Xbox Series S leak: 1440p gaming, high refresh rate, all-digital

 

• The specs of the Microsoft Xbox Series S console have leaked.
• It will feature support for 1440p gaming with up to a 120Hz refresh rate.
• The disc-less console will also feature a custom NVMe SSD.

---

Its raining Xbox Series S news today. Microsoft just confirmed the new console and its prices for different markets, and now we also have its alleged specs thanks to another leak.

Tipster Walking Cat, who previously leaked a snippet of the Xbox Series S before Microsoft’s official confirmation today, has now offloaded what looks like an official promo video for the console. The one minute 31 second video (embedded below) shows off the Xbox Series S in its entirety and also confirms some of its specs.

Microsoft Xbox Series S specs

As per the leaked promo, the Xbox Series S is 60% smaller than the Xbox Series X. It will feature support for 1440p gaming at a 120Hz refresh rate. However, it’ll allow 4K streaming as well as 4K upscaling for games.

The video further confirms the presence of a custom NVMe SSD powered by the Xbox Velocity Architecture that’s designed to load game assets faster from storage while reducing the space they take up on the drive. The Xbox Series X also deploys the new Velocity Architecture.

 

Elsewhere, the video shows that the Xbox Series S is disc-less and features 512GB of storage, which might not be ideal given how massive games are these days. However, the cheaper next-gen Xbox could potentially get removable storage via expansion cards, just like its older sibling, the Xbox Series X.

The console is also poised to include support for DirectX ray tracing, variable rate shading, and variable refresh rate. That’s a lot to pack in a $299 machine. Indeed those who can’t afford the larger, more premium console will find that the Xbox Series S a decent stop-gap before they go on to a $500 machine.