A lighter version of the Xbox Series X could be announced in August. What offer a cheaper “next-gen” alternative to players, who will be seduced by the catalog of Xbox games which should expand in July.
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We only know the code name for the moment, “Lockhart”. The one that could perfectly be called Xbox Series S (in the same spirit as an Xbox One X wants to be the more powerful declination of an Xbox One S) has not been formalized by Microsoft, but the insistent rumors around of this light version of the Xbox Series X all go in the direction of a presentation this summer. This is also confirmed by an article byEurogamer, which even states that the announcement of this Xbox “Lockart” Series S would be made rather during the month of August.
The Covid-19 pandemic has indeed got the better of initial plans from Microsoft, which foresaw the bulk of its announcements during E3 in June. Strategy modified due to the cancellation of the Los Angeles show and a confinement imposed also in the United States, to switch to a series of “Xbox 20/20” presentations, posted online at a regular rate. The next event already promises to be quite rich, but would not yet speak of a declination of the Xbox Series X, probably to better express the qualities of the latter – including its graphic power – and keep an emphasis on games, in particular the Xbox exclusives in order to respond to Sony which did not fail to highlight those of its PlayStation 5.
A less powerful Xbox Series S as a calling product
The Xbox Series S, if it is so called, would in any case be positioned as a “next-gen” product at Microsoft, running the same games as its big sister Series X, but with a lower graphics quality, especially a definition limited to 1080p or 1440p, against a 4K Ultra HD lens for the X. Its graphics performance would indeed be divided by 3 (4 TFLOPS) and its amount of RAM accessible to developers reduced to 7.5 GB (versus 13.5 GB), according to The Verge. The CPU would however be similar, and we can hope that it is the same for the SSD, without which it will become difficult to create Xbox exclusives which can really exploit the performance of this component on Series X and both run correctly on Series S.
Such a strategy would in any case be very different from that adopted by Sony with its two PlayStation 5, which are distinguished only by the absence of Blu-ray disc player on the “Digital Edition”. Microsoft could nevertheless take the opportunity to offer a more aggressive price with its Series S. Only a few weeks before discovering what it is really about.
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