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The Downtime Guide To: Buying A Next Gen Console

, Larry Fitzmaurice

Figuring out which console to buy is... very confusing right now. We're here for you.

It’s an event that only happens two or three times a decade. No, I’m not talking about the election (but, please, vote): the next generation of gaming consoles is upon us.

It’s no coincidence that the arrival of next-gen consoles always lines up with the holiday season, instantly expanding the number of scenarios in which one is willing to put down hundreds of dollars on the latest equipment to play the latest games. Perhaps you’re a weary parent looking to placate your childrens’ demands (we’ve all been children, after all, and we know how demanding we can be). Maybe you have a gamer in your life—a partner, a family member, a friend—and you’re looking to surprise them with some brand spankin’ new technology. Or perhaps you’re looking to give yourself the greatest gift of all: a new video game system as self-care. Hey, you’ve earned it!

Either way, buying a new video game system is more complicated than ever. It’s more than just the games at this point—you need to know what you’re buying in a very literal sense, down to the tech specs and whether it even makes sense for you to purchase a next-gen console to begin with. Fear not: we’re here to help you make the most educated decision. Let’s take this step by step:

What are my options?

If you count all the major consoles available on the market right now, there are quite a few roads you could go down. The newest consoles dropping this holiday season are the PS5 and the Xbox Series X, but it’s not quite as simple as that: there’s two versions of each coming out, one with a disc drive and one discless. To make matters a little more confusing, the two versions of Xbox Series X have different names: the name for the one with the disc drive stays the same, but the discless edition is called the Xbox Series S—which is different from the Xbox One S, the lower-priced version of the current-gen Xbox One console.

And about those current-gen options: the Xbox One S is still on the market. (The Xbox One X, which is the high-performance version of the Xbox One S, is no longer being produced as of this summer—same for the Xbox One S digital edition, a discless version of the Xbox One S. I know, they made this very confusing for no real reason. Don’t shoot the messenger) There’s the PS4 and the PS4 Pro, the latter of which possesses stronger tech capabilities. Then there’s the Nintendo Switch and Switch Lite, two iterations of Nintendo’s much-loved and often hard-to-find hybrid handhole-home console.

How much is this going to cost me?