Microsoft is launching the black Xbox Series S 1TB model in India, parallel with global markets, with a price tag of ₹38,990 and an availability date from Sep. 1. Internationally, the model will sell for $349, equivalent to approximately ₹28,800.

What Happened? The original Xbox Series S, clad in white and offering 512GB of basic storage, debuted at ₹34,990. Microsoft positions the Series S as an economical console that provides performance akin to the Xbox Series X but at a lower price point. The lower cost is attributed to the absence of a disk drive and a few other essential hardware modifications.

However, the initial model faced criticism due to limited internal storage, with only 364GB readily accessible. Adding to this, the console exclusively supports proprietary storage cards for expansion, which tend to be pricey. Thus, the addition of more storage is a welcome change, considering both short-term usability and long-term adaptability.

What’s New? Other than the colour shift and expanded storage, the hardware remains the same. The console operates on an 8-core AMD Zen 2 CPU, identical to the Series X, and an AMD RDNA 2 GPU. The CPU in the Series S clocks at 3.6GHz, and the GPU contains 20 compute units clocked at 1.563GHz, providing 4 TFLOPS. The Series S features 10GB RAM, with 8GB allotted to games.

Despite the pared-down approach, the Xbox Series S successfully executes most features found in the Series X's playbook, including variable rate shading, hardware-accelerated ray tracing, ultra-low latency, Quick Resume, and Smart Delivery.

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