Xbox Series S found in new update source code

More evidence of the low-cost next-gen Xbox has popped up in official Microsoft source code, this time in the Xbox Development Kit environment.

Microsoft may release two next-gen Xbox consoles this holiday season: The beastly 12TFLOP Xbox Series X (codenamed Anaconda), and a cheaper, less-powerful Xbox Series S (codenamed Lockhart). Just days ago mention of Lockhart was found in Windows 10 source code, and now it's also been found in the new Xbox SDK update.

Twitter user TitleOS spotted the reference, which seems to confirm Lockhart will be branded as the Xbox Series S. Lockhart currently has a profiling mode in the Xbox Game Development Kit software, and apparently also has a hardware devkit floating around.

So far we don't know anything really concrete on Lockhart other than it's apparently real. We don't know pricing, release date, or specifications.

Past reports suggested the Xbox Series S would target 1440p 60FPS versus the Xbox Series X's 4K 120FPS and use lower-binned AMD SoCs. The Series S is expected to use Zen 2 CPUs but possibly at lower speeds, and the Navi GPU could likewise be reduced down to 4TFLOPs. It's a mid-tier budget-friendly entry point to next-gen.

RAM is also expected to be considerably lowered, and it's also possible the Series S will be a digital-only console to shave off even more costs.

Bear in mind nothing's been confirmed so far. Microsoft has yet to announce the Series S or discuss any details. We could hear more info during the Xbox briefing planned for next month.

Check below for a quick comparison between the Xbox Series X and the rumored Lockhart system:

Lockhart

• 1440p 60FPS
• No disc drive
• Super-fast SSD that can be used as VRAM
• 7nm AMD SoC w/ scaled-down 8-core, 16 thread Zen 2 CPU and Navi GPU
• Lower GDDR6 memory pool (Possibly 12GB)
• ~6-8 TFLOPs of power?
• Aims to rival PS4 Pro/Replace Xbox One S
• Full backward compatibility with all Xbox One games
• Cheaper MSRP

Xbox Series X (Anaconda)

• 4K 60FPS
• Disc drive with 4K UHD playback
• Super-fast SSD that can be used as VRAM
• Full 7nm AMD SoC with 8-core, 16 thread Zen 2 CPU and Navi GPU
• Full GDDR6 memory (maybe up to 16GB)
• Over 10 TFLOPs of power
• 4x as powerful as Xbox One X/aims to replace Xbox One X
• Full backward compatibility with all Xbox One games
• More expensive MSRP