Reply To: Xbox Series X pre-orders – get your hands on the next-gen console first Xbox Series X pre-orders – get your hands on the next-gen console first After months of waiting, we now know precisely when and where we’ll be able to put down Xbox…

[UK Sentinel]

Xbox Series X price and bundles: when can we expect the deals to arrive?

The Xbox Series X price has finally been announced after months of speculation: you’ll be able to get your hands on it for $499 in the US, £429 in the UK, and AU$749 this November 10 2020. In the meantime, Xbox Series X pre-orders will open on September 22 2020.

Get next-gen first: Xbox Series X pre-orders
If you’re in the UK, you can start putting cash down pretty early; as confirmed by the Xbox UK Marketing Lead via Twitter, pre-orders open at 8AM BST. We’ve not heard when international orders begin, but it stands to reason that they’ll go live shortly afterwards. Either way, we expect them to sell out fast considering how low the Xbox Series X price is. The PS5 certainly did.

This announcement may feel like it’s dropped out of the blue, but that’s probably because the Xbox Series X price was leaked ahead of time earlier this week. That led to the unveiling of the Xbox Series S (which is also launching November 10) and the Xbox Series S price for a much lower $299 / £249.

Frankly, it’s about time we had some hard numbers. That November 10 release date is fast-approaching, so the fact we didn’t have an Xbox Series X price until now was starting to worry us. Now we can put those anxieties to bed at long last – especially because it’s not nearly as expensive as we’d feared.

This is in line with what Microsoft’s been saying all along. More specifically, Xbox boss Phil Spencer explained how the company’s trying to make the Xbox Series X price more affordable earlier this year. He said that Microsoft has been asking itself “how can we make [the console] as affordable as possible? How can we give buyers choice?”

That question of choice will be an interesting one to follow in the coming months. How will the system compare in performance to its rival, the PlayStation 5? We now know that the PS5 price is identical to the Series X, for example, so will it be a close-run race? We’ll have to wait and see as PS5 pre-orders pick up steam.

Either way, we win as gamers. The Xbox Series X price won’t break the bank in the way many of us feared, and because of everything that was announced at the recent Xbox Game Showcase (including a new Fable and Obsidian’s latest RPG, Avowed), that’s welcome news.

For more details on the Xbox Series X price, read on. If you want updates as and when they happen, you can also sign up for email alerts below.

We have an Xbox Series X price at long last, and it’s… well, cheaper than we expected. You can see how much the next-gen console will cost in your region below. And remember, reservations begin at 8am September 22.

US: $499
UK: £449.99
AU: $749

Yes, $500 / £450 / $749 is still a lot of money to drop on a next-gen console. But realistically, it could have been so much worse. Thanks to a technical breakdown of the confirmed Xbox Series X specs, it should probably be more expensive than it is. We’ve got more details on the console’s innards below, but the addition of a super-fast Solid State Drive (‘SSD’ for short), highly advanced Zen 2 processing cores, and a graphics card that’s capable of ray tracing is… well, all that costs a lot of money.

Plus, there are other ways of paying for the Xbox Series X; it’s not just a case of buying the console wholesale. The Series X is also available for $34.99 per month in the US, £28.99p/m in the UK, and $46p/m in Australia via Xbox All Access, a scheme that allows you to pay off the console over the course of 24 months. Xbox All Access also gets you 24 months of Xbox Game Pass Ultimate as well, so it’s a pretty great deal all round (thanks to Game Pass’ constantly evolving library of games, you wouldn’t have to buy anything else for a while). It may even be one of the most sensible options – it actually ends up saving you money in the long run, even if only a little bit.

Just remember, there aren’t many stores besides Microsoft offering Xbox All Access right now. Gamestop has that honor in the US, while Game and Smyths are the retailers of choice for UK All Access.

 

 

Source: https://www.gamesradar.com

In a completely sane world, madness is the only freedom (J.G.Ballard).

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