New Lurker

You're wrong.

The Series S costs $299 upfront, or just like they do with new cellphones now, you can instead pay 24.99 a month for two years. That will purchase the Xbox Series S system and give you game pass every month.

The Series X costs $499 upfront, or just like they do with new cellphones now, you can instead pay 34.99 a month for two years. That will purchase the Xbox Series X system and give you game pass every month.

If you buy the system outright, at current rates Game Pass + Live Gold is $14.99 a month, Live Gold alone is 9.99 a month. I think. They haven't been specific about the price point for online yet. For all we know, next gen may be Game Pass only? But the price points for the systems I listed are accurate according to the announcements.

Adam Tyner

Maybe I’m misunderstanding something, but it’s $25 a month to get the Xbox Series S (with no upfront payment) + GamePass. If you’re buying the console outright, you don’t need that All Access subscription.

Rival11

Whew, thanks guys but charging almost double (if in fact the price for gold is going to 9.99 a month) is still inexcusable. 14.99 a month will make me jump ship as well - I can afford all of this easily but that's not the point.

Adam Tyner

You don't have to buy it monthly. You can still buy 6 months at a time for $40 from MS now (~$6.66 a month) and less through resellers. (CDKeys had 12 months for $30 a few weeks ago.)

Dan



Deftones

Is it a jab? He is simply pointing out a fact. That might sway someone from not buying it to buying it.

Mike86

The Series X is a bit more than I expected. $200 more for a slightly beefed up console with a disc drive seems like a big jump to me.

joeblow69

Is it just slightly beefed up? Someone further up said the S only has 1/3 the power of the X.

Mike86

I guess I shouldn’t have said slightly beefed up. I don’t know all the technical details of how they impact play, but I think for many the main difference is having disc drive versus all digital.

Deftones

You also get 4k gaming which the Series S doesn't do.

Mike86

In a way that seems kind of dumb then, because the One X has done 4K gaming for while already. So the Series S is a weird in between that can play the new games, but can’t take full advantage of the new gen technology anyways. So on the surface the price is appealing, but only if you desperately want to play some of the new games. Most of which aren’t exclusive anyways.

Adam Tyner

IMO, that's not a great point of comparison -- a mid-gen revision targeted towards high-end users versus a budget-ish entry point into next gen.

It basically comes down to resolution and/or framerate. If you're not gaming in 4K, or if you don't really care about resolution enough to want to pay a couple hundred extra bucks, you're missing out on somewhere between "very little" and "nothing". But you still get a beefy CPU, nice graphical upgrades, massively reduced loadtimes...there's plenty to be excited about.
Eh, the "most of which aren't exclusive" cuts both ways. But it's really a value play. Pay $299 for the console and $10 a month for GamePass, and you'll have a shiny new console and access to more quality games than you could ever finish without having to pay a dime extra. Or pay $0 down for the console and $25 a month for the same. Will every AAA game come to GamePass day one? Nope. Are there PS5 exclusives you'll obviously be missing out on? Yup. But there's still no shortage of ridiculously great stuff to choose from.

It's not for me, but I can see that being massively appealing for a pretty significant number of people.

stingermck

Xbox really needs to get better at naming consoles. PlayStation has done it best, 5 times in a row.

Wolf359

As someone who hasn't owned an Xbox since the 360 that $35 a month for the console and game pass is hella tempting.

mhg83

I wonder what happens to those who are loaded up three years in advance GPU?

spainlinx0

The S only has a 512GB hard drive as well. I'm actually pretty disappointed in 1TB on the X, but I guess you can't have everything at that price point.

I still have a 1080P Panny Plasma as my main TV. I'm waiting to see what TVs come out this year. I want OLED, but damn do those prices get obscene quick. If I decide to wait for a TV, it seems like the Series S would be more than enough for my TV. I feel like that system is for people like me and others who don't want to upgrade to 4K for a while. Also, it would make a good second system for secondary TVs. I've always liked Xbox for the media playing abilities as well.

Michael Corvin

Since we're on the $300 discussion:

tonyc3742

Yeah, I think MS has a reasonable marketing strategy.
So many people, especially the 'kids' (a demographic I'm betting most of us don't fit it into) are fully onboard with both digital-only and 'software as a service'. I expect the monthly plan thing, or at least GPU, to be pretty attractive.
I personally default toward wanting a disk drive, but full disclosure, I also don't recall when I last bought a used game, and recently I avoided playing a game because it would require getting off the couch to switch disks.
They'd probably prefer the S sells more, that gets people more embedded in the GP environment.
I have an X and love it but if I didn't upgrade my One to X a couple years ago, would I really be missing out that much? Maybe not.
I think for a large part of the market, the combo of "Netflix for games" that is GP, the reasonable monthly price, and the upcoming Cloud gaming (or whatever it's called) are much more important than a disk drive and 4k.

Still curious how they came up with that shape for the X.

GP doesn't have everything, but if I were just now (or in the near future) buying a console, I would definitely find enough to keep me going for quite a while there. Last I counted there were at least 210-220 games on it.

fujishig

If GP had enough to keep you busy, I don't understand why you wouldn't just stick with the current gen, unless you skipped this gen or something? I guess the monthly plan (for console plus GP) would be attractive especially during the economic turmoil we're going through.

tonyc3742

Oh agreed. I personally won't be getting the S or X in the near future. I've still got dozens of games I've actually bought to finish on the One X, plus GP stuff.
So good point - the S or X may not really offer an attractive upgrade path for current One owners. But "it's only $25/month" is a powerful argument (this crazy year notwithstanding).
Now if MS offered some sort of trade-in program...

bluetoast

I'm curious (as others are) about how the monthly plan will work when I have months of Game Pass already paid for. Assuming it would just tack on to the tail end of my subscription. Paying up front is fine too, but the plan is a really smart idea on their part.

Deftones

@majornelson: This table shows the similarities & differences in Xbox Series X and Series S hardware. #PowerYourDreams https://t.co/l3KoLjON0V

Deftones

Retail box


@Wario64: Xbox Series X retail box art - https://t.co/wrb7hPE4Hb https://t.co/vWS5IaTlRZ

Michael Corvin

Ooh, that's a damn sexy design. Two from me.

Dan

^^ $600 Canadian dollaridoos! My goodness.
It makes sense with the conversion rate, but still. I feel for my friends up North, but then I remember they don't have to deal with {REDACTED}.