Totally understandable, this is a small scale demo and not a high priority showcase.
Is it?
"Alpha Point" was an existent UE4 demo that they converted to UE5 for this project (though they don't say if it existed for a while or if it was created specifically in UE4 instead of UE5ea so that upconversion could be factored into the test.) Why did they bother pulling it out of the vault if it's a little nothing project. (Why even give it a name if it's just a flythrough over rocks?)
Also, I'm still not understanding how it's a "small scale demo" or not a "high priority"? Yes, I'm a greedy gamer who wants cool shit, but I'm also sort of in the tech field and am confused why they bothered (and why they made plans to release it to the public) for if all it ever was was just a little-nothing thrown at the wall real quick?
If the purpose of Alpha Point is to build something A. to show an audience a GDC (and A.1. to release to the public on
Wed Thurs Mon), B. to evaluate the engine's performance and ease of use with a target of the Xbox platforms' SDKs, and C. to provide feedback to Epic about how to optimize UE5 specifically for Xbox in the future, then why a simple flythrough of a canyon? Why is there no interactivity, no unusual geometry (supposedly it's original assets instead of Quixel Megascans, but why bother making
different rocks?,) they didn't seem to talk about Camera or Animation or Sound or AI or any other integration (albeit it was primarily an artist presentation, but they got into the tech and they should have at least talked about the art systems interfacing with other disciplines since that's an advancement of the engine/suite in UE5.)
Plus, Epic already
did all this last year. They ran a demo (dynamic and playable, even), on a console, and they achieved a steady 30FPS with a striking range of polygons built for Nanite and lit with Lumen. Epic's May 2020 numbers line up with Coalition's July 2021 numbers. So, really, the only point here was to have amazing studio The Coalition come to GDC and say, "Yep, we tried it ourselves with an Xbox, and it does what Epic said it does..." ?
Hey, this kid kitbashed an Indiana Jones demo in his first-ever experiment with UE5, why didn't they invite
him to present at GDC? He's got rocks too! And this fellow is past concerns about benchmarks of basic operation, he's already busy building stuff...
To be fair, I came to terms plenty early and was not expecting Alpha Point to be extraordinary (though I would have been really excited if it was,) but I'm honestly perplexed (by reports which admittedly are far from technical) that it seems to be rudimentary, and that the studio is only in the cursory work phase of on what will be the future technology base of their company.