I had the series s for a couple years until I could afford a PS5 and it let a working class chick like myself enjoy current games on a budget. I still have it, and while I don't use it as much I'll still admit a series s and game pass is a god send for those of us who love to game but have other financial obligations and can't afford the beefier consoles ATM. (Or a capable gaming pc)
I realize Microsoft is a shit company, but I do think the series s is good for what it is.
Sucks that a vocal minority of idiot gamersTM complain about it "holding consoles back"
These are the people who only have video games in their lives and nothing else
Rant over. Much love ❤️
triple A games are IMO so washed now that power hungry hardware is completely unnecessary. I’m not paying 60 bucks to buy into a slot machine or dopamine treadmill. The budget consoles are all you need for all the best games anyway
Catch me playing Caves of Qud for 2000 hours and never going back.
The PS5 is nice for playing the last decade of PS4 games at 60fps, it’s been 4 years and PS5 games still pretty much don’t exist.
There was Demon’s Souls… And that’s literally all I can think of.
The thing is also just such an obvious console to make, with how many people are still on decade old 1080p screens, why waste all that power and silicon
I think it's great too. Speaking from the point of view of a couple of years ago, you could get a Series S for relatively cheap, use the conversion trick to get two years of Game Pass Ultimate for next to nothing and you have a great library of games for two years. If you cannot afford the games after that you can keep the console around or pawn it off.
Series S seem to get a bad rap because some AAA games didn't run well on it. Most notably BG3. But most AAA publishers will figure out a way to turn any game into a 15fps slideshow even on a NASA quantum computer.
Yeah it was a god send. It's all I could afford when elder ring came out, and I wasn't about to play it on Ps4 and Indeed get 15fps. Wasn't until a couple years later I had the money for a ps5
I don't think Microsoft is "good guy" or anything. Just this was a good thing, I think allowing room for a budget console in the eco system is a good thing. Even if a vocal minority wine about it. Most developers have came out and said it's fine and the games just may look and run a little worse but not totally compromise the whole experience.
I'm just praising it for sustaining my gaming habit when i was dead broke
Series S' problem is more of a developer facing/Microsoft policy issue from what I understand. For BG3, Black Myth Wukong, etc., sounds like there's a parity requirement where the games need to have a similar level of functionality which devs have a hard time meeting. (and then the fans complain)
I think it makes a lot of sense though as a platform, especially as AAA loses its luster. I don't see consoles having much of a market at the upper price range in the future.
Funny too, since the real thing holding back this generation seems to be AAA still shipping on PS4.
Explain what you mean?
The games run and look a bit worse, but that's about it.
Even Baldurs gate 3 is perfectly playable and enjoyable on a Series S just with a crappier frame rate.
I feel like the argument is that by splitting the hardware into multiple models like this, manufacturers can actually inflate the price of the normal models further while still getting sales from people who can't afford them, whereas in earlier generations they were forced to sell the console hardware for cheap, sometimes even at or below cost, to compete for users who would then be locked in and buy a bunch of $60 games. That system was probably a better deal in terms of hardware per dollar for everyone that could afford a console in the first place, but especially people that were say, playing few games a lot of hours, pirating, or deal hunting and so didn't pay in as much to the game ecosystem after the fact. And then you either had An Xbox, or you didn't, there was no question of how things would run, and if Micro$oft wanted more market share they had to lower the price for everyone.
The new system is in some ways like Apple's price stratification, and may get more like that in the future, which I assume is the fear. Where the low spec option is a more competitive price to get that market share, but the higher spec options get their prices inflated to what the top end of the market is willing to pay, and becomes out of reach of normal people. just adding a bit of ram and storage to an iphone or a mac, can cost several hundred dollars, much more than the upgrade is worth, but some people need that, or simply can't help themselves and can afford it so they max it out and cough up the $$ which is great for apple, they get to gouge people with $$$ while still getting people with less $ invested in their ecosystem.
In migrating to a pricing model like this, someone is definitely getting a worse deal, the question is just who? Either:
- wealthier players are paying the same or a little bit more, but poorer players are getting consoles where they couldn't afford to before, capturing more market share for M$ (and eliminating the need to lower prices for everyone to do so), or
- poor players are paying more or less what used to be the standard price for everyone but getting a worse experience, and wealthier players are getting gouged on the higher end model because they're willing to pay for it/not willing to compromise on performance, netting M$ more profit margin on the same market share.
So I don't know which it is, but I think that's the core of the disagreement, are we in scenario 1 or 2? And players who land on the wealthier/poorer side will probably feel differently about each one as well.
Also in the past the hardware and software were so custom that you really needed all of the consoles to be the same so that the experience was good for all players, but now that consoles are converging onto basically PC hardware under the hood, and the market is bigger than ever, they can more easily offer a lower spec option and just dial back some quality settings like a PC game on the lower spec option. This isn't necessarily a bad thing.
It's not the end of the world but its definitely done in the service of making M$ more money, like everything they do
disclaimer: I have never owned an xbox (or playstation) I just think the price stratification bullshit is interesting and worth understanding
