XBox Series S for 11 year old

Meursault

Hi All,

I'm not a gamer and really don't have any knowledge of the different consoles. My son has a Nintendo Switch and loves it, but was talking about getting an XBox "from Santa" (about whom, he's having his doubts, I suspect).

Anyway, a quick glance on the Internet tells me the latest Xbox offerings are Series X - which is an extortionate price - and the Series S, which seems a little more reasonable (although at 300 quid, Santa is stilling being pretty generous).

My question is this. Is the Series S worth it? Presumably, there can't be too many 11 year olds with the 600 euro Series X. How long will he get out of the Series S? Are there other items that you would need to purchase, along with the Series S console? I assume there are.

Apologies, if this obvious query has been asked previously.

I would be grateful for your insights and advice.

Thanks, M.

Ultimate Gowlbag

Personally i have bought the One S/X for early teens,I honestly cant think of any game out now or coming down the line that an 11 year old would need the power of the new gen consoles for!

If you get last gen then santa would still have enough in the pot to buy a few games and sign up to gamepass.

the corpo

The main difficulty with the S is that it doesn't have a dvd drive, so you'll be relying on only downloading games to play (won't be able to buy old second hand games etc)

I think everyone is probably gravitating towards download anyway, given how excellent Gamepass is, but it highlights the next difficulty. The Series S internal storage is pretty small, so will fill up with only a handful of premium games (though you'll be able to fit lots of older, smaller games).

It's a problem both consoles have and is more of an issue with the S, but you can attach external storage to it. The properly compatible storage is still quite expensive, but is starting to appear occasionally in sales etc.

Apart from that, the S is perfect for an 11 year old, they absolutely don't need an X. Just be mindful that the storage issues could become frustrating...

Meursault

That's really useful advice guys. Thanks to you both.

TrivialArguer

Series S is excellent value. Get it and he'll be delighted. Adding on to what was already said...

Id recommend a rechargeable battery pack from Amazon (as the controller comes with disposable batteries). Theyre cheap as long as you dont buy Xbox brand.

If you have storage issues you can buy a external hard drive and move the games he doesnt want t play on there and move them back when he does want them. I doubt you'll have this issue as kids seem to only play 2-3 games at a time.

Don't buy an old gen console, you wont save much and the series s will be good for the next 7ish years. The old gen wont be!

Does he still play switch? Gamestop have an offer where you can trade a Switch in and get the Series S for 80EUR. Id pull the trigger now or find out when the deal is up. Once he gets the console he wont go probably wont go back to the switch because performance is significantly better. My kid didnt anyway lol

Grumpypants

Series S is great. Get game pass, it's about 15 a month but you get 200 games. ( Basically Netflix for gaming).

Plus if you have decent internet you can stream the games from the cloud which gives you series X quality on the series S.

SuperBowserWorld

Note:

You can get GamePass for 3 years for 120 quid ... See the GamePass thread ... so that's a bargain ... but another cost. But you could try GamePass for a month for a few quid and if it's for

Also, as already said, you can swap games out to older cheaper external hard drive afaik. Would save you some download time when you need to reinstall to main internal drive.

cnocbui

The series X should be €500, and it's not extortionate and is in fact a bargain being sold at a loss. I have one. You might also want to consider a tidy SH xbox one X, which actually has higher graphics performance than a series S and would be cheaper.

Nobbies

Hi, like the op, I'm not a gamer so pretty ignorant on this topic, kids have a Nintendo wii & enjoy fifa & Mario games on it, was considering a ps4 for them, but appear hard to find for sale new at the moment.

I see x box series s is available to buy in curries now,question is, can you play fifa & Mario games on a x box or what games are typically played on x box. Thanks

Nobbies

dulpit

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/118161958#Comment_118161958

Fifa - yes.

Mario - no. That's nintendo only.

If you get an Xbox and pay for gamepass you'll get a very large catalogue of games without having to pay anything more. This will include EA play games, so that'll have Fifa 21 (i.e. last year's game) as well as other sports games, and plenty of other types of games that children would like. But no Mario I'm afraid.

Definitely wouldn't get a PS4 at this stage, it's old hardware and will be phased out over time. The Series S strikes me as a good option.

Homelander

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/117901355#Comment_117901355

While the Xbox One X has good graphics performance, it's a) last gen and b) has a drastically inferior CPU.

New games with next gen in mind run alot better on the Series S.

Compare the new BF2042, not only is the framerate better on Series S, it's also the "real" 128-player version of the game. The One X only runs the cut-down 64 player version because it cannot handle the other version.

I don't think it would make much sense to get a 2nd hand One X over a new Digital S when they'd be similarly priced unless you had a huge physical collection of older games or similar.

Treppen

If they have a switch GameStop might let them trade it in for new console.