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[Patterson]

Microsoft just created double the work for developers who want to release on their systems.

 

[Jon Neu]

Less options for less price, as is always the way.

No, more options for less price.

You can buy either the Series S and play at 1080p or 1440p like those 2080ti users you were defending before.

Or buy a Series X and play at greater resolutions.

Again, you have more options.

If that were true then these companies wouldn't pump millions into RnD we would all still be playing on early 2000's hardware that would be dirt cheap to produce today.

Companies pump millions into RnD because it's profitable. Like you said: they aren't humanitarian.

I'd like you to actually come up with reasons why the Series S would be stronger for it's intended purpose than a more powerful system would be.

I have already given those reasons across the threads.

TL;DR: Specs + resolution target explains everything.

The graph above gives you a good example of where simply reducing resolution does not result in a game suddenly rocketing along at high framerates

Who says the Series S is going to have more fps?

Ah the ad hominems.

I haven't made a single ad hominem against you, I guess you meant strawmans. And also that isn't true neither, I described what you have been doing. Filling the thread with extreme negativity against the console claiming all kinds of shortcomings by your own made up speculation and claiming that the devs of the console are lying because what they said doesn't fit your negative narrative, among other things.

You insist that you want to have a meaningful conversation, but so far you haven't said anything actually meaningful. Why are we supposed to believe you over the devs of MS? You haven't made any real argument to support your speculations, they are just speculations based on more speculations (and probably wishful thinking).

 

[GHG]

No, more options for less price.

You can buy either the Series S and play at 1080p or 1440p like those 2080ti users you were defending before.

Or buy a Series X and play at greater resolutions.

Again, you have more options.

As a consumer looking to make a purchase you have more options if you have the money. If you don't have the money you have less options. It's normal, hence less money less options. Microsoft are creating an avenue for people with less money here but the primary goal of the system is to create an entry point for gamepass. If they were only concerned about people having the best possible "next gen" experience then the Series X would be the only option on the table.

Companies pump millions into RnD because it's profitable. Like you said: they aren't humanitarian.

Not always, hence it's a speculative investment. If they only wanted to make money then stagnation is actually the best option, especially with technology. That's how Apple make so much money, they repackage old phone hardware as something "new" - no RnD cost, instant profitability. Thankfully for most technology companies competition exists, so it doesn't allow anyone to be absolutely stagnant.

I have already given those reasons across the threads.

TL;DR: Specs + resolution target explains everything.

If you have I'd appreciate being pointed in the direction of those posts. I've been courteous enough to ensure you have had a direct reference to things I've previously said when I've preferred to not repeat myself. Specs and a resolution target don't explain anything, it's the results from said technology that we are looking for. And in this case in particular we are talking about the implications this technology will have on the higher spec'd consoles and GPU's for the games that will be developed for all of them.

The fundamental question is will we see the same leap that we typically see when there is a generation leap? Based on the specs of the lowest powered system that needs to be catered for, the answer to that would be no. It would represent possibly the smallest jump we have ever seen.

Who says the Series S is going to have more fps?

I don't think you're understanding the example I'm providing.

It's about having more FPS than if the same game were to run on the same system at 4k. Simply decreasing the resolution and leaving everything else the same is not enough in a lot of cases, not everything scales with resolution.

Flight Sim 2020 is a prime example of that. You can end up in a scenario where a game is perfectly playable on the higher end system but on the low end system you have something that is unplayable even when you take it down to lower resolutions. If simply decreasing the resolution doesn't remedy the problem that means you need to look at other optimisations, other settings or in a worst case scenario altering the design of the game itself. All of that involves work, it involves time.

To avoid that headache, you can develop around a lower spec target and then work your way up. Provided your engine isn't a mess, it's easier to bolt things on than it is to shave things off. It's also less demoralising. Having to literally cut away bits of work that you've done is the worst feeling in the world.

Hence I earlier gave examples where games built around high end PC's used to end up severely compromised when being ported to consoles. That is what can really happen when you prioritise a high end system.

I haven't made a single ad hominem against you, I guess you meant strawmans. And also that isn't true neither, I described what you have been doing. Filling the thread with extreme negativity against the console claiming all kinds of shortcomings by your own made up speculation and claiming that the devs of the console are lying because what they said doesn't fit your negative narrative, among other things.

You insist that you want to have a meaningful conversation, but so far you haven't said anything actually meaningful. Why are we supposed to believe you over the devs of MS? You haven't made any real argument to support your speculations, they are just speculations based on more speculations (and probably wishful thinking).

You are attempting to make this personal for whatever reason instead of sticking to the actual topic we are discussing, that's an ad hominem.

I can see that you don't like that I'm not positive about this system. It's no secret that I'm not in favour of it being a real thing going into next gen. This is actually a thread where the reasons why I'm not in favour of it are being discussed, sorry if it upsets you. It's not wishful thinking because I'd rather a scenario where what's being discussed wasn't the case, that is where you are completely off the mark. As I said before, if somehow the developers find a way to work with the system in a way that they can do things just as they would if developing for a console that was much more powerful then I'd be happy to be wrong. I'm talking from my own perspective of being a software developer, and as a lifelong PC gamer where in some cases "turn the resolution down bro" or "lower the settings bro" can do nothing. Until we are deep into next gen and are in a position to reflect on how the introduction of a lower spec'd console may or may not have had an impact on the development of next gen games then that's all we can do for now, discuss it.

So here we are, talking about me instead of the topic. It's what you wanted though huh? Good work.

Also as for this:

claiming that the devs of the console are lying because what they said doesn't fit your negative narrative, among other things.

Show me where.

 

[Shifty1897]

You think XSS games are going to be 1440p? LOL.

Would you like your 1080p regular or extra crispy?

 

[Tchu-Espresso]

The resolution will scale. Graphics will be identical otherwise.

Lie.

 

[Balducci30]

You think XSS games are going to be 1440p? LOL.

Would you like your 1080p regular or extra crispy?

I legitimately can’t tell the difference when I play on my TV. So it’s not an issue for me. I think this console is marketed towards people like me who frankly don’t need to have a new Xbox or PlayStation immediately, and who play games casually sometimes, caring less about the graphics, resolution, FPS etc. Imma go with the cheaper option always because it’s good enough - seems to me the difference in PC gaming capability and the consoles capability will be much more than the difference between xsx and xss anyway. If I really needed cutting edge stuff I’d build a better PC. If I want Sony first party quality games I get the ps5 for that.

 

[faraany3k]

Consoles hold back my PC all the time. I donot start a thread about it.

 

[nosseman]

Microsoft just created double the work for developers who want to release on their systems.

On the other side - they just created a huge market for developers with the Series S.

The first couple of years developers MUST develop games for both the new generation AND the last generation and that is a much bigger step.

With this cheap half-step MS can sell much more units and developers can stop developing games for XSX/PS5 AND Xbox One/PS4.

Series S is a much much smaller step "down" compared to PS4 and Xbox One. Same CPU, same storange I/O, same architecture of GPU etc etc.

The way I see it MS just accelerated the dismissal of current gen for developers. If Series S sell big developers can stop developing games for Xbox One faster (with all the problems that generation CPU:s have - Jaguar is very slow compared to next gen CPU:s).

An example:

FIFA 19



Do you think PS3 held back PS4 when this game was released in 2018?

With a cheap and more powerful (and more similar in CPU/GPU/architecture) that sell well EA could have perhaps dropped PS3 in 2014 or 2015.

 

[Tulipanzo]

This is not a concern imo.

Games will be made with the main consoles in mind, then savagely butchered to run on the Series S.
It will be like the X1S, and get the worst running version of most games.

 

[Sorc3r3r]

This is not a concern imo.

Games will be made with the main consoles in mind, then savagely butchered to run on the Series S.
It will be like the X1S, and get the worst running version of most games.

I really hope so, but usually it goes from slower to faster
It would be interesting to know what MS pretend the port to be to accept it as publishable, this could make or destroy an entire generation.

 

[Tulipanzo]

I really hope so, but usually it goes from slower to faster
It would be interesting to know what MS pretend the port to be to accept it as publishable, this could make or destroy an entire generation.

I was being a bit tongue in cheek, but it actually would affect development on XSX, because no dev is going to push for ideas and solutions that would be a nightmare to run on Series S.

 

[FranXico]

could use GPGPU for things like physics to make up for the weak Jaguar cores, but we saw an entire generation of PS4 and there was nothing outside of a tech demo that took advantage of it

Incorrect. HZD, Uncharted 4 for example, used GPGPU for physics. I'm sure there were others.

 

[GamingArena]

Microsoft just created double the work for developers who want to release on their systems.

Yeap as much work as devs need to do for all lineup of GPUS aka introduce Resolution slider. They are screwed!

 

[supernova8]

For the third party games it won't really matter, most of them come to PC these days so they scale whether we like it or not (and where XSS exists or not). Xbox exclusives coming to PC anyway (and therefore will scale).

What I think we will see is PS5 exclusives (later on in the generation) that look vastly better than anything on other platforms because there won't be any scaling involved.

 

[supernova8]

Yeap as much work as devs need to do for all lineup of GPUS aka introduce Resolution slider. They are screwed!

It's not quite the same though, is it? With PC, there's no unified platform 'responsible' for performance as long as the game runs reasonably OK on some level of hardware.
There's no guarantee (implicit or explicit) provided that a game will run well on your PC, just that it'll generally run OK.

With XSS they are marketing it specifically as 1440p machine. If it turns out the game in question is GPU intensive more than CPU intensive, it may turn out as nicely as people hoped.

I would put some faith in the Xbox design team in the sense that they wouldn't put out a machine that cannot do 1440p if they say it can, but Xbox One begs to differ. They didn't make very smart hardware choices back then.

 

[Whitecrow]

Those still defending Series S is only X but at lower resolution... WRONG.
X is S at 4K.

You cant just design a game around a 13 TFLOPS machine and hope it performs as well in a 4 TFLOPS just by lowering the resolution.
Like if any of us knew exactly how many extra tFLOPS does a machine need to go from 1080 to 4K.
It is also variable in a game per game basis.

But well, I see what you would be blind to this.

 

[DonJorginho]

On the other side - they just created a huge market for developers with the Series S.

The first couple of years developers MUST develop games for both the new generation AND the last generation and that is a much bigger step.

With this cheap half-step MS can sell much more units and developers can stop developing games for XSX/PS5 AND Xbox One/PS4.

Series S is a much much smaller step "down" compared to PS4 and Xbox One. Same CPU, same storange I/O, same architecture of GPU etc etc.

The way I see it MS just accelerated the dismissal of current gen for developers. If Series S sell big developers can stop developing games for Xbox One faster (with all the problems that generation CPU:s have - Jaguar is very slow compared to next gen CPU:s).

An example:

FIFA 19



Do you think PS3 held back PS4 when this game was released in 2018?

With a cheap and more powerful (and more similar in CPU/GPU/architecture) that sell well EA could have perhaps dropped PS3 in 2014 or 2015.

That isn't PS3, that is a PC modded version of FIFA 13/14

 

[mrmeh]

I have concerns that the S might hold back the X... but then I think of some of the games I can get on my Switch albeit at a lower res/refresh (4 GB Ram, Arm CPU) Doom Eternal , The Witcher etc and I believe some on here (...maybe Sony people) are overstating the effect it will have.

Flight Simulator is a very advanced game that needs a powerful PC to run at high res and good refresh so I'm looking forward to see how that runs on S and compared to X, I also think MS and their engineers would have done their homework to achieve what they planned.

I will be pre-ordering an X but I think the S looks great , it may give the next gen a bigger initial boost in roll out which may help devs switch to focus on this gen quicker so we get more advanced 'Next gen' games sooner.

Dev's also moan about everything so I take the Id engineers tweets with a pinch of salt, after all as mentioned above Doom runs on a Switch.

 

[Journey]

Absolutely none of this is true. Everyone knew the "rumor" for S was basically same CPU, lesser GPU and an SSD. In fact you have people upset that it's only a 512GB ssd because they were expecting parity there.

No one on the planet thought the Series S was gonna have a weaker GPU and CPU and an HDD. No one.

Weird attempts at changing the narrative going on over the last 24 hours.

Changing the narrative eh? Why is GAF full of armchair developers that think they know more than the actual devs???

Borderlands 3 Developer:
We didn't get any type of Lockhart hardware until very recently. Before we actually had the hardware we were given a profile on Anaconda dev kits that would mimic what Lockhart would be. But Microsoft never mentioned that it would have the same CPU and an SSD or how much RAM they intended Lockhart to have. I suspect this was because they themselves hadn't decided. To put it bluntly, they released these profiles far too early. The tools they provided made us hate Lockhart.

That changed once we got Lockhart Dev kits. It is indeed the same CPU and SSD and getting up and running on this device was super easy compared to Anaconda running in the Lockhart profile. We have been able to do the work we want on Anaconda and get it running on Lockhart with not a ton of work but it has required a bit more time to make sure the code runs on both machines in the same fashion. Its not something we are really worried about anymore.

Real Developer: 1
GAF Armchair dev: 0

Me? Love it when someone attempts to discredit your comments and fails miserably.

 

[Keihart]

I mean, only if there are enough series S in the wild to entice developers to support it. If the PS5 pricing rumors from the other thread are real and xbox doesn't come out with a mega hit or partnership, i think it's gonna be collecting dust in stores despite being cheaper.

I mean, who would this early adopters willing to buy an S instead of PS5 for a hundred dollars more be?

 

[Aguero9320]

There are a huge number of gamers, and potential gamers, who don’t need/want/wouldn’t notice/can’t take advantage of 4K - easily the majority - only the gaming community could be upset that they are being given a well priced option that’s suited to them, and cry that they aren’t being forced to pay more money than they need.

PC games are always the best looking on high end hardware, but perfectly fine on more budget hardware. There’s absolutely no reason why this will be different.

 

[Astral Dog]

Its not like we have a choice in this matter

 

[Shadowstar39]

I would be too bitter and upset to ever buy a 3090, too much wasted potential lmao


Thats not trolling though, its a fact. I have no qualms admitting that.

Theres a reason theres only been 1 Crysis.

Imagine how fucking advanced games would be if the 3090 was the only target.

BRUH what? I would welcome this.

Yep this so much. Too many people here either don't remember or werent alive back when PC was target spec. Games like Crysis, Doom3, Half-life2, Quake 3, Doom, Unreal Tournamet, etc... used to push tech. It was so drastic that two versions of games had to be made. The superior pc versions and the cut down bastardized console versions.
Hell if it wasn't for jrpgs and some console only releases during the ps2 era, i would of never touched consoles that gen. PC was where it was at.

These games pushed tech. You wanted to play the new greatness and to do that required upgrading hardware.

Also here is another example from a different perspective.
Deus Ex 2 , Theif 3 both had small level layouts with cities cut into sections with long load times due to focusing on OG Xbox first instead of pc. This caused the games to be worse than their predisesors as they couldn't do open worlds. While other devs during this time made two versions these were targeted at the lowest common demoniator og xbox. This shit will happen again. Graphics are only part of the issue.

 

[Melfice7]

Consoles hold back my PC all the time. I donot start a thread about it.

PC holds back PC, why wont people get that high specs PC's ARE NEVER USED TO ITS POTENTIAL, games are not made for that specific hardware, games are made for a minimum spec THEN scaled up, which on PC's is fairly easy because the difference between the min and max is huge

If a developer targets some high end PC hardware exclusively.. that would be a different story

 

[DarkMage619]

I really hope so, but usually it goes from slower to faster
It would be interesting to know what MS pretend the port to be to accept it as publishable, this could make or destroy an entire generation.

Jason Ronald Director of Program Management for Xbox claims developers can create the XSX version of a game and scale it down to XSS. Why wouldn't a developer follow his suggestion? Or does he know less than the people here on the forum.

 

[sendit]

I still have a price and release. What you got?

Games?

 

[The Hamburglar]

Those still defending Series S is only X but at lower resolution... WRONG.
X is S at 4K.

You cant just design a game around a 13 TFLOPS machine and hope it performs as well in a 4 TFLOPS just by lowering the resolution.
Like if any of us knew exactly how many extra tFLOPS does a machine need to go from 1080 to 4K.
It is also variable in a game per game basis.

But well, I see what you would be blind to this.

This is right. And because of this it really has lowered the baseline to 4tf. It’s a joke.

 

[Represent.]

This is right. And because of this it really has lowered the baseline to 4tf. It’s a joke.

Eventually people will see that its only common sense.

Folks have to stop drinking the kool-aid these devs are spitting out to sell their games.