In this video I’m answering the question straight up: is the Xbox Series S worth owning in 2026? And my answer is yes—but yes, there’s a butt to this. If you’re mainly playing free-to-play games like Fortnite and Call of Duty Warzone, the Series S still makes a lot of sense. It gets you in the door, it’s simple, and for those kinds of games you’re not really stressing over every single visual setting. Where it gets tricky is if you care about third-party games looking and running with all the bells and whistles. I’m talking about stuff like 60 frames per second not always being an option on the Series S version, and you being stuck at 30 FPS in some cases. I also bring up how you can turn the Series S into an ultimate emulation machine using dev mode, plus you’ve got Game Pass as another big reason people keep it around. But pricing is the real problem in 2026. The Series S isn’t $300 anymore—it’s $400. And when the PS5 Digital is also $400 and more powerful, that makes the Series S a hard sell unless you know exactly what you’re buying it for.