Microsoft confirms $299 Xbox Series S as leaks reveal Series X release date, and price too
Xbox Series S console design finally leaked. We can confirm the Xbox Series S is $299, and the Series X is $499. Xbox Series S and Xbox Series X will launch on November 10, 2020.
If recent reports and leaks prove true, Microsoft’s Xbox Series X and Xbox Series S consoles will launch on Nov. 10 for familiar prices: $499 for the Xbox Series X, and $299 for the Xbox Series S. After the leaks occurred, Microsoft itself confirmed the Xbox Series S’s existence, as well as its $299 price point.
Microsoft has since partially confirmed our report, unveiling the Xbox Series S with a $299 price tag.
Update, September 8 (3:18 a.m. ET) — Microsoft unveils Xbox Series S with $299 price tag
Microsoft has responded to recent reports, officially unveiling the Xbox Series S with a $299 retail price in the U.S. The company states the next-generation console comes in its "smallest" footprint to date, with more details to come "soon."
It has long been rumored that Microsoft is working on two Xbox consoles for next-gen, aiming to claim both ends of the market. And now, we can confirm indeed that the pricing scheme should be very familiar, matching that of the Xbox One X and Xbox One S of yesteryear.
It looks like next-gen Xbox information is making its way out on the web: Windows Central says it’s received the Xbox Series X pricing and launch information; Thurrott’s Brad Sams says he’s confirmed the existence of the Xbox Series S; and the WalkingCat Twitter account has some images of the Xbox Series S comparing the size of the (smaller) Series S console to the next-gen Xbox Series X. And Microsoft? After this reports surfaced, the company just went ahead and... tweeted it out.
Microsoft, of course, has confirmed the existence of the Xbox Series X, with a deep dive into its internals. To date, however, Microsoft hasn’t said anything beyond the fact that the console would launch during the 2020 holiday season, even with the COVID-19 pandemic lurking in the background. However, Microsoft launched the original Xbox One X at $499, and Windows Central says that’s going to be the price of the new Xbox Series X, too.
We can confirm via our sources that the entry-level Xbox Series S will cost $299 at retail, with a $25 per month Xbox All Access financing option, which Microsoft is planning to push hard via various retailers and a large global rollout. The more powerful Xbox Series X will cost $499, with a $35 per month Xbox All Access financing option.
Both consoles will launch on November 10, 2020.
The Xbox Series S just leaked (via Brad Sams), giving us a glimpse at Microsoft's entry-level next-gen SKU. The Xbox Series S is small enough to fit inside an Xbox Series X, and we expect it to be around 4TF RDNA2, making it roughly around as powerful as the Xbox One X, perhaps geared towards 1080p monitors with better frame rates. We don't have further details on the console's capabilities beyond that, but we expect NVME drives, and many of the newer "next-gen" features like fast resuming multiple games, and ray tracing.
The Xbox Series X is a 12TF beast of a console that will boast 4K resolution and 60 FPS as standard, with some games, like Halo Infinite, going all the way up to 120 FPS in multiplayer.
Not surprisingly, Microsoft will make the Xbox Series X part of its Xbox All Access program, Windows Central reports, a lease that allows a user to pay a small fee (about $31/mo for an Xbox One X) to lease a Microsoft console. The All Access plan also comes with 24 months of Xbox Game Pass Ultimate, Microsoft’s Netflix-like game subscription program. A $299 Xbox Series X paired with Xbox Game Pass already looks poised to provide stunning value, and offering it on a monthly payment plan would only make it more achievable for gamers to obtain.
Microsoft will push Xbox All Access financing far more broadly than it did this gen, which was seen as a bit of a pilot program. We're expecting Xbox All Access to roll out to far more markets than it did previously, and we also expect the Xbox Series consoles to gun for a global simultaneous launch in all existing Xbox markets, rather than the slow rollout we saw for the Xbox One in 2013.
Sony, of course, hasn’t announced the price of its next-generation PlayStation 5 console. Looks like the ball is in Sony’s court, now...or at least until Microsoft decides to tweet even more information.
