Xbox One S All-Digital Edition will bomb, here’s why

Date:

The new Xbox One S All-Digital console is one big miss-fire from Microsoft. Launching late into the console’s lifespan, here is why it will bomb.

Microsoft have been on a roll lately; investing in next generation multi-platform technology, ramping up their online services and making it accessible to PC gamers, and most importantly focusing on video-games. Team Xbox did us proud this year at E3. They gave us so much too look forward to, but one of those things is definitely not the Xbox One S All-Digital Edition console.

You might also like

Although I can see an All-Digital future in gaming and cinema, the new Xbox One S is just too little, too soon. It is also far too expensive for what it offers. The console is now available for pre-order at most major retailers from AU$345.. This is kind of pointless knowing you can pick up a disc based Xbox One S for an extra AU$30. You can also often find awesome game bundle deals for less than that; I got a 1TB Xbox One S with Forza 4 Horizon and Red Dead Redemption 2 for only AU$325. Regardless, you’d be making a bad decision picking the All-Digital Edition, especially at this price.

The biggest selling points of the Xbox One S is that it is one of the cheapest 4K disc players available on the market today. The cheapest stand-alone 4K player will cost you around AU$300 and you can’t play games on them. You can install Netflix, Stan, Amazon Prime and other streaming services on your Xbox One S for free, making it the ultimate multimedia center.

But what if you don’t care about the 4K player?

If you are buying the Xbox One S All-Digital Edition console purely for the sake of gaming, you’d still be shooting yourself in the foot. First of all, if you want to get the best possible console gaming experience then the Xbox One X is the way to go. It may be AU$499 but you’d even be hard pressed building a gaming PC that can play 4K games at that price. But if that’s a little too pricey for you then the normal 1TB Xbox One S is more than enough.

If you don’t plan on buying Xbox Game Pass Ultimate then the All-Digital console is going to cost you a lot both in the long and short run. Australian digital game prices are ridiculously high. A new release standard edition title can set you back as much as AU$100, and all digital games are non-refundable, non-transferable and non-tradable. You can get a physical copy of a new release game for as little as AU$70, that is the price difference between the 4K disc and a All-Digital edition console. Then, when you get sick of the game, you can take it into EB Games and trade it for something else.

Xbox One S All-Digital is a miss-fire

Microsoft have the right idea, but they’ve executed it poorly. There is nothing innovative about the the All-Digital edition; all they did is remove the 4K disc drive and take AU$30 off the price. And, with 1TB of storage, you will find yourself running out of disc space really quickly, at least if you are an avid gamer. The new console doesn’t stream games like the upcoming Google Stadia which requires no hard-disc and can stream 4K games straight to your television through the Google Chromecast Ultra which is only AU$90.

I don’t really see a purpose for this console, and that is why the Xbox One S All-Digital Edition will probably bomb. So, if you are hanging out for true All-Digital gaming you might be better off just waiting for Xbox to release their next-gen console, currently called Project Scarlett, which they teased at E3 earlier this year.

- Advertisement -
Verification: 0b7d225104f108aaa0e729050cb4fc1e