Xbox Series S not a good deal

Original post by DiddyDec

According to this article from TSR the Xbox Series is a "steal" for £21 a month for 24 months.

To outright buy it?
£250

To pay monthly?
£504

Paying a 101% increase is not a "steal" that is a scam.

@Joseph Joestar would you really call that a good deal?

Gamepass Ultimate is also included, which itself includes an Xbox Live Gold subscription, which is £11 a month, bringing the total value to £514. So it's actually a tenner cheaper to go through the plan than if you were to purchase the console outright and then sign up for Gamepass Ultimate anyway. It's not like Gamepass is an undesirable product, it's hands down the most robust games subscription service and proving exceptionally popular. Microsoft could have gone down the lines of phone carriers profiting from contracts by charging more than the value of its constituent device and plan, instead they're offering something that is very good value for money if both pieces of that plan appeal to you.

Reply 2

I don't see why anyone buys consoles in the first place, as PCs are much more versatile machines, you can build a PC that destroys any console in terms of graphics and sound quality, and PC's can often be easily upgraded, simply by adding more RAM, changing graphics cards, then for more advanced users there are options of overclocking and changing times to improve performance.

Reply 3

Universityhelp09

12

Original post by PTMalewski

I don't see why anyone buys consoles in the first place, as PCs are much more versatile machines, you can build a PC that destroys any console in terms of graphics and sound quality, and PC's can often be easily upgraded, simply by adding more RAM, changing graphics cards, then for more advanced users there are options of overclocking and changing times to improve performance.

Literally nobody asked

Reply 4

Original post by PTMalewski

I don't see why anyone buys consoles in the first place, as PCs are much more versatile machines

Because consoles are cheap.

Reply 5

Chlamydia is cheap as well.

Reply 6

MacDanaeo

5

Original post by PTMalewski

Chlamydia is cheap as well.

How are you relating a games console to chlamydia? :lolwut:

Reply 7

Original post by PTMalewski

Chlamydia is cheap as well.

But less relevant in this context :yy:

Reply 8

Right, but for the price of a console, a competent specialist could assembly you a PC way superior to the console.

Reply 9

Original post by PTMalewski

Right, but for the price of a console, a competent specialist could assembly you a PC way superior to the console.

Normally I'd agree, but we're at the start of a brand new console generation where the new flagship consoles will typically outstrip comparably priced hardware because they're being manufactured in bulk and potentially even sold at a loss. We obviously won't know the exact performance differential until they're in the hands of reviewers who can do comparisons against equivalent GPUs for graphical fidelity and res/fps benchmarks, but looking at what you can put together for about £450 right now doesn't match the theoretical output of a Series X, using teraflops as an extremely loose metric. The Series S is a different kettle of fish entirely, considering it's cheaper than the cheapest ray tracing GPU on the market without even starting to build a system around it. Don't get me wrong, I am very much in the PC camp, but the new consoles are looking extremely competitive compared to PC hardware at their respective price points.

Reply 10

TheMcSame

19

Original post by DiddyDec

According to this article from TSR the Xbox Series is a "steal" for £21 a month for 24 months.

To outright buy it?
£250

To pay monthly?
£504

Paying a 101% increase is not a "steal" that is a scam.

@Joseph Joestar would you really call that a good deal?

You're missing the point here I think.

£250 outright to buy the console alone

£504 to buy the console and ultimate game pass subscription for 2 years.

2 years of the ultimate game pass is a lil under £264. While I wouldn't exactly call it a steal, it's actually cheaper monthly based on current pricing. Though you will 100% lose out against waiting a few months for the price of the console to drop.

Reply 11

Then it's going to be change of situation we haven't seen for 30 years.

Reply 12

Original post by PTMalewski

Then it's going to be change of situation we haven't seen for 30 years.

The jump this year is definitely more significant than in previous generations. The more affordable 3000 series and Big Navi cards may balance things if they bring the same advancements as we've seen from the high end cards, but the power of hardware currently on the market that can be gotten for the same price as a XSX/PS5 is not a match for them on paper, especially if you try to go toe-to-toe in areas like size and high capacity NVME drives. Dropping down to the £250 of the XSS is even trickier, like that's bordering on the floor of how cheap you can build something with any GPU at all that could be described as ready for modern gaming.

Reply 13

TheMcSame

19

Original post by PTMalewski

Then it's going to be change of situation we haven't seen for 30 years.

Is it really though? The PS3 and XB360 could bat with high-end PCs at release, couldn't they?

Agreed. I'm not even sure how you'd manage a £250 build that could cope with modern games at reasonable settings. I reckon you'd even have a bit of a hard time doing it with used parts.

Reply 14

Original post by TheMcSame

Agreed. I'm not even sure how you'd manage a £250 build that could cope with modern games at reasonable settings. I reckon you'd even have a bit of a hard time doing it with used parts.

I was playing in PCPartPicker and I genuinely can't cram a system around a "good enough" GPU like a 1650 or RX 560 for within budget. They're £120-£130 apiece, and it's then £100 minimum for a motherboard and the most basic Core i3/Ryzen 3 combo, that's almost all the budget gone. Even moving to an Athlon or a Pentium, or a bargain bucket sub-£100 GPU, doesn't create enough budget to make it feasible, you'd have to go straight for an APU based system and call it a day to stay in that £250 threshold without shopping used, and it's had so many corners cut I'd never recommend anyone buy it.

https://uk.pcpartpicker.com/list/jbDcfP

For the £450 you'll probably be able to fit in an RTX 2060 in the new year once something new enters that £250-£300 space and prices dip, but right now you're looking at building around a 1660 Super which is a perfectly capable 1080p/lite-1440p card, but is definitely not getting close to matching the power of the XSX/PS5, nevermind losing things like ray tracing and the high end SSD. Even a 2060 is sitting below their alleged horsepower, once they do fall within that £450 budget.

Reply 15

1st superstar

22

Original post by PTMalewski

I don't see why anyone buys consoles in the first place, as PCs are much more versatile machines, you can build a PC that destroys any console in terms of graphics and sound quality, and PC's can often be easily upgraded, simply by adding more RAM, changing graphics cards, then for more advanced users there are options of overclocking and changing times to improve performance.

Because I am not tech geek and love to play Mario games... Not going to waste my time and money building a gaming PC, buying gaming headphones etc when I could use my phone and switch to play the games I like.

Reply 16