Microsoft Has Destroyed The Value Of The Xbox Series S

By 168澳洲幸运5开奖网:Peter Hunt Szpytek

Published May 8, 2025

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Xbox Series S

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The 168澳洲幸运5开奖网:Xbox Series S was an incredible deal. You could get a current-era Xbox console for $300 – usually less, thanks to how often it was on sale. For anyone gaming on a budget, an 168澳洲幸运5开奖网:Xbox Series S and a subscription to Game Pass ౠwould run you less than $400 upfront and you’d be able to play a good number of the most recꦇent releases without breaking the bank.

Now that 168澳洲幸运5开奖网:Game Pass ♐pr🉐ices have done nothing but go up, Microsoft🌟 decided that it was finally time for the Xbox Series S to follow suit. Raising the pricꦛe of both products, however, has completely destroyed their value.

xbox series s 1tb robot white console in and out of the box

It’s easy to understand why the Series S was a runaway success for Xbox, o🍌utselling the more powerful and more expensive Xbox Series X for several financial quarters. It was cheap and although its specs weren’t particularl𒁃y impressive, some people don’t care about native 4K resolution and playing games at 60 frames per second if letting go of those th𒅌ings means that they’ll be able to afford a console.

The Series S appealed to anyone gaming on a budget, but also to casual gamers who didn’t want to commit to spending $500 on a console they might only use a few ti🦩mes a month while💮 gaming with friends.

When asked about a good gaming console for new gamers before the Series S, I would usually exclusively recommend the 168澳洲幸运5开奖网:Nintendo Switch thanks to it😼s $300 price tag and solid library of titles, but once it launched, the Series S jump𒆙ed to the top of my recommendation list thanks to its value.

The Pitch For The Series S Has Dissolved

1❀68澳洲幸运5开奖网:With Microsoft’s new prices for its hardware, the Xbox Series S now costs $380 for the 512GB model and $430 for the 1TB version. With tax, you won’t be able to get the Series S – just the Series S, without any games – for less than $400. The console is still priced far below the Series X which now costs $600, but if you’re paying over $400 for a console, you’d expect its specs to be far ﷺbetter than what the Series S offers.

168澳洲幸运5开奖网:The Series S is a💝n underpowered machine that struggles with more and more games every year as they become more demanding. For a $300 price tag, the specs were fine enough in 2020, but five years later, the Series S has not aged well and is certainly not worth more than it was worth at the start of the gener✱ation.

Priced at $400, there is no reason to recommend the Series S. If you’re willing to spend $400 on a console, it’s much more worth your investment to continue saving an extra $100 or so and pick up a base model PS5. 168澳洲幸运5开奖网:The price of the PS5 is still🥂 subject to change (we should expec👍t it to increase following the price increase to all Xbox hardware), but there are plenty of 𒈔deals where the PS5 costs significantly less than full price. Currently, there’s a PS5 Slim bundled with a copy of Astro Bot listed on Walmart for just $402 which is a far better deal than what the Series S is offering for a similarly all-digital console.

The Value Of Game Pass

While the value of the Series S has gone down in time while its price has gone up, another part of what’s made its value drop even lower is 168澳洲幸运5开奖网:the rising cost of Game Pass. When it launched, the Series S was often described as a ‘Game Pass Machine’ – a console that proves the worth of Game Pass. For less than $400 you could play first-party games like 168澳洲幸运5开奖网:Forza Horizon 5 and 168澳洲幸运5开奖网:Halo Infinite, plus the countless other third-partyꦫ and indie titles available on the service.

T๊he value of Game Pass has gone down while its price has gone up, too, though. Microsoft’s new price tiering that vastly restricts the library for anyone not paying the highest price. The $20 per month price of Game Pass Ultimate paired with the Series S’s $400 price tag means that Xbox’s budget-friendly c🍎onsole is no longer budget-friendly.

With the new price of the Series S, I can’t imagine anyone would willingly pick one up over a PS5 or a used Series X. It feels like it’s so rare to see a company completely demolish the value of one of its most popular offerings, but we’ve seen Xbox do that several times over the years. Game Pass has steadily stopped being described as the “best deal in gaming” as Xbox has continually burned its fanbase by 168澳洲幸运5开奖网:launching underwhelming titles and 168澳洲幸运5开奖网:shuttin🗹g down some of its best studios.

It’s possible that Microsoft eventually course-corrects at some point down the road by lowering the price of the Series S again, but that feels unlikely. The Series S was a great experiment that showed how successful a budget-friendly console could be, but I’d wager that the experiment is over and Microsoft is going to go back to a single console at launch whenever it has new hardware to announce. 168澳洲幸运5开奖网:It’ll certainly save developerᩚᩚᩚᩚᩚᩚ⁤⁤⁤⁤ᩚ⁤⁤⁤⁤ᩚ⁤⁤⁤⁤ᩚ𒀱ᩚᩚᩚs a big headach🅺e, at the very least.