Opinion: 24 hours later, I am still ecstatic that I will be able to afford a next-gen console on launch during a pandemic

Gaming
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Much of the analysis surrounding consoles seen around the internet puts the US up in the center – which obviously makes sense. While the $299 Series S reveal was a pleasant surprise to everyone, it is even a bigger deal in the other parts of the world. And most people probably don’t realize that.

Microsoft biggest market today is the US, the country where the gap to Sony is smaller. PlayStation has the dominant lead all around the world, including Europe and South America. But Microsoft has been quietly working its way around that.

Let’s use Game Pass as an example – and let’s go back to why the consoles analysis centering the US doesn’t give us the full picture.

Game Pass is an amazing deal and everyone knows that. Many people may argue that PS Now is up there in quality - but those people don’t see the full picture here. Game Pass is available in 41 countries. That includes the likes of Brazil and India, both of which sums a total of 1,5 billion people.

PS Now, on the other hand, is only available in 18 countries. It is not available in a single South American or African country, and Japan is the only Asian country supported - much probably due to being Sony’s home.

Country Population
(million) 		PS Now Game Pass
Argentina 44.49 No Yes
Australia 24.99 No Yes
Austria 8.86 Yes Yes
Belgium 11.46 Yes Yes
Brazil 209.50 No Yes
Canada 37.59 Yes Yes
Chile 18.73 No Yes
Colombia 49.65 No Yes
Czech Republic 10.69 No Yes
Denmark 5.81 Yes Yes
Finland 5.52 Yes Yes
France 66.99 Yes Yes
Germany 83.02 Yes Yes
Greece 10.72 No Yes
Hong Kong 7.45 No Yes
Hungary 9.77 No Yes
India 1353 No Yes
Ireland 4.90 Yes Yes
Israel 8.88 No Yes
Italy 60.36 Yes Yes
Japan 126.50 Yes Yes
Luxembourg 0.61 Yes No
Mexico 126.20 No Yes
Netherlands 17.28 Yes Yes
New Zealand 4.89 No Yes
Norway 5.43 Yes Yes
Poland 37.97 No Yes
Portugal 10.28 Yes Yes
Russia 144.50 No Yes
Saudi Arabia 33.70 No Yes
Singapore 5.64 No Yes
Slovakia 5.46 No Yes
South Africa 57.78 No Yes
South Korea 51.64 No Yes
Spain 46.94 Yes Yes
Sweden 10.23 Yes Yes
Switzerland 8.57 Yes Yes
Taiwan 23.78 No Yes
Turkey 82.00 No Yes
United Arab Emirates 9.63 No Yes
United Kingdom 66.65 Yes Yes
United States 328.20 Yes Yes
Total: 905.20 3235.65

Summarizing, PS Now is available in 18 countries to around 905 million people, while Game Pass is available in 41 countries to a total of 3.235 billion people - that’s around 41% of the global population.

PS Now can not be seen as a worthy competitor to Microsoft when it only reaches 28% of the people that Game Pass reaches.

Now let’s talk about price.

The price discussion has always been centered around US dollars. Will it cost $599? $499? Can X company cut the price by 100 dollars?

Now we know the Series X will cost 500 dollars, and the PS5 will probably be around that price. That’s an excellent price for the US considering what’s in the box. But what about the other 40 countries in which Xbox is available?

Each country has its currency. In my country, Brazil, we use the Real (R$). Ten years ago, US$1 was worth around R$ 1.80. Today, a dollar is worth R$ 5.36. So the Series X price would translate to around R$ 2,674. But then we have to add all the import fees, which sums up to around 70% of the price. We are looking at a R$ 4,546 price for the Series X - which equals to 4,45 monthly minimum wage.

Basically a Brazilian person on minimum wage would have to work for almost 5 months to afford a Series X - without buying anything else!

But then Microsoft comes and announce the Series S – a next-gen console that does everything the Series X does, but at 1440p. And that console costs $299! That’s less than R$ 3,000 after adding every fee in Brazil!

If All Access finally comes to Brazil – and there are reports that the program is expanding to other countries --, we are looking at a R$ 121 monthly payment for a next-gen console! At launch! In the middle of a pandemic!

So yeah, I can’t put into words how happy yesterday’s news made me. I was going to buy a Series X anyway - but I am in the minority of those who would be able to afford it in my country, and it would still hurt me paying that much. But with the Series S it is a completely different picture.

As I said, everyone knows that the Series S has a great price. But not everyone realizes how great of a price it really is, and how it will impact the countries outside the US.

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As a Brazilian, I’m really skeptical about the price of the Series S here at launch and especially if, and it is a big IF, the all access will be available here. Judging by what I have seeing on SX price some ppl here are asking, I prefer just not hold my breath yet. Hope you are right tho.

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The Nintendo Switch costs the same as the Series S will cost, and is launching in here for R$ 2,999. If I’m not mistaken, the original Xbox One and the One S were both manufactured in Brazil aswell, which would help drop the price a bit more - and even if it doesn’t, I don’t see Microsoft asking for more than what Nintendo does in here.

The discless One S retailed at US$ 249 and was officially sold for R$ 1,799 in Brazil - at that time, a dollar was worth R$ 3.89, though.

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Yeah, back at the day I payed around 2000 for the OG at launch. The one X at launch was 3999 (bought in the US for 1800, was luck enough that a friend was there during the release to bring it to me), so I’m really not expecting anything less than 4999 for the SX and 2999 for the SS. I consider these prices abusive (I know about all the taxes and all, but we are talking about a gaming console, shouldn’t be that expensive imo). Add to that Xbox services are getting a rise and games either (279 for the standard version of Ubi games, really?). Unfortunately I going to skip next gen for now, unless they come up with a good plan if the all access drops here.

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I was very excited about the price of XSS, now I’m in doubt between X or S.

With the dollar rising, I can sell my ps4 and One X at a higher price.

My limit on the Series X is up to R$ 4000.00, more than that, I will buy the S.

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Well, with the 1TB drive expansion rumored at $219, it will actually cost MORE to buy the Series S with decent storage. If you have the money, don’t settle for the lower-spec’ed machine. You will regret it, as I did with the 1S.

Buying SX all the way, with three times the power and twice the storage that little Jr has …

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Not exactly.

Buying the Series S + the 1TB drive expansion for the rumored price of $219, I would have a Series S with 1.5 TB - 50% more storage than the Series X for 18 dollars more.

Plus, as the Series S will not use 4K assets, the game sizes will be a bit smaller than what they currently are.

While we are on this topic, I have an One X with the standard 1TB storage. I have 16 games installed and I’m only using 400 GB. The game I will probably play the most, FIFA 21, is sitting at 36.8 GB. Tony Hawk is 24.8 GB, Wasteland 3 14.7 GB and Avengers 59.4 GB. Of course the more storage the better, but it was a smart move to cut the price by reducing the storage. I can always buy more storage later if I feel the need to.

And yes, the Series X is obviously more powerful. But I guess the “three times the power” is all because of the teraflops? See, if the Series S is only rendering 1440p, it doesn’t need 12 teraflops. It has everything the Series X has: DirectX Ray Tracing, variable rate shading, variable refresh rate… but it doesn’t need a monster GPU because it isn’t targeting 4K resolution. Hell, it’s even targeting 120 FPS – but at 1440p upscaling to 4K, much like Last of Us II on the PS4 Pro.

It’s all about choices. If I have the money and feel the need to, I can buy the Series X. If I’m low on budget and don’t mind much about 4K, I can go with the Series S. No need to downplay the Series S or whoever chooses to buy it down the road.

I think we are looking at a R$ 5000 price for the Series X. The One X was $499 and launched here for R$ 4000 - that’s when the dollar was was at around R$ 3.90.

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I do not believe in this value of $ 219 for the ssd, I will wait for the official value, but even so the difference in value from S to X in Brazil should be around R $ 2000.00. That’s the amount I paid on my One X.

Unfortunately the conversion to Brazil has been putting a zero in the dollar value, it should really arrive at R$ 5000.00.

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This price is really resonating with the people I know. Even an old friend of mine whose last console were the Xbox 360 and the PlayStation Portable went “299??? HOW???” on it, and is seriously considering it. What with the full Xbox One backwards compatibility it’s a no brainer.

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Just a quick correction OP; I’m in Luxembourg and Game Pass is definitely available here (not xCloud, though), fortunately :slight_smile:

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The switch is not a good parameter because it’s currently the same price or higher than even the X around here.

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I am seeing a LOT of people that never even considered getting a Series X saying they want the S. A lot of Sony fans claiming they’ll get one as a companion to the Playstation as well.

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It’s a cheap console, so it makes a good second or third choice. Primary? Not so sure. It has castrated SSD, the RAM is not only much less, but has significantly less bandwidth as well. The GPU is roughly a third of the size of its big brother. I am now convinced that it is definitely another 1S - enticing, but will not perform up to snuff when real next-gen games come out from third parties (cannot play anything decently in the last couple years except for Gears). Still, those compromises are required to reach that pricepoint. Seeing those specs, MS isn’t losing half as much money as I had thought because the box is spec’ed like a low to mid-range PC. Only thing roughly the same for the boxes is the CPU, which will help to alleviate some of the other deficiencies. It is priced correctly for the specs, seeing them fully outlined.

Good companion box, that will end up heavily relying on streaming or significantly less resolution and AI when the games come. Maybe MS has a solution like DLSS with ML. Still, if a low-end PC can play with some compromises, so will the Series S

I’m interested to see how it plays out

Specs

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Here’s the video Microsoft put out today confirming that everything is the same as the Series X but the resolution. It even shows loading times, quick resume, Gears 5 running at 120 FPS and Watch Dogs running with Ray Tracing.

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Read the spec sheet attached to my post - they aren’t the same. Look at the memory bandwidth of the RAM for example …

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Watch the video, dude. They aren’t the same because it’s not needed as the console is not rendering at 4K. Much of the processing is wasted by rendering everything at Ultra HD.

Would you need a 1000 liters pool if you are only going to fill it with 300 liters of water?

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There’s not much to speculate. The specs back up the resolution targets. It’s not a xbone situation but rather a box that is able to run roughly the same at 1440p and better at 1080p.

It’s a box designed to offer the same graphics quality, effects and framerates at a different resolution.

Yes it has a smaller ssd but it will need smaller assets, plus their system handles external hdds very well.

It’s a super viable choice as a first console for those that don’t have high end 4k screens and for the ones that do I think the price of SX won’t be much of an issue.

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Hey, I hope it works out for you and the others that purchase it. Me, I’m actually a little worried for next-gen now as it may just hold some game design back. Maybe it won’t. I just think that the specs are right for the price point. Maybe I’m wrong, but the slower RAM was not expected - a little bit, but not that much at least - those are more like fast DDR4 than DDR6. CPU is the biggest limiter and that is fine.

So we will see. I will refrain from further discussion on the S. Not really impressed

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How do I put someone on ignore?

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