Microsoft launches two consoles at two different prices
The Xbox Series X arrived alongside a cheaper, disc-free Series S, both built around solid-state storage that largely removed loading screens. Subscription and library access were positioned ahead of boxed software.
Entry 153 of 164 in the record
What happened
Splitting the launch into two machines was the notable decision. The larger console targeted high resolutions and frame rates; the smaller one, considerably cheaper and without a disc drive, aimed at ordinary televisions and buyers who had already stopped buying physical games. Both used solid-state drives with custom decompression hardware, which changed the experience more than raw graphical power did, since waiting to enter a world had been a fact of console gaming for twenty-five years. Backward compatibility reached back across three earlier generations, an unusually deliberate approach to keeping older software playable.
The strategy behind the hardware was clearer than the hardware itself. A subscription offering a large rotating library, including the company's own games on the day they released, was the centerpiece, available on both consoles, on computers and through streaming. That made the cheaper machine a genuinely coherent product rather than a compromise, because a subscriber has less reason to care about disc drives. Component shortages constrained supply well into 2021, and the strongest criticism in the first years concerned a shortage of major exclusive releases rather than the machines themselves.
The world at the time
The console generation launching in late 2020 did so during a pandemic, into a semiconductor shortage that made every device hard to manufacture. Subscription services had taken over music and video, and the company's previous console had trailed its rival for seven years, making a repeat of the same head-to-head hardware contest unappealing.
Historical significance
Consoles began to look like tiers of access to a subscription rather than single products at a single price. Fast storage also quietly ended a long-standing constraint on design, since loading time had shaped how games structured their worlds since the arrival of optical discs.
What it changed
Two-tier launches and disc-free models became normal across the industry, and physical media continued to decline. The subscription-first approach drove very large publisher acquisitions intended to supply it, which in turn brought regulators into the business in a serious way. Loading times shrank so far that they largely disappeared as a topic in reviews.
Sources consulted
- Xbox Series X and Series S hardware reviews
- Xbox Series X and Series S announcement and specifications
- Coverage of Xbox Game Pass strategy and hardware supply
Listed sources support the facts in this entry. Wording throughout is original to this archive. Read more about how entries are researched in sources and methodology.
Last reviewed September 2, 2026. Report a correction