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[Draugoth]

https://www.thegamer.com/xbox-series-s-game-performance-devs-plan-better/​

The Xbox Series S might be a great deal for gamers, but not so much for developers. This cheaper hardware doesn't just keep its price down by omitting a disc drive, but also by compromising the performance, giving devs less to work with.

But despite these headaches, Xbox has no plans to ditch its budget console. Speaking after the Xbox Games Showcase, Xbox Game Studios head Matt Booty makes it clear that the company won't allow devs to skip the Series S and launch exclusively on the Series X. Instead, he says these issues can be avoided if the developers "plan better", suggesting that the performance of games on the console will improve with experience.

"Is it more work? Sure," says Booty, speaking with Axios about the troubles devs have faced when developing for the Series S alongside Series X, PS5, and PC. He goes on to say that devs should find it easier once they've moved onto their second game for the platform, since they can "plan better, knowing where some of the sharp corners are."

 

[feynoob]

This wont go very well here.

 

[Three]

In other words cut back their game knowing that Series S isn’t going to work well.

 

[HerjansEagleFeeder]

I remember when devs like id were praised for making their cutting edge engines very flexible and performant on lower end hardware at the same time. Today everyones whining and complaining when devs do that, as if it's taking away anything from the games running on more powerful hardware.

 

[Dick Jones]

Matt Booty's fucking buffoonery at interviews will ensure he never gets the job. I'd pick Aaron before Matt as Spencer's replacement, and Aaron is as useful as tits on a bull.

 

[Klosshufvud]

The recent ridiculous spec bloat of fairly average looking games is working against the developers' narratives. It's embarrassing how upscaling techniques have become such a crutch that current gen games now run sub 1080p native sub 60 fps. Absolutely inexcusable performance given their lack of technical ambitions.

 

[feynoob]

Matt Booty's fucking buffoonery at interviews will ensure he never gets the job. I'd pick Aaron before Matt as Spencer's replacement, and Aaron is as useful as tits on a bull.

Neither of them should be close to that seat.
MS needs to fire their arse to the moon. Its time for fresh management that knows their shit.

 

[Thief1987]

I remember when devs like id were praised for making their cutting edge engines very flexible and performant on lower end hardware at the same time. Today everyones whining and complaining when devs do that, as if it's taking away anything from the games running on more powerful hardware.

And the same Id devs were concerned about Series S, especially about lack of RAM and bandwidth

 

[angrod14]

Devs: "...Yeah, F them. Let's make this a Playstation exclusive".

 

[StueyDuck]

why won't xbox execs just shut the fuuuuuck uuuuuup. you had a decent SGF, now walk away, take the W and make games. Stop entertaining retard journos and clout chasing influencers.

 

[hyperbertha]

As the sales disparity between both consoles widen, devs who don't want to put in the extra effort might just skip xbox all together. And the games might end up more ambitious thanks to more RAM to work with. That would be a good day. Series S is a drag on the whole industry and these fuckers at ms should be ashamed.

 

[YCoCg]

It's a great little box but yeah the GPU and RAM is a chokehold, when we've got games looking better on PS4 Pro (Street Fighter 6 runs at 1440p on PS4 Pro, 1080p on Series S) it's a bit of a flare shot.

 

[feynoob]

why won't xbox execs just shut the fuuuuuck uuuuuup. you had a decent SGF, now walk away, take the W and make games. Stop entertaining retard journos and clout chasing influencers.

They come out of their hide. Guy was basically absent during 2022. And now with starfield, he is having tons of headlines.

 

[Thirty7ven]

Oh plan better, ok because devs have to pick up the tab for your bullshit console. Have fun trying to increase that userbase.

 

[Stare-Bear]

Well it’s the leading Xbox Series console so of course Microsoft is putting their foot down…

 

[Del_X]

It’s not like the specs are secret so sure - plan your texture resolution and other things for the RAM limitations.

 

[jm89]

“One thing that can be said is that if you look at the history of the game business, creating a special low priced, reduced spec console is something that has not had great results in the past. We’ve considered that option and seen other executives who have attempted this discover how problematic it is.” - Jim Ryan

 

[Puscifer]

I dunno, maybe if you all just planned ahead and went digital/disc like Sony y'all wouldn't be in this mess. Granted I like the idea of the S but Ratchet has been a great showpiece as to why we probably SHOULD be focusing on next gen only, even if that game wasn't my taste (literally only bought it because it was an exclusive ) it was still pretty

 

[Barakov]

Seems like Booty should be telling this to internal devs as well. It just seems like Xbox as a whole has a colossal logistics problem.

 

[Three]

I remember when devs like id were praised for making their cutting edge engines very flexible and performant on lower end hardware at the same time. Today everyones whining and complaining when devs do that, as if it's taking away anything from the games running on more powerful hardware.

Even Id engine devs themselves were complaining about Series S though.

 

[feynoob]

Even Id engine devs themselves were complaining about Series S though.

Well, they are making exclusive game for that system and starfield is going to hit that console.

 

[ManaByte]

As the sales disparity between both consoles widen, devs who don't want to put in the extra effort might just skip xbox all together. And the games might end up more ambitious thanks to more RAM to work with. That would be a good day. Series S is a drag on the whole industry and these fuckers at ms should be ashamed.

 

[Dontkidyourselfjimmy]

Matt Booty's fucking buffoonery at interviews will ensure he never gets the job. I'd pick Aaron before Matt as Spencer's replacement, and Aaron is as useful as tits on a bull.

 

[Aenima]

Should have tought about that before creating and extra headache for the devs.

 

[Three]

Well, they are making exclusive game for that system and starfield is going to hit that console.

Yeah of course they are but before they were acquired they shared their opinion about the S and said it isn't good for the gen.

 

[Gambit2483]

So Xbox handicaps their ecosystem by mandating all software to run on weaker hardware and then tells devs to "git gud"?

Wow...

 

[ChorizoPicozo]

lazy devs

 

[feynoob]

Yeah of course they are but before they were acquired they shared their opinion about the S and said it isn't good for the gen.

I mean they are making a game for that system.
There is difference between opinions and actually making a game for said system.

 

[Dick Jones]

Neither of them should be close to that seat.
MS needs to fire their arse to the moon. Its time for fresh management that knows their shit.

It was so easy to spin it to the positively of devs making great running games on the Series S as a budget Xbox Series X. Mention that if devs were having issues to reach out to Xbox.

Question answered. Next question.

Never say the devs are at fault.

 

[SomeGit]

Once again the thread title is extremely misleading, he is saying that devs should be able to plan better when developing their second gen games since they got better grip on the hardware and should be able to better scale around the 2 SKUs.
He is not even talking about 3rd party devs but MSs 1st party ones, here's the original quote:

• “Is it more work? Sure,” Booty says. But his teams have been able to squeeze more performance out of the Series S, especially those on their second game for this generation. “They can plan better, knowing where some of the sharp corners are.”

 

[SJRB]

 

[feynoob]

It was so easy to spin it to the positively of devs making great running games on the Series S as a budget Xbox Series X. Mention that if devs were having issues to reach out to Xbox.

Question answered. Next question.

Never say the devs are at fault.

It's MS. They have no shred of accountability.
It's easier for them to take credit and shift the blame somewhere.

They were so quite last year, when xss was getting slaughtered. Now that they had decent showcase, they are out of their shelves.

Steve job was right.

 

[hyperbertha]

Nah just spitting facts 24 7 here.

 

[Kusarigama]

For multiplatform releases this will either cause the project to scale back in scope(with whatever bottleneck or limitation they find on XSS) or just delay Xbox version just like Larian has done with Baldur's Gate 3.

I don't think that it is impossible to port the game down to XSS but it sure must be difficult to do hit all the MS implemented terms to hit parity on both Series consoles.

 

[thicc_girls_are_teh_best]

What a terrible statement. So Matt Booty is basically blaming the devs? The talking point we've seen toxic Xbox content creators and fans like Colteastwood, Crapdealer etc. push, now the head of XGS is more or less pushing the same thing?

See this is why it's dangerous for these gaming execs to get so close with the filth of their community. It rubs off on them, as well. The truth is the Series S, in hindsight, was just a bad idea. MS didn't think production costs would scale down enough this gen, and they wanted the mainstream and casuals onboard from Day 1. That's why they made Series S. They wanted to sandwich Sony is price & performance, but have lost on the latter and lost on arguably the most important metric: the value perception.

Yes Series S might be cheaper than PS5 Digital but you're getting a lot more value for $100 more (or $50 more if you consider getting the new black Series S). And a $399 PS5 Digital provides at least equal (if not superior) performance in 3P multiplats while being $100 cheaper than a Series X. Ironically by sticking to the normal console production strategy, Sony outplayed Microsoft and technically did nothing different compared to any other generation!

Now Microsoft are stuck supporting Series S for the rest of the generation. They promised Series S would get native versions of games for the whole gen, and they can't walk that back. Maybe there's a small window of a legal loophole they can utilize (there very well could be; I'm no legal expert), but it would be a big risk. Series S is going to pose some bigger issue going forward in terms of allowing 3P devs to scope their AAA games for a PS5/Series X baseline because the Series S simply does not have comparable specs. Looks like actual game development is not as easy in terms of scalability, as adjusting resolution of textures and image output.

I'm curious if they could lead to more 3P devs choosing to either skip Xbox platforms, or prioritize them for ports much later, since they have to always factor the Series S into the picture. And I think MS are trying to address this self-inflicted problem through big 3P acquisitions (when you own the 3P, they don't have a choice) and leveraging that to influence more 3P devs/pubs to "scope down" for stuff that's suitable for Series S, meaning those 3P are less able to baseline target Series X or more importantly, PS5. It would essentially be a form of engineering parity across the board, but through manipulated circumstances rather than naturally occurring (i.e Series X & PS5 being close enough in performance to basically result in natural parity).

 

[mdkirby]

Hmm looking at published software sales for multi platform games, ps5 is regularly gobbling up 80%+ …So they are asking devs to compromise their vision for their games and sink a lot of extra time and resources for the 10% of sales the S will account for? If they keep up such demands, with each passing month it’s going to be easier for Sony to money hat multi platform games. Or some devs will just decide they can’t justify the extra costs and choose not to release on xbox on their own volition, like with baldurs gate 3.

 

[Unknown Soldier]

Devs should plan better by skipping Xbox versions since the PS version outsells the Xbox versions by a 5:1 ratio anyways

Oh right that's what Japanese devs are already doing

 

[Del_X]

What a terrible statement. So Matt Booty is basically blaming the devs? The talking point we've seen toxic Xbox content creators and fans like Colteastwood, Crapdealer etc. push, now the head of XGS is more or less pushing the same thing?

See this is why it's dangerous for these gaming execs to get so close with the filth of their community. It rubs off on them, as well. The truth is the Series S, in hindsight, was just a bad idea. MS didn't think production costs would scale down enough this gen, and they wanted the mainstream and casuals onboard from Day 1. That's why they made Series S. They wanted to sandwich Sony is price & performance, but have lost on the latter and lost on arguably the most important metric: the value perception.

Yes Series S might be cheaper than PS5 Digital but you're getting a lot more value for $100 more (or $50 more if you consider getting the new black Series S). And a $399 PS5 Digital provides at least equal (if not superior) performance in 3P multiplats while being $100 cheaper than a Series X. Ironically by sticking to the normal console production strategy, Sony outplayed Microsoft and technically did nothing different compared to any other generation!

Now Microsoft are stuck supporting Series S for the rest of the generation. They promised Series S would get native versions of games for the whole gen, and they can't walk that back. Maybe there's a small window of a legal loophole they can utilize (there very well could be; I'm no legal expert), but it would be a big risk. Series S is going to pose some bigger issue going forward in terms of allowing 3P devs to scope their AAA games for a PS5/Series X baseline because the Series S simply does not have comparable specs. Looks like actual game development is not as easy in terms of scalability, as adjusting resolution of textures and image output.

I'm curious if they could lead to more 3P devs choosing to either skip Xbox platforms, or prioritize them for ports much later, since they have to always factor the Series S into the picture. And I think MS are trying to address this self-inflicted problem through big 3P acquisitions (when you own the 3P, they don't have a choice) and leveraging that to influence more 3P devs/pubs to "scope down" for stuff that's suitable for Series S, meaning those 3P are less able to baseline target Series X or more importantly, PS5. It would essentially be a form of engineering parity across the board, but through manipulated circumstances rather than naturally occurring (i.e Series X & PS5 being close enough in performance to basically result in natural parity).

Imagine taking the time to write all this on some out of context quote instead of just reading his statement.

 

[mrcroket]

We live in a sad time where everyone gives their opinion without technical knowledge, where developers capable of squeezing and optimizing are being lost, in favor of new generations of programmers who cry for having the most cutting-edge hardware available to throw their shitty code.

The consoles and hardware in general is not the same as 15 years ago, it has reached a point where any game can be adapted to the previous generation, there is no game that can not run (obviously with technical cuts) on ps4/xbox one, it's a fact.

So the fact that there are developers crying because a console with the same CPU power as the other consoles of the same generation, but a less powerful GPU and less memory (considering it has to target a resolution that requieres drawing less than half the pixels) is ridiculous. And people who say that this limits "the ambition" of developers have no idea what they are talking about and are buying the speech of whiny, untalented developers.

 

[Three]

I mean they are making a game for that system.
There is difference between opinions and actually making a game for said system.

Yeah one's your honest opinion of a piece of hardware before the acquisition. The other is doing a job for a company that puts bread on the table.

 

[Kacho]

Fake news.

He didn’t say devs should plan better. He said when they move on to their second game they CAN plan better because they know what to expect.

 

[Eotheod]

People suggesting Xbox just drop Series S is so fucking laughable, especially from developers too. Ah yes, let's just let everyone abandon a still new console and piss off all the people who bought it because they wanted an adequate enough but cheap console. That surely will go over well!

Also devs aren't choosing to skip Xbox as a whole just because of the S, as it's just financially smarter to go PlayStation because of the higher install base and likely better return. It's why developers continue to put games on the Switch despite its apparent weaker hardware compared to everything else: more install base equals higher chance of sales. The S is a perfectly fine system as long as the dev tools are there to support.

 

[thicc_girls_are_teh_best]

Imagine taking the time to write all this on some out of context quote instead of just reading his statement.

I've read his statement; even if he meant something less accusatory, he could have just answered the question better, like Dick Jones said.

Matt Booty is terrible at answering these types of questions. He basically had Phil glaring him the whole time (even laughing at him a couple times) in that interview with Jeff Grubb, Lucy and the other guy after the showcase

 

[LordCBH]

IMO I think it’s highly unreasonable to require devs to focus on two SKU’s at different power levels. Though they’ve sold the Series S so now they’re stuck supporting it.

 

[TheKremlinBossMan]

I mean Larian studios still doesn't have a release date for Baldurs Gate III because of the Series S. Meanwhile I've been playing it on PC since day one and they have it up and running on PS5. That sounds like a MS problem, not a developer problem.

 

[Ozriel]

Matt Booty: “devs should find it easier once they've moved onto their second game for the platform, since they can plan better, knowing where some of the sharp corners are."

Thread: Booty said “devs just need to plan better, hehe”

People are really invested in quoting this dude out of context.

What a terrible statement. So Matt Booty is basically blaming the devs? The talking point we've seen toxic Xbox content creators and fans like Colteastwood, Crapdealer etc. push, now the head of XGS is more or less pushing the same thing?

There is no way anyone with a reasonable grasp of English can infer - in good faith - this nonsense from what Booty said.

Even a random 10 year old off the street can easily comprehend the quote means Booty thinks it’ll get easier for devs the more games they make and the more experience they get optimizing for Series S.

Yuck.

 

[01011001]

So Xbox handicaps their ecosystem by mandating all software to run on weaker hardware and then tells devs to "git gud"?

Wow...

to be fair, the technical state of games is getting increasingly more shit by the minute.

we have games that need 3 major patches to get texture quality on par with PS3 games to run on 8GB of VRAM, which is enough to load most PS360 games fully into memory...

we have games with constant I/O stutters on the fastest storage system ever put into a console.

we got games barely reaching 1080p while looking, at best, marginally better than games that ran at native 4K on an Xbox One X.

there are games that have slower loading times on PS5 than on Series X...
and games that look at best slightly above average with load times longer than some decent looking last gen titles.

we are at a point in game development currently, where half the studio barely knows how the engine works that they're using because all they ever did was using UE Blueprints, while the other half is bloating the game with countless shader permutations because they apparently don't work with the programmers to keep it reasonable.

honestly, it sucks that Sony didn't do the exact same thing and released a low power PS5, because these lower powered systems at least would always keep the developers in check to some extent.

 

[DaGwaphics]

Perfectly reasonable statements to make. That's the Xbox platform, obviously that's the platform that devs have to make the games for if they want to be on Xbox. And obviously they will get better accustomed to the limitations of the hardware with experience.

Devs hated the processor and the split memory config in the PS3, they disliked the memory config in the N64, it happens. There was realistically zero chance that Sony or Nintendo was changing or throwing away the generation in either case. If developers wanted games on that platform they had to work with the hardware the best they could. Same deal here, same with the Switch, etc.

 

[Ozriel]

from day 1, I never liked the idea of a 4TF console. Should have been 6TF at the very minimum, with a VRAM setup similar to the One X.

But we’re already here, and it’s a fantasy to imagine there’ll be any widespread support for devs to drop the Series S (or the Xbox Series platform as a whole) from multiplatform releases.

Oh right that's what Japanese devs are already doing

When they’re paid to, yes.

 

[feynoob]

Yeah one's your honest opinion of a piece of hardware before the acquisition. The other is doing a job for a company that puts bread on the table.

That honest opinion becomes pointless, once you actually make the games for it. They are proving themself wrong by making those games.