ChipFlip
A used PlayStation 5 at $149.99 undercuts a used Xbox Series S Starter Bundle at $250 by a hundred dollars, which inverts how these two consoles were priced at retail. When the more powerful machine is also the cheaper one, the comparison gets short.
The Series S was always the compromise box
Microsoft built it to hit a low price, and the tradeoffs were deliberate: no disc drive, less GPU power, and notably less memory than the Series X. It targets 1440p rather than 4K and leans on upscaling to get there. For its original $299 asking price that was a reasonable deal.
At $250 used, against a $149.99 PS5, it stops being reasonable.
The PS5's disc drive changes the money
This is the part people underweight. A disc-drive PS5 plays used physical games, which are dramatically cheaper than digital storefront prices and can be resold when you're done. The Series S cannot play discs at all. Every game is bought at whatever the digital store charges.
Over a couple of years of buying games, that gap compounds well past the hundred dollar hardware difference.
Where the Series S still makes sense
Game Pass. If you intend to live inside Microsoft's subscription library, the Series S is the cheapest hardware that runs it, and the disc drive argument mostly evaporates because you aren't buying individual games anyway. It's also physically small, which matters for a bedroom or a travel setup.
Storage is the catch. The Series S ships with limited usable space and expansion cards are expensive.
Bottom line
Buy the PS5 at these prices. It's the more capable console, it's $100 cheaper, and physical media keeps saving you money afterward. The Series S is only the right call if Game Pass is your whole plan and the small footprint genuinely matters.