512 GB SSD? Interesting; I thought if anything it'd be larger.
Wonder if PS5 Digital Edition's SSD size could be cut down to scale back on losses they might take selling it at whatever price it ends up at. Could more easily justify $399 for that version.
Anyway, this is really good pricing on MS's price and one thing to keep in mind is that these prices are "estimated". So while they're probably 90% a lock, there's a 10% chance one or both could probably change pricing a tad. And if they were to do so, it'd be a bit lower.
A $249 Series S for example, if MS really wanted big saturation with the system, could be doable. They'd be losing a bit more per unit sold (I'm thinking Series S's BOM is probably around $350 anyway), but it'd make it even more attractive for the intended market. Also, $249 isn't really that odd a price: Nintendo did it with the Wii back in 2006, after all.
Wait what,
all digital but only
512 GByte SSD?
What will remain after reserving space for OS/UI? About 400GB or even less?
Xbox One reserves 138GB for OS
XBO was bloated on several fronts including reserved SSD space for the OS. This number should be a lot lower next-gen, part of the reason being no need for file duplicates from using platter drives.
We won't know how it's going to effect game development until it's been out lomg enough to be passed crossgen titles.
I know the XSS's defenders keep saying games will just be identical, but at a lower resolution, but this is seriously underpowered. I just cannot see how this isn't going to adversely affect next gen development.
Look at how badly the XO often ran games this gen compared to PS4, or the massive gulf in quality is between games on Switch compared to everything else. Yet those power gaps are nothing compared to how far behind the PS5 and XSX this thing will be, and we're seriously meant to believe that won't adversly effect things?
This isn't a bargain in my mind, or MS being noble, customer friendly geniuses, this is pure greed exploiting the poor, ignorant and budget conscious to make a fast buck any way possible, and not giving a damn about what's actually best for the wider gaming industry and games themselves as a medium.
Not a good take at
all, amigo. It's a somewhat elitist mindset, not much different from the "PC Master Race" types, and all you're really advocating for is withholding a hobby from people who have less money. If the industry felt that way, things like arcades wouldn't of existed. Arcades, btw, actually helped drive a
LOT of innovation and were and still remain the blueprint for design templates in gaming still used today so...this idea that providing a cheaper option will hold back innovation in the industry doesn't make any sense.
Anyone who knows better would know that most companies are more risk-adverse when the number of players in an ecosystem is smaller, because riskier stuff...
risks not having enough mass appeal to hit a large percentage of that smaller base in the ecosystem. That ends up democratizing game developers to take more risks because at that point, they know they have a higher probability of hitting a bigger net of players in that ecosystem to make a solid ROI on that title.
Also from what I can tell, the most innovative games for the past few years (or really, for the past few decades) haven't been the graphical powerhouses; it's been smaller games that still look good but don't set industrial trends in top-end graphics. Some of the biggest breakout hits have been stuff like Fall Guys, Fortnite and Among Us, Minecraft etc...
none of those games are necessarily graphical benchmarks. Meanwhile a game like TLOU2 might have excellent visuals, but in terms of the actual game design it's rather banal and breaks absolutely no new ground nor is particularly innovative in that department.
) but some can never pass an opportunity to shit on anything Xbox related. 
