compact and easy to set up with minimal cabling.

Two important caveats to note are the lack of a Blu-ray drive, which makes it a tough sell to those with an extensive physical library of games from the prior generations, and the custom SSD that has only 360 GB of usable storage space. Thankfully, only next-gen games that make use of the Xbox Velocity technology need to be installed on the internal drive. A USB 3.1 external drive (an SSD would be your best bet) can be used for playing backward-compatible games. You can also use that drive to store your next-gen games and transfer them back to play later if you want to avoid redownloading them. It’s not ideal but was clearly a cost-cutting necessity for the Series S.

Regardless of whether the console is sitting idle or you’ve been gaming for several hours, the Series S is incredibly quiet. My setup is a small office, with only 1.8 m between the couch and console, yet I’ve never heard it above background levels. My four-year-old gaming laptop, which is propped up on a riser on a desk in the opposite corner, maybe 2.5 m away, is far more audible when simply standing idle. The extraction vent on the top of the console does get warm, so you’ll want to make sure it's always uncovered and the console has plenty of airflow. Much like the Series X, the Series S is also going for an understated design, but I’d argue it looks more aesthetically interesting and console-like than the Series X.


You could argue the OS is all about comforting familiarity.

Once you’ve powered on the Series S – which takes about 5 seconds, even from a cold boot – anyone who already games on an Xbox One X|S will be greeted with a familiar sight. Microsoft has gone for a unified user interface between its new and last-gen consoles. It still uses the tiled design for the home screen and storefront, pop-up quick menus, and a myriad of deeper menu options that wouldn’t look out of place on a Windows PC. Some recent OS updates are much-appreciated but long overdue: like the ability to pick the internal or external drive when first installing games, rather than having to change the default setting; or the ability to sort games in the store, the Game Pass library, or your own library using more granular options (think console generation, number of players, genre, etc.).

Microsoft has gone for a unified user interface between their new and last-gen consoles.

What sets the Series S OS apart from the last-gen consoles is the speed at which you can navigate menus, your library, the Xbox Game Pass selection, and the storefront. This OS upgrade includes the "fast resume" function, which allows you to store several games in memory, and quickly pick up from where you left off (even if you just paused the game, or fully powered off your machine for a while). Having the OS installed on the custom internal SSD clearly has its benefits, while it seems the storefront gets faster the longer you use it (I’d guess it starts caching thumbnails and low-res trailers for featured content as soon as you open the store). Unfortunately, if you’re looking for a snazzy new interface to go along with the next-gen gaming experience, you’ll have to settle for a boost in responsiveness to the existing design.


Why did it take an entire console generation to get this option? Also Microsoft, please can we have an option to take screenshots of the UI?

Once the initial charm of new console hardware, the aesthetics, and the updated OS wear off, the only thing that matters is the gaming. After several days using the Series S, it’s clear that intelligent compromises were made to provide a next-gen experience, despite the lower-specced GPU. Whereas the Series X is targeting 4K resolutions at up to 120 Hz, the Series S instead targets 1440p at up to 120 Hz. It’s a 2.5x reduction in the number of pixels rendered, using a GPU roughly a third as powerful. Thankfully, the GPU hardware-level capabilities (like ray-tracing), the custom SSD, CPU clocks, and RAM configuration is identical or close to the Series X.

Now rendering load doesn’t scale linearly with the resolution, so you can still expect games operating with a dynamic 1440p resolution on the Series S. However, my experience so far – be that for new games, “optimized” cross-gen games, and backward-compatible games – has been rock solid framerates, so this was the right choice. It’s incredible how console gamers have become conditioned to unstable framerates, with the focus on visual fidelity instead of responsiveness. There’s no going back once you’ve experienced an unwavering 60 fps or, at the very least, a locked 30 fps. Not all games need high framerates, but they do need stable framerates. I’m just hoping the shift to “targeted” resolutions and locked framerates remains the standard this generation.

However, my experience so far – be that for new games, “optimized” cross-gen games, and backward-compatible games – has been rock solid framerates, so this was the right choice.

I’ll be publishing several Series S reviews or impressions over the next few weeks as I get access to new games, but one new third-party title I spent time with pre-launch was Watch Dogs: Legion. It gives a good idea of what Series S owners can expect this generation from third-party developers. The game targets 1080p/30 – with the Xbox hardware handling the up-scaling to your native display resolution – and that framerate was locked during my time spent tearing around London causing chaos. Next-gen features, like quick load times, higher quality textures, better texture filtering, faster asset-streaming, and the much-vaunted ray-traced reflections are all accounted for. The ray-traced reflections, admittedly, look incredible and match high-end PC settings, with both static geometry (think buildings) and moving objects (think NPCs and vehicles) accounted for in every reflective surface.


If this generation has taught us anything, it's that puddles are important. Watch Dogs: Legion on the Series S is fully-featured, with speedy loads, high-resolution textures, and ray-traced reflections on every appropriate surface.

Based on my time with Watch Dogs: Legion, and the drip-fed Series S information coming from publishers, this looks to be the common pattern for third-party games on the budget console. The visuals settings used by the premium consoles to run at 60fps will be the 30fps modes on the Series S (with a bigger hit to the dynamic resolution and visual feature set when 60fps modes are offered). Thankfully, when it comes to Xbox exclusives, several optimized last-gen games, and backward-compatible games, the results are far more impressive and a better indication of who this budget console is geared towards.

The console release of Gears Tactics runs at a rock-solid 60fps on the Series S at 1440p resolution, as do the optimized versions of Forza Horizon 4, Ori and the Will of the Wisps, and Gears 5 (which uses the PC ultra-settings to boot, and offers 120 fps multiplayer if you’ve got a display that supports it). Less visually-demanding indie titles, such as The Falconeer, The Touryst, and Tetris Effect: Connected can hit 120 fps (again, if you’ve got the right display) and exceed that 1440p target on the Series S.

Thankfully, when it comes to Xbox exclusives, several optimized last-gen games, and backward-compatible games, the results are far more impressive...

Thankfully, optimised games that don’t use the Xbox Velocity technology can be played off an external hard drive to free up space on the internal drive (and it turns out a powerful CPU handling data compression/decompression is more important than the hard drive read/write speeds for fast loading). Microsoft dedicated considerable time and effort to ensure their first- and second-party games ran well on the base Xbox One S – albeit sometimes after several patches – so I’m certain it’ll be the same with the Series S throughout this new generation.


Never trust someone who says they can't tell the difference between 30fps and 60fps, or can't pick up unstable framerates! There's no going back after playing Gears 5 at 1440p/60.

Backward-compatibility and the idea of continuity between generations is something I’ve always appreciated. Aside from keeping your library intact without the need for a ton of hardware and cabling under your TV, a good chunk of that library might be part of your backlog. With a packed release schedule and abundant sales, I’ve got a shameful amount of games I’ve yet to play (or want to replay before their sequels come out). In addition, Microsoft has spent the last generation refining its backward-compatibility performance, and the results, impressive as they were last-gen, are even better on the Series S.

Original Xbox games get a 3x resolution boost, Xbox 360 games get a 2x boost, and they all hit their target framerate cap effortlessly. When it comes to last-gen games, the Series S enhances the Xbox One S version of games, providing faster load times, improved texture filtering, eliminates screen-tear, and maxes out both the dynamic resolution and framerate cap. As with many optimized games, backward-compatible titles don’t make use of the Xbox Velocity technology and can be played off an external drive while still benefit from these enhancements. Unfortunately, only the Series X gets the backward-compatible One X versions of last-gen games by default, but several developers – such as Bethesda Game Studios – have indicated they’ll patch Series S and X backward-compatible titles to enable more performance options.

When it comes to last-gen games, the Series S enhances the Xbox One S version of games, providing faster load times, improved texture filtering, eliminates screen-tear, and maxes out both the dynamic resolution and framerate cap.

I spent several days just going through my library and the Xbox Game Pass selection to find titles that ran poorly on my Xbox One S. As a result, I got to experience Doom Eternal at a locked 1080p/60. Both Wolfenstein II: The New Colossus and Wolfenstein: Youngblood ran at a locked 1080p/60, with the dynamic-resolution-scaling turned off. One of my favourite janky and compelling survival games, State of Decay 2, ran at a silky-smooth 60fps (admittedly, a ton of patches have clearly played their part too). Ultimately, there’s no way of getting around hard-coded limitations unless the developer goes back to patch them, but games with unlocked framerates, like the Resident Evil 2 and Resident Evil 3 remakes, now run at a gloriously responsive 60fps. As an added bonus, games that never natively supported HDR benefit from an "auto-HDR" feature (so long as the results are checked and deemed acceptable by Micorsoft's back-compat team).


I'm ashamed of how many hours I've plugged into State of Decay 2 but now, running at 60fps, I've got an excuse to return for a dozen more.

So, as I wrap up this review, who do I think the budget-friendly Series S is for?

First up, there are plenty of gamers who’ll have had a rubbish year thanks to the pandemic and resulting industry lockdowns. A budget console, albeit one with some caveats, paired with an Xbox Game Pass subscription, could make next-gen gaming more accessible sooner (and you could potentially upgrade to a Series X later). Secondly, for those who are already fans of Microsoft’s IPs, but are using 1080/1440p displays with Free-sync (e.g. those who have their console sharing the PC monitor), the Series S is a great fit for that setup. Finally, if you skipped the Xbox consoles last generation, but have since taken note of Microsoft’s recent run of critically-acclaimed exclusives and upcoming next-gen titles, the Series S coupled with an Xbox Game Pass subscription will get you access to both those last-generation and next-gen exclusives at relatively low cost, making it a viable second console (and you’ve got the advantage of knowing Microsoft will properly optimise its exclusives for the budget console).

We’ve reached a point massive leaps in visual fidelity are less impactful, and a focus on features like fast loading times and higher/more stable framerates are taking precedent. In that regard, the Series S is a well-designed, budget-friendly, next-gen console that comes with several caveats you need to keep in mind. When it comes to Microsoft exclusives, you’ll be getting a true next-gen experience, optimized for the Series S’ capabilities. Optimized versions of last-gen games and backward-compatible titles look and run beautifully – the icing on the cake for those still catching up with the hectic release schedule. However, you do need to be aware third-party developers might put minimal effort into optimizing for the Series S as the generation progresses and, as an all-digital console, the limited SSD storage will be a pain for those who play multiple games simultaneously (and official storage cards cost way too much at present).