If you're on a budget and want access to hundreds of games and online play, you should consider a Series S with XBGPU. However, an XBGP subscription doesn't include Xbox Live Gold, so you'd have to pay for that separately or upgrade to XBGPU for the same cost. If you have XBGPU then Xbox Live Gold is included with your subscription, so you don't have to include that cost with your plan and you have access to the game library. If you already own either console though, you can scroll down for a yearly price breakdown of just the gaming service versus buying physical copies of the games. It's important to include both, since the Series S is the more budget-friendly option, but the Series X has more gaming capabilities. The Series X has a disc drive, so it can play either digital or physical copies of games. The Series S is a digital-only console with no disc drive, so it can't play physical copies of games.

To calculate the costs, I started with the cost of the Series S, $300, and Series X, $500, since you need a console to play games on.

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