Photo Credit: WinFuture.de
The disc-less Xbox One S or Xbox One S Digital Edition price and release date has been leaked. You can expect the Xbox One S Digital Edition price to be EUR 229.99 (around Rs. 18,000) with a May 7 release date. It will ship with a 1TB hard drive and three games. These are Minecraft, Sea of Thieves, and Forza Horizon 3. It doesn't appear to ship with Xbox Game Pass though. Odd considering that Microsoft has been pushing the service aggressively. The proof of its price and indication of no Game Pass comes courtesy of marketing material leaked by German Windows site WinFuture.de.
This report follows a similar leak back from March that nailed down most of these details except its price. With that in mind, it seems that Microsoft isn't anywhere close to the rumoured $199 price tag if you consider a direct conversion from Euros. That said, it could still ship for $199 in the US.
It was previously suggested that the Xbox One S All Digital Edition would be sold the world over at the same time. If true, that would explain the rampant discounting of the Xbox One S in India right now.
Microsoft has discounted the Xbox One S in India. According to ads on Instagram from the company, the Xbox One S is available for less than Rs. 27,990 with a link redirecting users to a Flipkart listing which has the Xbox One S 1TB console for Rs. 19,990 instead of the Rs. 30,990 MRP along with three months of Xbox Live Gold and Xbox Game Pass. On further inspection, we noticed the same console (minus the Xbox Live Gold and Game Pass subscriptions) with Anthem or Sea of Thieves or Battlefield V for the same price of Rs. 19,990.
While similar deals are present on Amazon India as well, Microsoft seems to be highlighting Flipkart Xbox One S offers only. Before you ask, there aren't any deals on the Xbox One X though.
If you were expecting your local game store to stock up on these Xbox One S offers, think again. Multiple retailers speaking to Gadgets 360 have opted not to bother.
Reason being, Microsoft has refused to supply Game Pass subscriptions outside of Xbox One S and X bundles, which is turning out to be a massive problem.
"Customers come in and buy the Xbox One S because the price is lower than PS4. But most of the buyers are parents with kids. They like the appeal of Game Pass. However they don't want to use their credit card online and would prefer a prepaid subscription," a Delhi-based game store owner tells us on condition of anonymity. "Because of this, they come back later and we can't help them. In fact they simply want to trade the console in for a PS4 because PS Plus has two free games a month and they don't need to use their credit or debit card online."
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