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The best Xbox Series X and Series S deals for January 2023

Bruce Brown
By
Microsoft Xbox Series X and Series S game consoles.

For gamers who are on the hunt for Xbox Series X deals or Xbox Series S deals, patience is a necessity because it won’t be easy to discover discounts for Microsoft’s new consoles. The prices of the Series X and Series S consoles are even higher than their suggested retail prices from some retailers because there’s high demand for them, in addition to dwindling stocks. Such supply-and-demand forces are also affecting gamers who are looking for PlayStation deals that involve the PlayStation 5. Officially, Microsoft and its authorized retailers sell Xbox Series X and Series S console at list prices — $500 for the Series X and $300 for the Series S. That’s a fact, but there’s a twist. Since Microsoft launched the new video game consoles last November, shipments have usually sold out in minutes. Some believe the supply-and-demand imbalance may be easing because, in some cases, big-box retailers such as Best Buy and Target are able to keep the Series X and Series S in stock for a couple of hours. You can take your chances on finding a Series X or Series S console at list price today, but you’ll be competing with multitudes of other buyers, many of whom set product availability alerts when the consoles are in stock. Stay vigilant, and you’ll get your new console!

Best Xbox Series X and Series S deals

Xbox Series S Holiday Edition — $240, was $299

Walmart has had the holiday version of the Xbox Series S on sale for over a month now. The only difference between the holiday version and the regular version is the pattern on the cardboard box it comes in, so this is the same essential console. The Xbox Series S is the little brother of the Series X. It’s a bit less powerful and doesn’t have a disc drive, but it’s still a next-gen console that will help you play all the modern games you’ve been itching to try out. The holidays have been over for a long time now, so this deal will likely only last until Walmart runs out of stock. Grab it soon!

What is the Xbox Series X?

Microsoft’s Xbox Series X is the more powerful of the two latest versions of the gaming powerhouse’s consoles. The Series X has an eight-core AMD Custom Zen 2 CPU running at 3.8GHz, an AMD custom RDNA2 graphics processing unit that runs 1.825GHz, and 12GB of RAM. A 1TB solid-state drive is standard, as is a 4K UHD Blu-Ray optical drive. The Series X outputs up to 8K video and ships with a 4th-generation Xbox wireless controller and an UltraHDMI cable. Of the two new consoles, the Series X is the only one that plays game media.

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Theoretically, the Xbox Series X sells for $500, although availability is very tight, and resellers often list new units for more than twice the list price. You can also sign up for a 24-month Xbox All Access subscription that includes an Xbox Series X console and the Xbox Game Pass Ultimate for $35 a month. If you don’t want the more powerful of the latest Xbox console with no compromises, the Xbox Series X is your choice.

What is the Xbox Series S?

The Microsoft Xbox Series S plays all the games and other content you can play on the Series X, only slower. The Series S is slightly down-specced from the Series X, with a slower CPU and GPS, a bit less memory, half the storage space, support for 4K video max, and no optical drive. The Series S can stream content for games but cannot play hard media you already own or buy.

The Series S console lists for $300, or you can buy it with a 24-month, $25-per-month Xbox All Access subscription. The Xbox Series S console is a lower-priced choice for players who don’t want to spend $500 on a game console or who are more casual about their gameplay. With the current shortage of available Xbox consoles, you’ll probably have to pay close to $500 to buy a Series S console anyway, unless you luck out by finding one during the brief availability windows when a new shipment arrives at a retail store or website.

Should you get an Xbox Series X or Series S console?

In a head-to-head evaluation of the Xbox Series X and Series S, Digital Trends praised the Series X for its “cutting-edge gaming experience from Microsoft, delivering games in resolutions up to 8K in a compact, minimal form factor.” The same evaluation pointed out the Series S price point allows more players to get into the Xbox world without breaking their budgets.

So, which should you buy? Assuming you could actually buy both consoles, the extra $200 list price cost of the Xbox Series X is totally worth it. The Series X console is more powerful than the Series S overall, including a faster CPU, 8K video supported compared to the Series S 4K limit, more memory, and twice the SSD storage. In addition, the Series X console has a 4K UHD Blu-Ray optical drive. The drive has two huge advantages: You can play games on physical media, plus you can play Blu-Ray media.

The Series S lets you play all the new Xbox games, so if that’s your sole motivation to buy the latest generation new Xbox console, it makes sense to save the $200. If you want to play games with the most powerful console and the highest video resolution, however, the Xbox Series X is still the smarter choice.

Another way to score a Microsoft Series X or Series X at a great price

Microsoft has a second way to buy Series X or Series S consoles in addition to outright console purchases. If you sign up for a 24-month subscription to Xbox All Access, you get a Series X or Series S console plus the Xbox Game Pass Ultimate. Game Pass Ultimate includes a library of more than 100 games, including online multiplayer games and EA Play, a second library of Electronic Arts titles. In addition, with Xbox Game Pass Ultimate, you can play Xbox Game Studios games immediately after release, plus you can play Xbox games on compatible smartphones or tablets. The Xbox All Access subscription for the Series X console costs $35 a month for 24 months, and the Series S All Access subscription is $25 a month.

If you were going to subscribe to the Xbox Game Pass Ultimate subscription anyway, the normal cost is $15 per month. With the Xbox Series X and Series S 24-month Xbox All Access subscription, you save $20 for the Series X and $60 for the Series S. Buying an Xbox All Access subscription in hopes of getting your hands on a Series X or Series S console earlier doesn’t work, however, because Microsoft sells the Xbox All Access packages through the same retailers that sell the consoles for a single purchase cost.

If you want to purchase an Xbox Series X or Series S console immediately, you may have to buy one of the price-inflated deals. We found Series X consoles on Amazon, for example, for $1,099 and $1,149, more than twice the $500 list price. Xbox Series S consoles have similar markups. Resellers barely sweeten the pot by throwing in a second Xbox wireless game controller, an extra HDMI cable, a USB memory thumb drive, or an inexpensive water bottle.

So the deals we list below aren’t really Xbox Series X or Series S deals or sales, but they are the best prices we could find. We don’t realistically expect Microsoft to catch up with the massive demand for the Xbox Series X or Series X consoles until sometime in 2022. Until then, we’ll continue to monitor retail channels and update this article with the best Xbox Series X and Series X prices we can find. We’ll also continue to include Series X and Series S accessories, some of which do have slight discounts.

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