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[Gambit2483]

Why would anyone want 2 more years of low dynamic res to get 60fps? …if that is even an option. It’s an awful generation. The only thing good is that games are coming to PC now so you can sort out the issues coming from too weak hardware for what the devs want to do. MS has given up on 60fps, Starfield is 30fps, Hellblade 2 is 30fps, I guarantee that Fable is 30fps too, Awowed is probably 30, Indy could possibly be 60 but 30 could happen there too. New hardware is needed, not in 2 years, now.

My 2 years of support is hinged on their 2024 performance...again, I think 2024 could turn the tides if they truly deliver on the last 4-5 years of game development...but of course we will see. Software is what ultimately matters in the end (as Nintendo has proved time again)

 

[Kerotan]

With the PS5 Pro on the horizon do we really want Devs still making a Series S port?

 

[Humdinger]

I skimmed through the video, but my impression about the overall conclusion was, "We don't really know, because we don't have the data to say." I was expecting something a bit more revelatory.

 

[vaibhavpisal]

Can’t take this seriously. Sorry. The only way we’ll get that type of box is if they go the PC route as I said before; Xbox branded prebuilt PC booting into Xbox UI/launcher running through Windows. Then they could sell different powered versions, with a 4080 equivalent box going for $1000…
The upside there is being able to run Steam games. Playstation games on ”Xbox”.

But i already have that box, so
I currently have a 4080 Super + 7800X3D PC in the living room acting as both my Xbox and Playstation. I don’t think they’ll be able to pull me in again unless they stop doing PC versions. There is no downside to the PC route for me, just the cost but it’s already payed off so they would need some exclusive super cool feature to get me interested.

Thats not what I meant.

Remember when Series X launched, it was competitive with a pretty high end gpu.

You couldn’t get something similar in pc space without spending a whole lot.

Today if you have a high end PC, consoles don’t make sense. But at start of new gen in few years, newly launched xbox will be packing in high end hardware for $499.

Thats when it will get boost in sales.

Xbox has left it to market to decide what they wanna buy. Value favours pc towards second half of generation. Always has been.

 

[ZehDon]

The problem is the red tape on xbox. The amount of work isn't really small when you have red tape to get through on xbox compared to PC. Take Larian and the amount of work they had to put in for Series S because they were required to, and for what, likely some low sales. When you want to get a patch out again, cost and red tape on xbox for probably low sales. The effort isn't massive but it's there.

You're correct, there is effort - especially in terms of platform certification - but if we're talking publisher-level decision making, the effort isn't prohibitive at all if you're tabling a PC version. For Larian, the work for the Series S forced them to better optimise the game - especially the memory usage - which resulted in better and more stable performance for all platforms. I'd argue that's a good thing, given the performance issues the game had at it's 1.0 launch.

 

[Mibu no ookami]

They had so many awesome new IP last gen you forgot Horizon lol

That's how wild it is.

 

[Mibu no ookami]

I lived enough to see Gears of War being called a "single player franchise" lol

Also, why are singleplayers franchises much more important than multiplayer franchises? As far as I know, most people prefer multplayer games.

I meant more offline than anything.

It's because its an entire consumer base that Xbox struggles with which blends into its overall struggle.

 

[DeltaPolarBear]

You're correct, there is effort - especially in terms of platform certification - but if we're talking publisher-level decision making, the effort isn't prohibitive at all if you're tabling a PC version. For Larian, the work for the Series S forced them to better optimise the game - especially the memory usage - which resulted in better and more stable performance for all platforms. I'd argue that's a good thing, given the performance issues the game had at it's 1.0 launch.

That was only possible because Xbox dedicated resources to help them do it. If a studio is told to do the porting on their own they would not have done so. MS is not going to be able to help EVERY studio to port to Series S like this.

 

[ResilientBanana]

The amount if units sold is only half the story in this situation.

Under usual circumstances that amount of units would be fine, but if very few people on the platform are actually purchasing games then the proposition becomes entirely different from a developer/publisher perspective.

When the amount of consoles sold are less than half of your competitors, something is wrong. That’s a failure. It also proves people have lost interest in your brand.

 

[HofT]

If Microsoft goes 3rd party, will PlayStation and PC users buy into GamePass? Would Sony even allow it?

 

[Shut0wen]

No but i wouldnt be surprised if they drop physical releases though

 

[Melchiah]

I would lose any remaining trust if they start a new gen after six gen let alone even earlier. This gen was the time they should have turned stuff around.

Microsoft has a long history of abandoning their consoles early on. People always talk about the XBO fiasco, but forget the fact MS cut support short every generation, starting from the very first Xbox. It doesn't build consumer confidence, when the amount of big 1st party titles begins to wane halfway through the generation. In contrast, consumers know Sony and Nintendo will support their systems until the end of the generation, and beyond, even with their less popular consoles like PS3 and Wii U (which got BOTW along with Switch). That's how you build good will for the next gen.

Then there's the sorely lacking localisation and official presence outside of the anglo space. Until they fix that, they don't stand a chance outside of that limited space.

 

[Mr Reasonable]

Microsoft has a long history of abandoning their consoles early on. People always talk about the XBO fiasco, but forget the fact MS cut support short every generation

This is not true. Microsoft supported Xbox 360 after Xbox One launched. Despite 360 being on the market for 8 years they did things like a bespoke version of Forza Horizon 2 built specifically for 360. They also supported Xbox One after the launch of Series Consoles, Halo Infinite, Grounded, Pentiment, Forza Horizon 3,4 & 5, etc. Etc.

 

[Alan Wake]

Some people are still failing to accept reality.
Xbox as a console brand is done.
There is nothing that can be done to reverse the outcome because they would need to undo years of strategic business decisions that have led to this situation and at this point the brand reputation is in shatters.
They won't give up on releasing everything on PC day one, they aren't in a position to drop support of Series hardware in 2026, they aren't in a position where they can convince third party publishers to leave behind far more successful platforms.
It's pretty much as you said.

Some people are still in the denial phase, Microsoft wants to be a world leading third party publisher at this point, they don't give a fuck about Xbox as a dedicated platform.
Their future hardware will be an optional gateway to their games catering to a really specific target audience.

This is exactly it. Thread can be closed now.

 

[krumble]

Honestly I was all in on the Sony ecosystem until they dropped backwards compatibility at PS4 level, sure there has been a drip feed of some backwards compatible titles and yes on PS5 it's been nice recently to see games I bought on PSP, PSVita and PS3 just turn up as recognised purchases, but honestly the amount I invested in the PlayStation ecosystem was ridiculous. Then they dropped their handhelds pretty badly, PSVR to PSVR2 no backwards compatibility / translation layer to allow the old games to be used on the new PSVR2 etc that I don't trust Sony with my historic digital library, if I didn't have PS4, 2 PS3, multiple PSP, Vita and a PS2 with hardware support for PS1 still that massive library would be inaccessible.
MS did amazing in that respect and it's a shame that the backwards compatibility program stopped.

Sony does have a few exclusives that are must plays (had a PS5 since launch) but this generation is probably their worst for exclusives that aren't up ports of PS4 games and their customer service when it comes to the digital library's and the clash of licenses with PS+ etc..

Microsoft had a huge opportunity that was wasted, they still have a MASSIVE group of developers under their wing, but whether they have the time, skill and know how to exploit that before it's too late? Not a lot of confidence there.

Going back to MS plan to enter the living room we are still a long way from a PC or XBOX under every TV which has been their longtime goal and what they have been previously willing to sink money into losses to try and capture..

They need some heavy hitters that are exclusive and have long term playability that people want to stay subscribed to gamepass for - my gamepass ran out a year and a half ago and I was able to pickup all the exclusives pretty cheap on sale / reliable key sites since, there isn't anything that would get me to resubscribe now or in the future right now and that needs to change if they want people locked in

 

[Kumomeme]

however, some issue can be settled by making decision alone. for example Series S become achilles heel for devs team which is something that gonna cling on them until this generation end.

 

[ZehDon]

That was only possible because Xbox dedicated resources to help them do it. If a studio is told to do the porting on their own they would not have done so. MS is not going to be able to help EVERY studio to port to Series S like this.

Not every studio needs Microsoft's engineering muscle to port games to the Series S, which is why you have only one example despite there being literally thousands upon thousands of games running on the Series S. This also doesn't detract from my actual point: Microsoft worked to make developing for Windows and Xbox as seamless as possible. Therefore, if a publisher wants to support Windows, the work to support Xbox isn't prohibitive enough for the publisher to drop support for the Xbox platform entirely.

 

[Melchiah]

This is not true. Microsoft supported Xbox 360 after Xbox One launched. Despite 360 being on the market for 8 years they did things like a bespoke version of Forza Horizon 2 built specifically for 360. They also supported Xbox One after the launch of Series Consoles, Halo Infinite, Grounded, Pentiment, Forza Horizon 3,4 & 5, etc. Etc.

Yes, with Kinect games and shovelware. It was a shift in focus, that's been criticized for years. Their consoles have always been frontloaded software-wise, aside from the current one which didn't even accomplish to do that. If they had made a similar correction of course with XBO as Sony did with PS3, things might have been better this gen.

 

[Mr Reasonable]

Yes, with Kinect games and shovelware. It was a shift in focus, that's been criticized for years. Their consoles have always been frontloaded software-wise, aside from the current one which didn't even accomplish to do that. If they had made a similar correction of course with XBO as Sony did with PS3, things might have been better this gen.

I literally cited specific titles. None of which are Kinect or Shovelware.

 

[mitchman]

I lived enough to see Gears of War being called a "single player franchise" lol

Also, why are singleplayers franchises much more important than multiplayer franchises? As far as I know, most people prefer multplayer games.

Source?

 

[Arsic]

Source?

 

[DeltaPolarBear]

Not every studio needs Microsoft's engineering muscle to port games to the Series S, which is why you have only one example despite there being literally thousands upon thousands of games running on the Series S. This also doesn't detract from my actual point: Microsoft worked to make developing for Windows and Xbox as seamless as possible. Therefore, if a publisher wants to support Windows, the work to support Xbox isn't prohibitive enough for the publisher to drop support for the Xbox platform entirely.

The reason the porting was hard was because Series S has the same ram allocation of PS4. If you make a game that run of Series S then you might as well make it cross-gen.

The Ram requirements for PC gaming is moving up, 8MB of ram is not good enough anymore. Unless you want cross-gen gaming forever, Series S support is no good.

 

[Melchiah]

I literally cited specific titles. None of which are Kinect or Shovelware.

You mentioned a single game for the 360. So what big exclusive titles did XB1 and 360 get after the next systems were released? Not to mention, that the big exclusives dried during the twilight years of 360 and XBO cycles. You can list niche titles like Pentiment (I guess they count now, unlike during the "indie-station" days, when the PS4 "had no games"?), and lacklustre entries to downwards spiralling series like Halo Infinite, but the fact remains there were nothing of the calibre of Bungie's Halo, Epic's Gears of War, Bioshock and Mass Effect released during the last years of any of their systems, let alone big new IPs.

 

[Three]

You're correct, there is effort - especially in terms of platform certification - but if we're talking publisher-level decision making, the effort isn't prohibitive at all if you're tabling a PC version. For Larian, the work for the Series S forced them to better optimise the game - especially the memory usage - which resulted in better and more stable performance for all platforms. I'd argue that's a good thing, given the performance issues the game had at it's 1.0 launch.

No doubt that is a good thing in terms of forcing further spending for optimisation but you're looking at it from our perspective and not the developers perspective. To the developer it delayed a release and incurred costs. Larian were initially going to skip xbox entirely because they couldn't get a simultaneous release on time (I'm sure xbox has some red tape regarding that too). If any publisher really wanted to spend a further 6 months on optimisation of their game they could do so without the additional system development and release a patch post release. They rarely do. They need the driver of additional sales to do it and that's what drove the xbox release. Now imagine you spent 6 months extra with the added costs and gained very little sales from it and you can see it ends up being almost the same thing for the developer. You can see why they might not want to do that and skip it entirely. The sales are the incentive and if they're not there it more often than not doesn't happen.

Even just an optimisation patch on existing systems would be less costly if they truly wanted to do a good thing at their expense. A patch doesn't prevent a release like a simultaneous xbox release does which means they can start getting revenue and gauge popularity before committing to further spending and they'll have fewer systems to QA with the patch.

 

[ZehDon]

No doubt that is a good thing in terms of forcing further spending for optimisation but you're looking at it from our perspective and not the developers perspective. To the developer it delayed a release and incurred costs. Larian were initially going to skip xbox entirely because they couldn't get a simultaneous release on time (I'm sure xbox has some red tape regarding that too). If any publisher really wanted to spend a further 6 months on optimisation of their game they could do so without the additional system development and release a patch post release. They rarely do. They need the driver of additional sales to do it and that's what drove the xbox release. Now imagine you spent 6 months extra with the added costs and gained very little sales from it and you can see it ends up being almost the same thing for the developer. You can see why they might not want to do that and skip it entirely. The sales are the incentive and if they're not there it more often than not doesn't happen...

Sure - if the platform has zero players, why would anyone make games for it? However, the hypothetical of this thread is that publishers are considering dropping the Xbox platform right now. If the sales incentive is there, as you've described in your Larian example, why would publishers be considering dropping support today? The counter point I've offered is the cost of producing an Xbox version when a Windows version is on the table is pretty small. The market for the Xbox platform is smaller than the PlayStation market, sure, but estimates have it around 2-2.5:1 - certainly not small enough for every publisher to drop support tomorrow while continuing to support Windows. Your counter point is the cost of Xbox certification. This is measured in tens of thousands, not millions. If you're making a PS5 and Windows version of your AAA game simultaneously, where every copy sold is needed due to the ballooning budgets, then skipping the Xbox platform with N*0.4 users because of a sub-percentile budget buy in makes little sense in context. What I suspect we'd see instead of publishers dropping the platform is exactly what we're seeing now: the Xbox platform's hardware strengths are largely ignored and all prioritisation focuses on the lead platform, being the PlayStation 5. For this generation, I'm not seeing anything that indicates publishers literally just dropping Xbox, while still supporting Windows and still supporting PlayStation. The next-gen reset might change things, but as of right now, I'm just not seeing it.

 

[Mr Reasonable]

You mentioned a single game for the 360. So what big exclusive titles did XB1 and 360 get after the next systems were released? Not to mention, that the big exclusives dried during the twilight years of 360 and XBO cycles. You can list niche titles like Pentiment (I guess they count now, unlike during the "indie-station" days, when the PS4 "had no games"?), and lacklustre entries to downwards spiralling series like Halo Infinite, but the fact remains there were nothing of the calibre of Bungie's Halo, Epic's Gears of War, Bioshock and Mass Effect released during the last years of any of their systems, let alone big new IPs.

I believe the point you made was that Microsoft has "A long history of abandoning their consoles early on."

They supported 360 for 8 years before releasing Xbox one. That in itself is long enough. They published Halo 4, Alan Wake's American Nightmare, Forza Horizon among many other games in 2012, the year before Xbox one was launched and continued to release games for it after the successor console was on the market.

They supported Xbox one for 7 years before releasing Series X. That in itself is long enough. For at least 3 years they continued to release first party titles on the older system.

They do not have a long history of abandoning consoles early on. What's more, they have the best record for allowing players to play old games on current hardware. Of all the criticisms that can be leveled, this isn't it.

 

[Three]

Sure - if the platform has zero players, why would anyone make games for it? However, the hypothetical of this thread is that publishers are considering dropping the Xbox platform right now. If the sales incentive is there, as you've described in your Larian example, why would publishers be considering dropping support today?
The counter point I've offered is the cost of producing an Xbox version when a Windows version is on the table is pretty small. The market for the Xbox platform is smaller than the PlayStation market, sure, but estimates have it around 2-2.5:1 - certainly not small enough for every publisher to drop support tomorrow while continuing to support Windows. Your counter point is the cost of Xbox certification. This is measured in tens of thousands, not millions. If you're making a PS5 and Windows version of your AAA game simultaneously, where every copy sold is needed due to the ballooning budgets, then skipping the Xbox platform with N*0.4 users because of a sub-percentile budget buy in makes little sense in context. What I suspect we'd see instead of publishers dropping the platform is exactly what we're seeing now: the Xbox platform's hardware strengths are largely ignored and all prioritisation focuses on the lead platform, being the PlayStation 5. For this generation, I'm not seeing anything that indicates publishers literally just dropping Xbox, while still supporting Windows and still supporting PlayStation. The next-gen reset might change things, but as of right now, I'm just not seeing it.

If you read the original news it quotes a "major company" who released a "big game" saying ‘I don’t know why we bothered supporting it’. Meaning that it is happening right now. The payoff just wasn't there for them. You can ignore this fact and say the incentive was there but the news this thread is based on says it wasn't. You're concentrating on half of the comment. It's not just added cost of certification its other costs and red tape. For example not being able to set your own min spec and incurring 6 months or more of additional development costs to get through that red tape for xbox. The hardware sales split also means very little when you consider the fact that sales splits are not 1:1 with console hardware due to a lot of users just not buying games and using GP only.

 

[yamaci17]

i don't think so. main limitation with series s is vram. it has around 10 gb total memory and 2 gb of it is super slow (56 gb/s) and probably reserved for os, background tasks, streaming, recording, spotify, twitch, youtube, browser etc. so remains fast 8 gb memory. around 1-2 gb of it is to be expected to be used for cpu data (sounds, physics, animations etc. this is the common cpu data ram usage on ps4 so this is really the best case scenario). so we're realistically looking at around 6-7 gb of gpu data to work with

this aligns with most common vram budget we have on PC now: 8 GB (and that also only has 7 gb or so dxgi budget to work with in most games due to slack space being required + some background stuff like windows)

practically developers have to optimize for 7 gb dxgi budget regardless. it is too late for this gen. I'm sure the only reason NVIDIA still releases 8 GB 4070 laptops and 8 GB desktop 4060s is because they rely on developers to do heavy work on making their games use less ram with "acceptable" image quality purely because of having them work on Series S

you see this on PC: look at nextgen multiplat games. avatar frontiers of pandora, alan wake 2, these games look great on 8 GB VRAM GPUs and rn without problems, and they also look good on series s. I'm sure if not for series s, nvidia would've been pressured into making 4070 16 gb and 4060 12 gb. but with series s in play, they don't feel the need. occasional playstation port causes problems, nvidia won't care. %95 of the games will be hitting series s

a rare exception turned out to be dragon's dogma 2, which practically loads n64 textures on series s and you kind of have to use very mediocre textures on 8 gb cards.

so you can kind of see where this is going. it is quite possible microsoft released series s with the hopes that it would help 6-8 GB VRAM GPUs on desktop and in some games, that seems to be case. while NVIDIA likes planned obsolescence, Microsoft wants games to be accessible to as much as people possible without having big issues on the hardware side. go look at how little VRAM starfield uses. now it really starts to make sense as to why they gimped series s on the memory side. they didn't want the inevitable future where tons of 8 GB GPUs become e-waste for majority of games. that would massively reduce pc game pass userbase and also hurt pc gaming overall.

imagine if starfield or other multiplat games performed like ratchet clank or last of us part 1 and caused havoc on most common VRAM budget on PC. only reason that is still not happening is because of Series S

 

[DeltaPolarBear]

Don't forget the N64. It is a fine machine, but it doesn't sell well enough to get 3rd party ports. Nintendo got out of chasing hardware since then. (Under 33 million)

Xbox Series so far only has 27.7 million combine sales. if N64 was a disaster, what makes the Xbox Series?

Microsoft wants games to be accessible to as much as people possible without having big issues on the hardware side.

That's called "holding back PC gaming". Something PC gamers had hated for decades. You are suggesting that forcing everyone to have the same amount of Ram as the PS4 for another hardware gen is a good thing now?

 

[kaizenkko]

I read a lot of comments and think you guys miss the real point: Microsoft is interested in keep supporting Xbox? I think that right now Xbox is not a priority for them.

 

[yamaci17]

Don't forget the N64. It is a fine machine, but it doesn't sell well enough to get 3rd party ports. Nintendo got out of chasing hardware since then. (Under 33 million)

Xbox Series so far only has 27.7 million combine sales. if N64 was a disaster, what makes the Xbox Series?


That's called "holding back PC gaming". Something PC gamers had hated for decades. You are suggesting that forcing everyone to have the same amount of Ram as the PS4 for another hardware gen is a good thing now?

I'm not suggesting anything, I'm just retelling what is happening. alan wake 2 and frontiers of pandora titles are proof that you can have a game that scales back to 6-8 GB VRAM/Series S and look "fine", and also scale upwards to PS5/12-16 GB VRAM and look great.

if you believe frontiers of pandora or alan wake 2 was held back by series s or 6-8 GB VRAM, well, i don't know what to tell you. for a fact I know both games will load much higher quality textures and allow higher quality lighting if you have more memory budget. but it won't look like garbage n64 soup on 6-8 GB VRAM/Series S either. that is called scalability.

practically, series s + nvidia's insistency on 8 GB VRAM budget just forces devs to have scalability. do you think ps3 held back gta 5? I personally don't think so. it just forced rockstar to make the engine insanely scalable. as a result it is still one of the most played games on PC as well because it still runs fine on a 750ti while looking great on a 970 and of course looking fantastic on a PS5 or 3080 or whatever

pc gamers may hate it, but it is pc gamers who keep buying 8 gb laptops (4060, 4070) and 8 gb desktops (4060, 4060ti). 4060 will probably dethrone 3060 as the most popular GPU in a year or so. any of it make sense? it is proof that at this point it has gone beyond planned obsolescence. 4060 8 GB is proof that nvidia "expects" devs to make their game scalable and don't care about what "pc gamers" want

again though, as I said, NVIDIA does not have any pull on developers to force such scalability. but Microsoft thinks they have but as you see, series s is not a massive success. as such, many developers are channeling their anger. it is why NVIDIA has given 6 gb vram to 1060s and 8 gb vram to 1070s back then. because ps4 had 5.5 gb vram to work with so NVIDIA had to up their game. with Series S in play, they don't have to. blame this on Microsoft. they "think" they have the pull so they did it. they might've done it, ironically, to save 8 GB GPUs in the process. because 8 GB has an insane presence on PC userbase. we just cannot ignore that at this point. you have to consider Microsoft even unified DX12 gdks for xbox and PC. they now think all PCs as "xboxes".

as for devlopers,

a) they can't make their games scalable (understandable, not every game/engine is made for that)
b) they just don't want to because it is not going to be profitable

they probably channel their frustrations through Digital Foundry etc. only reason why DF randomly brings these questions up.

 

[Banjo64]

I disagree that it is so far gone to ever come back. Even Nintendo came back from Wii U. The problems can be sorted, they just lack the awareness or competence to do so. The only way left to solve the problem is to sidestep it by doing what they do best instead, being a third party software company.

You have to factor in the 3DS which sold 76m units alongside the Wii U and had a lot of quality games. Even the Wii U, in my opinion, sold poorly due to the confusing hardware and branding, the first party remained as strong as ever and people still associated Nintendo with quality.

 

[DeltaPolarBear]

You have to factor in the 3DS which sold 76m units alongside the Wii U and had a lot of quality games. Even the Wii U, in my opinion, sold poorly due to the confusing hardware and branding, the first party remained as strong as ever and people still associated Nintendo with quality.

All the WiiU games were still quality, which is why Nintendo transplanted them to Switch wholesale as remakes and made money.

This is not something Xbox can do, because their problem is not hardware. (Series S is one problem but not the main one.)

 

[Men_in_Boxes]

Anecdotally, as a parent, I'm seeing this as well. None of my kids classmates play on console. It's all on tablets & phones nowadays for kids younger than like 15.

I see this as well but I wonder why we're not seeing it show up in console industry sales numbers.

10+ years ago, the under 15 crowd represented a chunk of the console player base. If they've mostly gone to phone & tablet gaming shouldn't we have seen that negatively impact console sales by now?

 

[BlackTron]

I see this as well but I wonder why we're not seeing it show up in console industry sales numbers.

10+ years ago, the under 15 crowd represented a chunk of the console player base. If they've mostly gone to phone & tablet gaming shouldn't we have seen that negatively impact console sales by now?

The console market must have expanded even as it lost kids.

 

[bitbydeath]

the new generations (who are becoming the targeted consumers) have little interest in consoles

AND PC.

Kids today are brought up on iPads and iPhones. What that means for the future we’ll have to wait and see.

 

[Three]

Not every studio needs Microsoft's engineering muscle to port games to the Series S, which is why you have only one example despite there being literally thousands upon thousands of games running on the Series S. This also doesn't detract from my actual point: Microsoft worked to make developing for Windows and Xbox as seamless as possible. Therefore, if a publisher wants to support Windows, the work to support Xbox isn't prohibitive enough for the publisher to drop support for the Xbox platform entirely.

This one example was one which forcefully had the reason come to light and ended up in a change in policy at MS. There are others out there.

Let me give you a cautionary tale. A developer/artist at a studio in 2022 came forward and told people "many developers are sitting in meetings trying to drop Series S requirements":

"MANY developers have been sitting in meetings for the past year desperately trying to get Series S launch requirements dropped"

Tweets deleted. Print sceen of them: Ian Maclure, VFX Artist for Bossa Studios has admitted that this is happening more and more, specially as games are going to be more and more next-gen only. Will Series S hold back multiplatform games? How can this issue even be sorted out?

www.neogaf.com

That developer was mocked by xbox fans for "creating a shitty fish game" and lying about this fact he shared with people. Fast forward a year and another more popular dev/game came into the limelight. Larian never made the reason why BG3 wasn't coming to xbox public. People believed that BG3 had an "exclusivity agreement" and of course exclusivity agreements were in the limelight last year due to xbox fans using it as ammo for their acquisition. Xbox people like Jez and co kept asking why BG3 wasn't coming to xbox and how it was a exclusivity agreement with Sony. In the end they made it public that they're skipping xbox because of the Series S requirements. Something that the other dev tried to tell people a year ago. MS ultimately did exactly that in the end, drop the requirement. Nobody went back and apologised to the other dev. They defended xbox and probably forgot about that guy.

This was one of the very few games where its popularity and absence hurt xbox more than xboxs requirements hurt the dev. It had that power, it had the pull where MS saw the need to send developers to help. There are other games/developers out there though even if they don't come to light because they don't have a BG3 on their hands.

 

[mckmas8808]

John Linneman made an interesting point: there are indie games that have sold only a couple of dozen of copies on Xbox. That’s bad. But how many copies were sold on other platforms? Can’t have been that many either.

I know. Selling dozens on Xbox isn't bad if it's only selling 65 on PS5. He needed to complete his sentence there.

 

[demigod]

Don't forget the N64. It is a fine machine, but it doesn't sell well enough to get 3rd party ports. Nintendo got out of chasing hardware since then. (Under 33 million)

Xbox Series so far only has 27.7 million combine sales. if N64 was a disaster, what makes the Xbox Series?


That's called "holding back PC gaming". Something PC gamers had hated for decades. You are suggesting that forcing everyone to have the same amount of Ram as the PS4 for another hardware gen is a good thing now?

Gamecube was a beast of a machine, how did you forget that?

 

[RGB'D]

fyi in some countries console industry is climbing and PC gaming is actually dropping

enough with the "console gaming is dying" crap.

I mean its objective data dude. International. You can choose to believe what you want but the numbers back up that the industry peaked in 2008

 

[RGB'D]

AND PC.

Kids today are brought up on iPads and iPhones. What that means for the future we’ll have to wait and see.

PC is still a PC. It's sole purpose isn't to play games and will continue to move units. That's what makes it different than consoles from a longevity perspective

 

[bitbydeath]

PC is still a PC. It's sole purpose isn't to play games and will continue to move units. That's what makes it different than consoles from a longevity perspective

MacOS/iOS (what kids are already in the environment of) does a lot more than play games too. When we were young we grew up with Dos/Windows hence why Windows sustained.

Even most schools have switched from Windows to Apple.

 

[mayham2199]

Worldwide:

Console sales peaked in 2008 as market shifts towards older gamers suggests data

Console growth has been stagnant for a long time while the casual/mobile market continues to grow.

Anecdotally, as a parent, I'm seeing this as well. None of my kids classmates play on console. It's all on tablets & phones nowadays for kids younger than like 15.

From what I've seen it's all over the place for the kids. I don't think they care and I suspect once they reach adulthood they'll just want a console. My son plays on everything but is currently addicted to fall guys so he's been on my PS5 as much as he can.


My oldest nephew started off Xbox then switched to PC gaming. His brothers were the same started off console now PC gaming. They both want to get into IT like me so I doubt they will stay PC gamers once they are on PCs all the time and sitting at a desk all the time.

 

[apocaliptic]

Waiting for xbox series x to hit $99. Perfect as a 4k blu ray player

 

[DeltaPolarBear]

Even most schools have switched from Windows to Apple.

That's part of Apple's marketing. They hand out these stuff at massive discounts if not free.
The same way Apple gives out hardware to films and TV shows, with the clause that they be exclusively used by the hero characters and not villains.

apple-does-not-let-bad-guys-use-iphones-on-screen

 

[lh032]

PC is still a PC. It's sole purpose isn't to play games and will continue to move units. That's what makes it different than consoles from a longevity perspective

Of course PC is going to move units, if people use a PC for nongaming purpose, whats the point?

You need to see the bigger picture here instead of "duhh people use PC, PC unit numbers is going to increase, no worries guyzzzz"
You are denying alot of things to fit your own narrative. You think PC gaming is going to grow forever? i highly doubt it.

 

[Rhazer Fusion]

I’ve been saying for a long time that the majority of XBOX gamers don’t buy or support games and Gamepass only made things worst which is saying a lot, so I wouldn’t be surprised if publishers started to drop XBOX support. Microsoft games selling well on PlayStation and Nintendo will only make things look even worst for XBOX also.

 

[RGB'D]

Of course PC is going to move units, if people use a PC for nongaming purpose, whats the point?

You need to see the bigger picture here instead of "duhh people use PC, PC unit numbers is going to increase, no worries guyzzzz"
You are denying alot of things to fit your own narrative. You think PC gaming is going to grow forever? i highly doubt it.

Lol. You need to work on reading comprehension. What was acutally said and not what you think the PC narrative is. It is more sustainable because it isn't a proprietary piece of hardware with one sole purpose. It's a lot easier to support PC gaming if people already have a PC for other things. Did I say that it's going to continue to grow? No I said that it will outlive consoles because it isn't a device for solely one thing. You're the one altering narratives homeslice

 

[lordrand11]

Publishers literally already only support Xbox because MS pays them to, this is not new news lol

What publisher doesn't support their console because of payouts from the core brand owner?

 

[lh032]

Lol. You need to work on reading comprehension. What was acutally said and not what you think the PC narrative is. It is more sustainable because it isn't a proprietary piece of hardware with one sole purpose. It's a lot easier to support PC gaming if people already have a PC for other things. Did I say that it's going to continue to grow? No I said that it will outlive consoles because it isn't a device for solely one thing. You're the one altering narratives homeslice

As long you are happy man. Go play your PC game or something.