About a year ago I made a decision not to continue with PlayStation as my main console, and switch to Xbox Series instead. It was a risk, as I have been a reasonably happy PS customer through PS3 and PS4 eras.
Now, after a year with Xbox Series S I can sum up my experience and compare notes.
tldr; It is great and I’m very happy with this decision.
I can safely say that all the hopes I put into switching to Xbox have realized!
What worked really well:
- GamePass is great:
- I discovered some fantastic games like The Ascent, Sable or Tinykin thanks to it
- Some of first-party titles are great fun, like Wasteland 3 or Forza Horizon
- Access to full Xbox back-catalogue is really awesome, I already dipped into the classics quite a bit
- Hardware is great - absolutely silent, turns on extremely fast
- Love the controller - good weight, solid build
- Software is also great, haven’t had any issues whatsoever
- Quick resume is a godsend, I don’t have much time to play, and being able to resume playing the game in under 1 minute is just perfect
- Smart delivery works seamlessly to update games to current generation
- Plenty of older titles get automatic 60fps upgrade
- Awesome compatibility with Xbox360 games, played Fable, Fallout New Vegas and Fallout 3 with 1s load time and rock solid 60fps
What could have gone better:
- Some of the classic MS exclusives turned out to be not my cup of tea: didn’t enjoy Gears of War or Halo for example
- Series S disk is rather small for the big modern games: installing Halo Collection along with Forza Horizon 5 uses pretty much most of the available space
- None of the new MS exclusives that I was looking forward to playing have yet been released
Regardless, it’s a great game console and Microsoft surely did learn from the mistakes of Xbox One era. I’ve sold my PS4 and have no regrets.