Xbox UK Reveals Black Friday Plans For Series S, Controllers And More

Yall remember the old days when Dwayne Johnson and Bill Gates launched the first Xbox in 2001? Good days. The start of a very successful and prominent Gaming Enforcer. This is TRUE Xbox.

I will say that Xbox Series X lost so much aura when it went digital a few weeks ago.😂😂😂 Now the Xbox Series X is just a bigger version of the Series S 😂

@Steel76 Disc drives shall never die on my watch! 😂 My uncle keeps his Xbox One and 360 as old relics.

A bit lame being honest when you have a
Series x 1tb digital console at £429.99
With PS5 digital at £389.99
And as from tomorrow will be £339.98 for Black Friday PS5 digital.

And we wonder why Xbox sell very few consoles.
It’s like they don’t want to sell consoles.

@OldGamer999 They're mainly trying to focus on the benefits of Game Pass and Cloud Gaming. Game Pass Ulitmate only came out a few years ago, and the era Digital Disc-less Gaming is upon us. They might as well keep up! Plus, I don't think Xbox One or Series X Disc Drives are going away anytime soon. They still support the CDs and encourage physical drives.

@UserTK-421 how does it lose its aura though? I'm not psyched at the prospect of all digital being the standard next generation - but the disc-less Series X is just another option. The standard unit isn't going away.

@Blinx I see that it's another option, but now it looks almost identical to the 512 GB Series S, but now the Series S is Carbon Black 1TB and the Series X is 2TB SSD. They kind of switched personalities I guess.... from a certain point of view. But you did make a good point. 👍

I'm surprised they haven't phased out the 512GB in favour of the 1TB model. 512GB (384GB usable) was scraping by when it launched and now it's just not enough space.

Well I won't be buying any console this black friday because I'm STILL waiting for microsoft to send me the series x special edition I preordered. My current 'estimate' is 10th december.....

If it was £200 I might be tempted into one for the second TV so I need never be without a TV to play Xbox on.

Would like a series x for back compat but I can’t justify the price at all.

@OldGamer999 the ps5 might cost less but try getting a half decent deal on their digital storefront without those sweet sweet MS reward points.

Some great games but you certainly pay a premium for those what, 8 exclusives (read: sequels)

@Coletrain
That’s the Sony strategy. You have to get the console in peoples homes first then sell stuff at a premium price.
I have now real sort of idea overall what Microsoft’s is with Xbox.
And whatever it is, none of it is really working overall.
There only small moment of joy is recently turning plus 4%. But they had to buy ABK to do that else they would minus in the double digits.
They have not grown consoles or Gamepass really all of 2024.
All they have done is purchased ABK to turn a profit in Xbox.
Any fool can do that if you a few trillion dollars.

@OldGamer999 maybe you're right. But I have to say, the series X with gamepass and using MS rewards towards purchases is the most fun I've had with a console since PS2.

Having a PS3/4 pushed me heavily towards the exclusives ecosystem, and I'd just totally ignored how great some 3rd party games were.

I honestly like the new Xbox direction, but given that it's quite PC and cloud centric they need to get the hybrid console, handheld and cloud infrastructure right to be a major player again. Otherwise, I see myself gravitating towards ps6 for my living room gaming

@OldGamer999 i think the problem is they are trying to sell us a vision but in realith they are not there yet. You cant market xcloud and “every device is an xbox” because its not even remotely same experience as PC/console. And they for some reason not trying at all with consoles while still having 60-70% of GP subs on console.
I feel like its all half measures thats why its not working. Either push console or go full multiplat or go full GP.
GP cant grow on PC until its on steam. It cant grow on console because you are not selling consoles. It cant grow on cloud as tech is at least 10 years not there if we are honest.
If you want to sell games then why keep doing xbox? Why lose money on GP? Make GP a ubi+/ea play then with only ur games.
I get it they want it all but that clearly does not work.

@OldGamer999 I mean are we looking at the same data on Sony? Their sales peaked with the Ps2 and its not like that console even broke 200 million. Sony's strategy from what I've seen is an acknowledgment that they aren't getting more consoles in people's homes, so they HAVE to sell software at higher prices to turn a profit (and they have to sell hardware at higher costs than prior generations). They're doing a better job getting gamers to upgrade, but that doesn't mean as much anymore with so much cross gen and at the end of the day their customer base hasn't grown much in like a decade now. Active users probably have due to cross gen and live service, but individual console sales have straight dropped.

The console market in general is rough right now and very confused. The most successful console is the Switch and even that hasn't broke 200 million sales. And when you look at it their pricing for games and hardware compared to other offerings is a little wild. Financials this generation are kinda yikes. Not talking about for businesses but the way these costs are being pushed on us. Really the PS5 all digital should be at retail no more than $400 and go on sale for $350 or less. The 512gb series S should be like $200 to $250 year round with black Friday pulling it down into the $150 to $200 area. The increased storage models should just be selling for what the base models had already. Yes, I'm using USD but AFAIK the pound is doing slightly better so should be around the same area.

@Millionski I do think Xbox has a unique offering and the best value in gaming, but it feels like Microsoft themselves aren't all in their strategy to expand Xbox. There was no real need for them to accelerate putting games on other consoles and confuse users. I do think exclusives are dying and that's an eventual step, but Xbox didn't need to fire first especially when Sony still insists on being such a bad faith competitor. It certainly feels like Xbox has a clear end goal, but refuses to move down it's steps to achieve it linearly. I'd say expand the native Xbox ecosystem first. Once you've really built your foundation on mobile, console, cloud, and PC and don't see much more growth in all of that then move to other platforms within the same market. Xbox doesn't even need to bring GP to steam to have PC game pass grow. They just need to support having a passable launcher and storefront on PC themselves. We just got an article and some work from the people over at Xbox era that Xbox Play Anywhere, part of Xbox's unique value offering and promise for expanded game availability and support, isn't even made as visible as it is big. There are literally Xbox games on PC with play anywhere enabled that ARE NOT visible on the Xbox App for PC. And then there's steam beating windows to having a basic gaming mode. Xbox has the winning strategy and is in the very unique position to make it work. They can truly build a gaming empire across console, cloud, and PC on native platforms they own (and mobile if the courts opening it up like windows goes through properly). No other company even has that opportunity. The problem is Microsoft isn't all in on this strategy. It's just my hope that now that Xbox has built up their first party gaming content, next is for them to build up their first party gaming experiences. And Microsoft really needs to actually support these endeavors. There's no reason why gaming through Xbox shouldn't be the best, most native and console like gaming experience on windows. Like do your teams not talk to each other? How is Steam big picture mode a better gaming UX and UI on Microsoft owned Windows than the Microsoft owned Xbox app??

@Millionski
That’s is why I can’t understand Microsoft is the point you made over 50% of GP subscribers are on Xbox consoles, that is a great up take.

I have always said from day one.
Sell a console, you can sell a GP subscription.

GP is not selling well outside of consoles if you consider the billions of devices GP is available on compared to consoles.

Unfortunately what Microsoft have not released yet. Most that want GP and Xbox games by an Xbox console to do so.
When they work this out they might change their attitude towards Xbox consoles.

Or just go full publisher, but the main thing is either way they have to make great games that people want to play.

UK here so just shopped up and seen PS5 black Friday deals.

PS5 disc £409
PS5 digital £310

Series x disc £460
Series x digital £430, sorry that price is a joke.
Series s 512gb £200

Microsoft you got no chance against those Sony prices. Maybe a few Series s sales.
But as for the big power consoles really don’t want to sell consoles, DO YOU.
It is dam obvious at these prices for Black Friday against the competition.

I was hoping the Elite Controller 2's might be cheap

Also - do they no longer make the 500GB expansion cards?