Winners and Losers: Xbox Series S gets a storage boost as Ticketmaster commits to more transparency

Sunday means it’s time for another edition of Trusted Reviews Winners and Losers, and this week it’s Microsoft vs Ticketmaster. 

Keep reading to discover how the Xbox Series S earned our winner title this week, along with why Ticketmaster’s commitment to more transparent pricing simply isn’t enough. 

Winner: Microsoft 

Our winner this week is Microsoft after the company announced a new configuration of the Xbox Series S with more storage and a sleek new finish. 

Up until recently, if you wanted to save money and opt for the digital-only version of the current-gen Xbox, you’d need to settle for 512GB of storage. While the prospect of spending less is all well and good, we found 512GB to be far too small to store all of our games and software. 

As we noted in our review of the Xbox Series S, the custom NVME SSD delivered substantial improvements over the HDD drives found in Microsoft’s previous generation consoles resulting in shorter load times. However, NVME SSDs are also much more expensive than HDD drives. This is likely why Microsoft limited its cheaper console to 512GB, with a measly 364GB available for game downloads. 

Microsoft built a storage expansion slot into the console but the Seagate SSD drives the slot is built for also weren’t cheap at launch (though they have recently become a bit more affordable). In fact, the stingy storage capacity was perhaps our biggest drawback when reviewing the Xbox Series S. 

This week, Microsoft finally addressed the issue by announcing a new configuration of the Series S with 1TB of storage and a stunning black finish that matches that of the Xbox Series X. 

This won’t be particularly helpful news for current Series S gamers, but if you’ve been holding out for a sign to pick up the cheaper Xbox model then this could certainly make the prospect more tempting. 

Loser: Ticketmaster 

This week’s loser is Ticketmaster – or, more accurately, Ticketmaster customers – after the company committed to offering more transparent pricing in a move that ultimately won’t save customers any money. 

Ticketmaster has garnered itself a negative reputation in recent years for hitting concert-goers with surprise fees toward the end of the booking process, leaving them with no choice but to abandon their hard-fought-for seats or agree to the higher price.

If you’ve ever tried to reserve a ticket for an in-demand concert or event, you’ll know that the process is often stressful enough without factoring in any hidden costs that make themselves known at the checkout. It isn’t uncommon for users to hit buy to secure their seats without even taking note of the final price, leaving them with a nasty surprise when the confirmation email comes through a few minutes later. 

This week, Ticketmaster committed to ending this problem once and for all (the confusion, that is, not the fees).

The company joined SeatGeek and Airbnb in promising an end to non-transparent pricing. Instead, the app will now make you aware of the total cost of a ticket and all fees associated with that seat within its search results in a move known as “all-in pricing”.

These changes have only been announced in the US so far, meaning there’s no word of whether they’ll come to the UK. Ticketmaster also hasn’t addressed perhaps the bigger problem which is the cost of these often staggeringly high fees. 

Transparency is certainly a small step in the right direction, but Ticketmaster will need to do more to appease concert-goers.