Game Pass is this console’s saving grace, offering a huge catalogue of games at a relatively low price and without it I’d probably be a lot more disappointed. You’d be hard pressed to find many big improvements over the One S other than the (admittedly greatly) improved loading times in most games and the smoothness of the UI.

If it looked and ran great on the One S, it’ll look the same here but run better. Any last-gen games are going to benefit from stable frame rates, but it won’t turn a 30fps locked game into a 60/120fps locked game. They’ll also benefit from drastically improved loading times, which alone is a worthy upgrade. It’s unfortunate that you can’t run the One X versions of games on here due to how the backwards compatibility layer works, meaning for those coming from the One S this won’t feel like much of a graphical upgrade, and will be a downgrade for those coming from the One X. The even bigger caveat is that this also applies to BC of older gen (360/OG) games, which don’t get to benefit from the same 4K upscaling and graphical improvements the X models do.

But what about Series optimised games? The new stuff? Well, there isn’t a lot of it right now and likely for the for the next year after launch. What is there, really does show an improvement both graphically and performance-wise over the One S. Forza Horizon 4 for example is 1080p/60fps on the Series S and it plays great! As developers get accustomed to the new toolkits they’ll be able to pump out even more impressive performance out of this small box, but for now it’s not too shabby. This is a secondary console to my PS5, so I’m playing it on the same 55″ 4K TV and while it’s less sharp up close, from couch distance it still looks pretty good to my eye. I don’t feel like I’m missing out by not having the Series X when playing optimised games, but the older games being the One S versions really does make me reconsider my purchase decision knowing that many S titles will run at below 1080p resolutions which don’t upscale nicely to 4K and come out muddy.

512gb storage isn’t great, and roughly only 360gb of that is usable. Still, I managed to fit a dozen games on there ranging from some 360 titles to some Series S optimised ones. As games don’t need the 4K textures on the S, they’re usually not too big in size. Some games are 100+gb, particularly multiplayer titles, so if you’re someone who regularly swaps between games you may find the storage limiting. You can move games off to an external drive just for safe keeping, freeing up internal space, but you can only play older gen games off it. Any new games will require to be installed on the internal storage. At 200+ for a 1TB expansion card, you’re better off just buying the Series X to begin with. The small storage space works for me, but it may not work for you.

The console is small. Not much wider and taller than a Switch, which is pretty impressive. It also runs whisper quiet, and without a disc drive there’s no spinning disc noises either. The large fan does a pretty good job of keeping it cool, and to make it even more impressive, the power supply is integrated into the console! Seriously, well done Microsoft. I do wish it had a disc drive, though. Physical games can usually be found for cheap months after release, but you’ll be paying full price (excluding sales) for digital. Not an issue for me, as it’s primarily for Game Pass games.

The controller is, in my opinion, a huge improvement over the last one despite the subtle changes. The textured, matte triggers feel much better than the glossy material that would get grimy over time. The joystick dimples are a little wider too, and a little shorter, making it much more comfortable for my thumbs during long play sessions. The D-Pad is excellently tactile, if a little obnoxiously loud. I’m all for removable battery compartments, but can we make the next iteration contain rechargeable batteries in the box? Overall, it’s a pretty great controller. I do enjoy the Dualsense’s features and ergonomics a little more, but this isn’t far behind.

Okay, so is it worth it? Sure, if you want it as a secondary console you’ll probably get a lot of love out of it. As a primary console or upgrade to One S/X? It has a lot of unrealised potential, but older games will never be at their “best” on this. If you’re okay with that, then yeah it’s a good buy.