Xbox One S launches in United Kingdom: everything you need to know

While Xbox One and Playstation 4 have its own fair share of pros and cons, the new S edition is a great jump for those who already own the previous edition of the console.

After some confusion, Microsoft has confirmed that the Xbox One S release date is 2 August (despite the pre-order page initially saying 31 August).

The launch version packs a whopping 2TB of memory, making concerns about maintaining and culling your games library effectively irrelevant.

The company advertises the Xbox One S as 40 percent smaller than the original model, and I didn’t get the measuring tape out to test that.

The Windows 10 Anniversary update has also recently started rolling out on PCs, and with it, the developer SDK. “We will have more to share in the coming weeks on 1TB and 500GB Xbox One S consoles, which will roll out later this year”.

Furthermore, the Xbox One S weighs just 6.4 pounds compared to the Xbox One’s 7.8 pounds. While the Xbox One midlife refresh was widely expected, there’s the chance Xbox One S sales will suffer if customers choose to wait for the significantly more powerful Project Scorpio, which is now expected to launch at Christmas, 2017.

It doesn’t output games in 4K, though – that will be up to Project Scorpio. Additionally, there’s no Kinect port on the Xbox One S, so you’ll need to grab an adapter if you want to use the system’s camera device. The good news is that rumours were true.

The Xbox One S also has an updated wireless controller which will likely be welcomed by all gaming fans.

The new Xbox One S console is at least forty percent smaller than the original edition.

The “red ring of death” has changed pretty much everything Microsoft does in terms of consoles. The few things that the Xbox One S does have on its predecessor is a built in 4K Ultra HD Blu-ray player, high-dynamic-range video compatibility and support for Ultra HD streaming applications.

In other words, if you have a new, cutting-edge TV, this is the Xbox for you. But Microsoft has also clearly learned more about materials and is putting that knowledge to work. The performance improvements are a nice benefit and the overall design is a big improvement, but it’s not really enough to warrant people trading in their old Xbox Ones.