Gaming is, very clearly from this site, a major hobby of mine, at least in the context of it’s very important to me. I actually don’t play games as often as one would think – I spend quite a bit of time working on various projects and rarely actually find time to sit down and just relax with a game.
In a sense, I consider myself a “casual hardcore” gamer – casual in how often I play, but hardcore in how I play and how I care about the topic. I’m certainly selective on what I play, to say the least, and I’m very particular about the experience I want in gaming.
This past 5 years, after a decade of waning and waxing on the subject, I finally decided to go Xbox, with the purchase of a used Xbox 360 in early 2015 and the purchase of an Xbox One later that same year. This, as a reminder, came after years of me being a PlayStation guy and planning to buy a PS3, something which never happened when I originally thought it would.
My main reason for going Xbox, in the end, was that it all integrated well with my digital life – I liked what the Xbox One offered, especially with PC integration, and I had friends who were in the Xbox camp, so that helped sway my decision.
Over the past 5 years, I’ve watched the PlayStation scene mock the Xbox scene seemingly relentlessly, in pretty absurd ways. All the while, of course, I’ve been enjoying playing the games I have on my Xbox One and, later, my Xbox One X. During this time I’ve watched the Xbox platform evolve and improve tremendously. While I enjoyed what the Xbox One was when I got mine in mid 2015 and it has had its growing pains, it has since been improved and is practically a different system – somewhat similar to how the Xbox 360 evolved over the years. Microsoft seems to always want to improve things, for better or worse, never resting on their laurels.
That leads us to the upcoming “generation” of consoles — The Xbox Series S, Series X, and the PlayStation 5 in its disc and discless flavors. As one can imagine, based on the title of this article and my sites content it’s no surprise then that I’d be going with an Xbox this time around. However, my decision to go for the “lesser” of the two systems may be a surprise to some, given that I’m considered to be quite the “techie” person.
Here’s the thing – devices are a means to an end for me. My computers are honestly somewhat modest – I often use long outdated hardware and software for the experience and prefer it. Obviously I’m just as happy playing an Atari 2600 game as I am playing some cutting edge “AAA” release game. I don’t need to have a top of the line piece of equipment to enjoy something. In a sense, I’m such a “skilled” techie that I know where something would quite well be overkill for how I operate!
Thus, the Xbox Series S makes total sense for me, as a gamer. I have about 20 disc based Xbox One games; by contrast, I have easily over 100 digital Xbox One games. That doesn’t count digital copies of Xbox and Xbox 360 titles, generally provided with the Games with Gold program. I’m also a Game Pass Ultimate subscriber, so I have access to whatever games are active in that program at any given time. The point is, I have a tremendous digital library, so an “all digital” console wouldn’t limit me much on what I’d wish to play.
Additionally, I tend to keep old systems – I’ve, in fact, never sold a game console I’ve owned and used – only those I get with intention to sell anyway. This means I’m going to continue to have my Xbox One and my Xbox One X alongside the Xbox Series S, and thus I can easily play anything disc based as I see fit, just as I do now. Just because I got a new system doesn’t mean I can’t use the old one, right?
Next comes the capabilities of the system – it has the same overall performance as the Xbox Series X, since they are, at the core, the same hardware. The Series X is built to do native 4K, the Series S is really built more for HD and slightly higher resolutions, with 4K upscaling where that proves useful. I’m absolutely fine with this as I still choose to do my gaming on a standard HD TV – the same one I’ve had for years. While I do own a 4K TV, it’s barely used and I certainly don’t want to game on it given the room its in and its location – it’s a “sit back and watch a movie” kind of TV where it is now in the main room, and that it will stay.
Performance in games should be stellar. While many are complaining that it won’t run the “Xbox One X enhanced” versions of Xbox One games, even though it’s powerful enough on paper to run such, I’ll say this: One, I already have an Xbox One X if I want to run the “enhanced” version of a game, and Two, my main want for the One X was the better raw performance, not the 4K HDR graphics and the like – as I said, I play on an HDTV and am fine with that. That being said, the SSD storage combined with the raw power the system is packing is more than enough to make me happy.
Lastly, the price. It’s a $300 dollar system new. That’s it. That’s something I wouldn’t mind paying on day one, and I plan to. I really enjoy what I see here and, given I’ll have a full library of games to play on day one, be they Xbox One titles or Series games, it doesn’t matter — this really isn’t a “new” system as it is just another upgrade to the Xbox as it stands now – an ever-evolving gaming platform that spans not just the consoles but PC gaming as well which is what I saw it becoming in the early 2010’s and is why I decided to go that route 5 years ago – a choice I’m incredibly happy I made.
There you have it, really. In simple form why I’m choosing what I’m choosing – I don’t need an optical drive, the performance will be perfectly fine for me, I don’t need 4K HDR extreme top end graphics. and the price is very much right.
Besides, if I decide I want to get an Xbox Series X down the line, I can just go buy one as well! Not a difficult thing to do, especially in the Summer, which is usually when I purchase systems.
That being said, I’ve got plans to pre-order one as soon as I can, and I’m, for the first time in 20 years, incredibly excited for the release of a new game console.
See you in November (hopefully), Xbox Series S.