While the original Xbox retail unit announcement saw Bill Gates joined on stage at CES 2001 by none other than Dwayne “The Rock” Johnson, Microsoft needed a higher profile individual with even more muscle — albeit industry muscle — to announce the world’s most powerful console 18 years later: Geoff Keighley, and not at the usual yearly show that generally sees big reveals (well, the project was announced during E3 2019). Nope, in a completely unexpected move by Microsoft, the official reveal of the Xbox Series X remained dormant throughout E3 2019, until December 13th, at The Game Awards, where Xbox boss Phil Spencer casually dropped the reveal trailer. Then, not content with having only one console with an impressive accolade, Microsoft announced the Xbox Series S, the smallest Xbox console ever built, on September 8th, 2020 — just two months before both consoles were due to launch on November 10th, kickstarting a new generation of Xbox console gaming.Rumours of multiple consoles being built by Microsoft started floating around towards the end of 2018, under the codenames Anaconda (Xbox Series X) and Lockhart (Xbox Series S). Thurrott’s Brad Sams reported in December 2018 that both consoles were part of a project called ‘Xbox Scarlett,’ with Anaconda internally referred to as ‘Scarlett Pro’ and Lockhart referred to as ‘Scarlett Arcade.’ Sams’ report also covered two other projects in the works: Maverick, which would go on to be the all-digital version of the Xbox One S, and Roma, the internal codename for what is now Xbox All Access. The article said that Roma’s “streamlined process will make the day one experience a little bit better” — this of course was before the world was gripped by a pandemic.Microsoft remained silent about the existence of the consoles until E3 2019 when Phil Spencer officially unveiled Project Scarlett, a new generation of consoles completely focused on gaming. The unveiling didn’t show the consoles, nor anything much about them, only that Project Scarlet would be four times more powerful than the Xbox One X, allow for 8K gaming, 120 FPS, significantly improve load times, act as a continuation of your Xbox One experience, and release during the holiday season of 2020. The official announcement of the project would see rumours and speculation thrown around — including rumoured Oculus Rift S compatibility — until the Xbox Series X was unveiled in spectacular fashion six months later.The reveal was without a doubt an unexpected move by Microsoft, and it made Xbox the talking point of the holiday season, for a couple of reasons: not only was the Xbox Series X uncovered at The Game Awards — a first for Geoff Keighley’s annual show — but it was accompanied by an in-engine reveal trailer for Ninja Theory’s Senua’s Saga: Hellblade 2. The game’s trailer gave us our first look at what the console could achieve with its new hardware and Xbox Velocity Architecture. Microsoft’s ‘Fastest, Most Powerful Xbox Ever’ slogan looked to be on point, and once the specifications of the console were revealed it was a safe bet that the Xbox Series X would become the world’s most powerful console: a bet that would be won after the PlayStation 5 was announced.Although Microsoft had unveiled its awesome new machine, players were still left questioning whether a second console was a real thing or not. After all, all previous rumours had confidently suggested that the ‘Lockhart’ console was a real thing, but Microsoft was keeping tight-lipped on the matter — well, maybe tight-lipped in the sense that no announcement or talk of the second console was happening, even when Xbox Series S branding started to appear on various Xbox products. Nope, Microsoft refused to acknowledge the second console’s existence all the way until September 8th, 2020. Supposedly the Xbox Series S was going to be revealed in June during the Xbox E3 presentation, but after the show was cancelled due to the Covid-19 pandemic, the team spread all Xbox announcements over the course of a few months, getting to the Series S announcement just two months short of its release alongside the Series X.While the Xbox Series X holds the crowning title of the ‘Fastest, Most Powerful Xbox Ever,’ the Xbox Series S weighs in as the ‘Smallest Xbox Ever;’ in fact, the Xbox Series S is 60% smaller than its larger sibling. Aside from not sporting a disc drive like the Series X, and only offering up 4TFLOPs of GPU power compared to the Series X’s 12TFLOPS, the Xbox Series S cemented itself as an extremely accessible entry point for ‘next-gen’ gaming. While the Xbox Series X went on sale for £449.99, the Xbox Series S entered the world for only £249.99, making it a very attractive prospect for the majority of players. Sure, the Series S doesn’t quite have the power behind it like the Series X, meaning it can only achieve 1440p resolutions instead of true 4K or 8K. Its SSD is half the size, and it’s a digital-only console, but it still shares a huge number of features with its bulky sibling — both consoles are capable of hitting 120fps, have custom SSDs, run on Xbox Velocity Hardware, and offer HDR, VRR, Auto Low Latency Mode, and AMD FreeSync, which is everything the new generation of consoles should be achieving. The Series S even sports an Expansion Card slot just like the Series X, giving players the ability to easily install a drive built with the same custom hardware as the internal SSD, and increase the console’s storage size.With both consoles announced to the world and the release looming on the horizon, preorders went live and predictably sold out instantly. Of course, there was a huge amount of players trying to snatch up one of the consoles for the holiday season, but the biggest problem that occurred was the scalpers — people who use computer software to buy up masses of highly anticipated or valuable retail goods the moment it goes on sale, and then resell it with highly inflated prices. Scalping has generally been a practice reserved for limited edition items, such as clothing or trainers, but a console release, mixed with a pandemic-exacerbated chip shortage meant that manufacturers were going to have a hard time with supply and demand, pushing desperate consumers to the scalpers in an attempt to get hold of the latest consoles. While the Xbox Series X|S consoles now hold the title of ‘Microsoft’s fastest-selling consoles,’ what was originally looking like an incredible launch for the team at Xbox had been soured by events well out of their control. But both consoles are slowly making their way into players’ hands, giving the community a chance to play games that take advantage of the new hardware. The list of titles keeps on growing, from older games like The Elder Scrolls Online which has benefited from framerate boosts and added detail, and Hellblade: Senua’s Sacrifice which now boasts raytracing, to newer releases, such as Back 4 Blood, Far Cry 6, and Battlefield 2042. We’re still in the infancy of this generation, and the results that both consoles can achieve is still yet to be fully explored, which is a fascinating and exciting thing to think about.With part 19 of our 20 moments that defined Xbox series now wrapped up, keep an eye out tomorrow for our final entry. For now, we’d like to know which game you’ve been enjoying the most on the Xbox Series X|S consoles, or if you’re yet to pick one up? Let us know down below, and don’t forget to check out the other entries in the series.
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