There was more to the Xbox showcase than games. During the event, President Sarah Bond introduced the new trio the console launch during the holiday season.
Both the Xbox Series X and S will get white, all-digital versions with 1TB hard drives, priced at $449 and $349, respectively. The Series X will also get a special console in black that comes with 2TB of storage and costs $599.
In addition, Xbox emphasized that these new consoles have “the same speed and performance” as their predecessors.
In terms of price, these new consoles are roughly in line with the original $499/$299 price of the Series X|S at launch. Unlike the new iterations PlayStation 5 since late last year, it doesn’t appear that Microsoft is phasing out the original versions of these systems.
Last year, Xbox boss Phil Spencer advocated Series C as an alternative for those on a lower income for the X Series. Although more expensive, the new S Series brings the system closer to parity with its sister console, albeit at the cost of not being able to play discs.
PDAs may finally be in Xbox’s future
Separately from the demo, Spencer talked about a potential Xbox handheld device. Reports began to circulate before the weekend and he showed IGN such a device may exist.
“I think we should have PDAs as well,” Spencer said. “The future of hardware is pretty bright for us. We’ll have time to come out and talk more about the platform, and we can’t wait to bring it to you.”
Of the big three console makers, Microsoft is the only one that has yet to enter the handheld space. Maximum Xbox Game Pass (or its Cloud add-on) was available on other PDAs, so an official device from Microsoft would be a significant step.
When asked further, he suggested that the potential hardware would be a proper PDA, similar to Steam Deck or Nintendo Switch. As someone who likes the first and recent ROG Allys, he said the ability to play local games is “very important.”