Microsoft is finally giving its Xbox Series S game console a storage upgrade. Announced at Xbox Games Showcase event, the new model has 1TB of native storage. There are aesthetic changes too— it comes in carbon black much like the Xbox Series X. Xbox Series S in black with 1TB of storage will be available globally starting from September 1 at a price of $349 (roughly Rs 28,800).
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The Xbox Series S was originally launched in white with 512GB of storage at a price of $299. So, we’re essentially looking at a $50 price bump. In India, the Xbox Series S was launched at a price of Rs 34,990. Microsoft markets the Series S as an affordable console offering close-to Xbox Series X power for the masses. But the console has been held back somewhat due to its puny internal storage of which only 364GB is usable. It doesn’t help that the console only supports proprietary storage cards for expansion. These are naturally expensive.
While one can argue that the Xbox Series S is an excellent vessel for Microsoft’s Game Pass service, but the importance of more default storage cannot be overstated and it couldn’t have come sooner. The new paintjob is simply icing on the cake. More storage is also significant from a longevity and future-proofing point of view as Microsoft gaming chief Phil Spencer has hinted that there’s no new Xbox console on the horizon at the time of writing.
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Aside from the colour and more storage, the rest of the hardware remains unchanged which is to say that the console is based on the same 8-core AMD Zen 2 CPU as the Series X. This is paired with an AMD RDNA 2 GPU, again same as the Series X. The devil lies in the details. But despite its dialled down approach, the Xbox Series S can pull off nearly every trick out the Series X’s textbook including variable rate shading, variable refresh rate (up to 120Hz), hardware accelerated ray tracing, ultra-low latency, Quick Resume, and Smart Delivery.
It isn’t immediately clear if and when Microsoft plans to launch the Xbox Series S 1TB update in India. Watch this space for more details.
