The Xbox Series S will play Xbox One S games but not One X titles, here’s why

Xbox just recently revealed its Xbox Series S gaming console. It is not as powerful as the Serie X and is meant for gamers who are tight on budget and are buying a console for the first time. However, there are also many who might be upgrading from the its predecessor, Xbox One S or the Xbox One X. If you are coming from these two and are hoping to run the same titles on Series S considering it has a backward compatibility, there might be a bit of a disappointment for some of you. As it turns out, the Series S console is backward compatible but only for Xbox One S games. This means, Xbox One X titles won’t run on it.

“Xbox Series S was designed to be the most affordable next-generation console and play next-generation games at 1440p at 60fps,” Microsoft confirmed to VGC website. “To deliver the highest quality backwards compatible experience consistent with the developer’s original intent, the Xbox Series S runs the Xbox One S version of backward compatible games while applying improved texture filtering, higher and more consistent frame rates, faster load times and Auto HDR.”

What this essentially means is that although most Xbox One games will run on Series S at 1080p or lower and may also take advantage of features like faster SSD, titles with Xbox One X enhancements like high-resolution, won’t run on Xbox Series S. This happens because the One X was meant to run games at up to 4K resolution, which was achieved using powerful GPU. Series S has good CPU and SSD but not as capable GPU.

The Series X is priced at Rs 49,990 while the Series S costs ₹34,990 in India. The launch date is November 10 and the pre-order begins from September 22.