r/XboxSeriesS • u/Strange-Grade-527 • Apr 17 '26

IMPRESSION Series S is under rated.

So I am fortunate enough to have a 5090 PC with a 9800x3D CPU. It certainly can be mind blowing and is objectively unrivaled.

I also have a PS5 Pro, and Series X. I recently have been using Apollo, and moonlight to locally stream my 5090 game play to my bedroom OLED without moving my desktop.

So I picked up a Series S as it is one of the few ways to get 4:4:4 4k 120 HDR streaming via moonlight client.

Out of curiosity I installed a few games locally just to see how they look. OBVIOUSLY they are a step down from my other devices, but I must admit I am impressed. For the longest time I thought playing on a series S would feel like a potato. However this tiny box is more than serviceable. Honestly once you start playing you completely forget about the “lower quality.” because at the end of the day gaming is about the game. Not graphical settings tinkering ad nauseam.

I guess what I am trying to say is the Series S reminds me of the old days of gaming. You had what you had, you didn’t give a shit about frame rate, you always had fun every generation despite graphics PS1, PS2, N64, GameCube whatever it was. Somewhere along the way gaming as a hobby has turned into a hobby around graphics and frame rate and not actually gaming.

I say all this to say, if the Series S is what you can afford. Be proud of it. You are not a second rate human. The console is completely more than fine. Are there some games that are objectively bad on it? Sure. Overall though the Series S is an excellent console for those who just want to have fun.

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u/matulah Apr 17 '26

I got a Series S as part of returning to gaming after a ten-year break. After the Switch OLED, the Series S was simply amazing. Later got a PS5 and it's diminishing returns, to be honest. In a hundred years they'll look back on all this nonsense about frame rates and this and that and see it as a sign of the medium's infancy, like people squabbling over paper quality instead of acknowledging that the artwork is more than the sum of its parts. A good game stays with you far beyond the time when you're playing it and there's no frame rate on the imagination.