There was a rumor that S is not a tower.
Also X devkit looks like Scorpio devkit (dunno if it has single board).
There is no reason to make not very power hungry device with 2 boards.
We don't know how power hungry or not it is and if it's dramatically lower power draw than XBSX then we're probably looking at an equally dramatic performance discount. The reasons not to do this are all about manufacturing complexity, two distinct board layouts introduces complexity and uncertainty into your stock plans.
MS have been managing the One S/X just fine. They're arguable more divergent that the Series S/X. Same for PS4/Pro.
They never chose to find themselves where they are and they killed X Series as soon as they could. They had to make the X Series to rebuild credibility so their successor platform had a shot. Starting from a blank sheet I would expect much greater parts commonality or barely any and radically lower cost.
Sony had market dominance and were margin harvesting, the €399 price point had slipped away and a mild refresh of their platform let them reclaim it. It doesn't cause these stock issues because your core demographic has already bought into your platform and are far less likely to buy your competitors box because you have no stock. Console launches are the traditional moment when that all falls apart so execution is much more important than during a mid life refresh
Honestly the choices MS is making itself between XBSS and XBSX are as interesting to me as the PS5 to XBSX is. I mean they still haven't officially confirmed it's a thing and they're allegedly planning to start selling it in <90 days
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