Xbox Series S Gets a Deep Dive into What Makes it Special

After months of rumors and leaks, it’s been finally confirmed that the Xbox Series S is real. It’s a cheaper, less powerful, digital alternative to Microsoft’s flagship next-gen console, the Xbox Series X. Yesterday, we got a deep dive into the system over on the Xbox Wire blog that explains what exactly makes this console a solid choice for next-gen gaming, even if it doesn’t have all the bells and whistles of its larger counterpart.

The Xbox Series S is just as fast as the Series X. Both consoles share a similar CPU, and the Series S has an identical I/O performance to the Series X. This means that developers can have games perform well on both systems, just as different resolutions. The Series S has four times the processing power of the Xbox One, so it can support up to 120fps, DirectX Raytracing, and Variable Rate Shading. It also comes with a 512GB SSD can deliver more than 40x the I/O bandwidth of the Xbox One, thanks to Microsoft’s Velocity Architecture, giving the system fast load times, steady frame rates, and the Quick Resume feature that allows you to swap between multiple games that are held in a suspend state.

Spatial Sound and Dolby Atmos support will also be on the Xbox Series S, giving players the same audio experience that they would get with an Xbox Series X. Dolby Vision through streaming apps will be coming to both of Microsoft’s next-gen consoles at launch, and Dolby Vision for gaming will be coming to their consoles first next year.

Where Microsoft says the main difference between both of their consoles lies is in the resolution. Xbox Series S was designed to play games at 1440p and 60 fps, with the additional support for 120 fps. In comparison, the Xbox Series X is designed to play games at 4K and 60 fps, with support for 120 fps. The reason for the focus on a lower resolution for the Series S comes down to the Xbox community. Microsoft spoke with them and found that many of their players “prioritize frame rate over resolution.”

Although the Series S has lower specs than the Series X on paper, Microsoft says that the system can “deliver performance and experiences well beyond the raw specs.” This is due to the next-generation AMD RDNA2 graphics architecture that the system has, as well as the Velocity Architecture.

Now that all this information is out there and confirmed, it certainly seems like the Xbox Series S is going to be a great way for people to get in on next-gen gaming if they don’t want all the power of the Xbox Series X. I’m excited to see what developers are able to do with this machine once games start coming out for it.