Xbox Series S buyers: you NEED this $200 upgrade

Xbox Series S owners are going to need to shell out another $200 to make the most of their console

Xbox Series S
(Image credit: Microsoft)
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The PS5 and the Xbox Series X|S launches are just a few days away now. They’re both so close, in fact, that some people have even started receiving their consoles early. 

As a result of fans getting early hands-on time with the console, it's been discovered that the Xbox Series S won't allow you to use all of the 512GB of storage it comes with. 

Reddit user Spead20 received their Xbox Series S a full week earlier than they were meant to, and shared their experience with the console so far. While the initial post was very much unbridled excitement – and who can blame them – they also posted that the console only has 364GB of storage for games and apps. 

This isn’t an unusual thing in tech; plenty of devices will state they have a certain amount of storage, but it’s rare that all of that is useable by the consumer. This is because you’ve got to consider things like the operating system, and any other bits of essential software. 

It’ll be off-putting to those who are aware of the increased file sizes of next-gen games, and while this does seem like bad news at first glance, it might not actually be that big of a deal. 

The first reason this shouldn’t bother you is simply that you can upgrade the storage if you want to. The Seagate expansion cards are there to make sure that you can get extra storage that still performs just as well as the internal SSD. 

There’s also the fact that Microsoft has a system in place called Intelligent Delivery. This allows users to download lower resolutions textures, and only the audio files that you need. You could, for example, only download the English voice files if that’s what you’re going to use. 

You’ve then also got games like Call of Duty, which understand that the file sizes are somewhat unwieldy, and therefore let you pick and choose which parts of the game you want to be installed. 

All of these things come together to show that you don’t necessarily need a massive SSD to be able to get the most out of your console. Of course, the downside is that an external SSD is almost certainly going to become a necessity for most users, confirming fears of a hidden cost that adds $299 / £249 / AU$499 onto the price of the console. 

Source: Reddit

Jason Coles
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