Both Microsoft and Sony have quietly spent 2021 putting out solid first and second party games while vaguely hand-waving at big-hitting God of Elder Scrolls-shaped things coming sometime in the future. And through a combination of the worldwide chip-crunch, general supply-chain problems, and a rapid speculation craze spiking the price of anything even remotely collectible, the PS5 and Xbox Series X are tougher to lay your hands on than Tyson Fury in a bubble bath. It’s hard to get excited about things you can’t have, so it’s no wonder things feel a bit muted outside of hardware restocks on the console front. But what if I told you that there was an oft-overlooked ‘next-gen’ console you could actually buy - not from someone on eBay that bought one for their niece until they saw just how much the resale was - but from a real shop. One that sells potatoes, or fridges, or children’s bicycles. And that boombox, I mean, games console, is the Xbox Series S. I was very skeptical about how much use my Xbox would get next to the towering PS5, the great horns of its white plastic casing protruding like a narwhal next to the piddly porpoise Series S. But the faster and slicker UI has made it my go-to for entertainment apps, which means that’s what’s turned on for casual evening gaming, which means that’s where perpetual forever games like Warzone and Fortnite get installed, which means I’ve fallen into the Game Pass well of new games and old series I’ve not had the chance to play before. Since Metal Gear Solid 3 came out when I wasn’t old enough to buy it, I’ve been a pretty big Sony Pony. I remember one E3 in the PS3 era getting upset that Twitch weren’t partnering with PlayStation - that level of stupid teenage entitlement. That means I’ve never played Gears, or Halo, or Forza, or any of the other Xbox highlights. But on top of that, Game Pass is just well curated in general, now featuring all the great Bethesda games like Dishonored, Prey, New Vegas and Oblivion, alongside a rotating roster of exceptional indies like Hades, Unpacking and The Forgotten City, to name a few current ones. So really, what more do you want from a ‘next-gen’ console? The Series S has 4K entertainment streaming, good enough performance on great new games, a backwards compatible library of old friends, all wrapped up in a fast, comparably cheap package, that’s compact enough to not need its own planning permission and zoning laws. Plus you can actually buy one literally today and have it arrive in time for the holidays. It doesn’t sound like that much of a compromise to me. I’m thinking of it a bit like buying Pokemon Pearl version when you’re waiting for Pokemon Platinum. When the PS5 you actually want becomes available, you’ll have access to both sides of the exclusive game aisle for the low, low price of more than a mortgage payment, ok - that’s a bit bougie, but you know what I mean. I’ve been surprised by how much I like the Xbox Series S, and if you’ve got 20 years of Xbox games to catch up on, and a burgeoning Disney+-fuelled 4K X-Files addiction brewing too, then you might be as well. I’ve found the Xbox Series S in stock at Currys, Box, and by checking the stock at local supermarkets - mostly Asda - in my area.
