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Developers hate Series S
- Thread starter Musilla
- Start date
FunkMiller
Gold Member
Yes.
It's a dumb piece of shit. Loads of people were saying it when it was announced. They've been saying it the entire time it's existed, and now more people are also realising the same thing as the generation continued.
It was a fucking stupid move from a company that can't afford to make stupid fucking moves, if it wants to get on equal footing with Sony and Nintendo.
"Let's put out a weakened version of our powerful next generation console." What could possibly go wrong
It's a dumb piece of shit. Loads of people were saying it when it was announced. They've been saying it the entire time it's existed, and now more people are also realising the same thing as the generation continued.
It was a fucking stupid move from a company that can't afford to make stupid fucking moves, if it wants to get on equal footing with Sony and Nintendo.
"Let's put out a weakened version of our powerful next generation console." What could possibly go wrong
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NeverYouMind
Member
I love that this baseline will likely keep PC requirements in check for the next decade excluding Sony's ports (obviously).
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graywolf323
Member
honestly I don’t think Xbox expected the PS5 to have a digital edition that was otherwise the exact same hardware for $400Yes.
It's a dumb piece of shit. Loads of people were saying it when it was announced. They've been saying it the entire time it's existed, and now more people are also realising the same thing as the generation continued.
It was a fucking stupid move from a company that can't afford to make stupid fucking moves, if it wants to get on equal footing with Sony and Nintendo.
"Let's put out a weakened version of our powerful next generation console." What could possibly go wrong
the S makes sense if they were expecting it to be the Series X vs. the PS5 at $500 and then they could come in at $300 with the S to get people who didn’t want to spend $500
the problem was it ends up a lot of people recognize that the value of PS5 hardware was worth more & also games, honestly the latter is where Xbox really fucked up this gen because for the most part why would people buy the Xbox over PS5 if they were interested in exclusives?
I wonder if we’ll ever get a documentary on this because it’d be fascinating to see in more detail but I think it boils down to Xbox bet on people being cheap and going for the $300 Series S and $10 a month Game Pass over a $500 PS5 and $70 games… and they bet wrong
avin
Member
Yes.
It's a dumb piece of shit. Loads of people were saying it when it was announced. They've been saying it the entire time it's existed, and now more people are also realising the same thing as the generation continued.
It was a fucking stupid move from a company that can't afford to make stupid fucking moves, if it wants to get on equal footing with Sony and Nintendo.
"Let's put out a weakened version of our powerful next generation console." What could possibly go wrong
The other way to write that is, it was a ballsy risky move from a company that needs to take some risks if it wants to catch up with Sony and Nintendo. The biggest risk is to not take any.
I like the idea of the S, the question is the current implementation of that idea. It's still possible that this was the best possible implementation for the needed cost savings, but I can't know, because I'm unsure as to the reason for the rare failures we've seen.
Really, all we've seen is a handful of edge cases, and a buzz that developers in general aren't happy. Those are scraps. I'd like to understand why in some more detail.
avin
azertydu91
Hard to Kill
I don't think it was a risk, quite the opposite even.They were trying to do it all, to please (according to them) to everyone.They wanted to be cheaper than playstation and more powerful but it wasnt possible in one console.So the S was born to please the people whom couldn't afford a 500$ box and the X was supposed to be way more powerful than the ps5 (hence why they were willing to take such a loss for it).And by trying to please everyone you just lose identity.Going straight into 1 clear direction is way more of a risk since there's a chance to alienate a bit, some or even a lot of consumers not buying into this vision/direction.
Trying to do everything is effectively trying multiple directions at once and usually it ends up being multiple half assed directions.And the worst part is that I think that it legitimately diverted their attention from whats the most important about a console, its games.
Lysandros
Member
I am not sure to understand that part. I thought the developers brave enough to speak pointed out those problematic aspects pretty plainly since the beginning of the generation. You still think those reports are exaggerated/irrelevant? What's there to understand 'more in detail' to grasp the situation?
avin
Member
I didn't say those reports are exaggerated or irrelevant. They're lacking in the level of explanation I like when I try to understand things. Not that I have a right to understand things, but I like to.
So far, what I know all points to the amount or speed of RAM, but why is that limiting in some cases and not others? Exactly? I start to have some ideas, but they don't amount to clearly understanding things.
avin
azertydu91
Hard to Kill
To answer your question reducing resolution doesnt proportionally reduce RAM necessity to run a game and the split pool reduce the effective usage of said RAM.So dividing the resolution of a game by 2 won't divide its RAM usage by 2 which is problematic considering the discrepancy between the S and X RAM capacity .The split pool is another problem but this one may need a longer explaination but basically splitting the pool and having different Ram speed will mean that youll have to put both pools at the same speed as the lowest RAM pool speed as well as an added complexity to access said RAM.
DForce
NaughtyDog Defense Force
Did you the Xbox Series and PlayStation spec thread thread back in 2020?
People were convinced the PlayStation 5 was a poorly designed console because they thought Sony overclocked things at the last second. All they needed back then was Chris Grannell, Kirby Louise, Dealer, Colteastwood, and Dee Batch.
After all that crap back in 2020, it's fair to point out problems with the Xbox Series S when devs are voicing their frustration with the console.
People just don't want to admit that Microsoft screwed up a bit when they designed the Xbox Series S.
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deriks
4-Time GIF/Meme God
So much bullshit. Developers say this since the dawn of times, with every console ever. Guess what? Do your job with what you have. Later you will have more, and then you repeat this process
Last of Us milked the PS3, Halo 4 is a great achievement for the 360, Splinter Cell 3 on the original Xbox looks better than some early 7th gen games, God of War 2 doesn't have loading screens on PS2 and Resident Evil 4 still looks great on the Game Cube. Why is that? Because they did their job well
Last of Us milked the PS3, Halo 4 is a great achievement for the 360, Splinter Cell 3 on the original Xbox looks better than some early 7th gen games, God of War 2 doesn't have loading screens on PS2 and Resident Evil 4 still looks great on the Game Cube. Why is that? Because they did their job well
avin
Member
Thank you, but I think I can already say something in my non-technical way, that'll help me understand and better yet - predict - when things will scale on the S and when they won't. Because the thing is, sometimes things are fine. Often, even. That's an important point. I've been told things are fine on last-gen engines, which I think is true, but it doesn't really tell me why they're not fine now.
I think for a non-technical type like me, RAM usage can be assigned to 2 pools. A constant pool, that holds game logic, and as we saw, BVH structures for raytracing, other details like maps; and a graphics pool, that varies with the resolution of the image. MS made key assumptions about the ratio between these two pools that are not always holding up.
The point is, resolutions and the needed textures are square functions. This is the diminishing returns people talk about. So when games are running at 4K on the X, and 1080p on the S, the difference in size of RAM needed for things like textures is relatively large, and the assumptions MS made hold up. But you can see that as resolutions drop on the X, and other techniques are used for image reconstruction, the savings in RAM with even lower resolutions becomes much smaller on the S.
More generally, I think this is consistent with the idea that game programming has changed so that games are using more and more RAM for the constant pool. So the prediction is, games running at relatively high internal resolution on the X and PS5 will scale down just fine to the S. Games that use other techniques and are at lower internal resolution for the X and PS5, won't. This is because these games cutting internal resolution do so to increase the size of the constant pool that they use for other things, and these are the ones in danger of not scaling.
Forgive me for writing all of that out. It may have been clear to some of you already, but I needed something like that to make it clearer to me.
avin
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SkylineRKR
Member
Imagine you are a developer, and MS comes to you, and they want you to develop an Xbox game. Imagine they also demand you to downport to Series S.
Or imagine you go to Sony and just create a PS5 version and wrap it up.
Or imagine you go to Sony and just create a PS5 version and wrap it up.
NeverYouMind
Member
Or imagine compressing your data instead of letting it flood RAM, not relying on upscaling algorithms to make the game look passable, reducing overuse of particle effects where they do not add anything or emulate an effect that can be accomplished with clever transparent 2D effects, and maybe starting off production with the lowest end target hardware in mind. Window dressing can always be implemented later.
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Elog
Member
It is the parity clause between X and S that is the problem and hence why it will change (ofc it will) - BG3 is just the first step.
THE DUCK
voted poster of the decade by bots
Agreed it's not perfect. Just think people go a bit overboard with the "it shouldn't exist" and it's "impossible to program for". No console is perfect, they had to find some balance between price and performance.
I do suspect if they had to do it over again, they put just a little bit more ram, but that's about it. One particular mod likes to say I'm "crying" when I point out the obvious over vilification of the series S here, missing the reason reason I posted that. It's not about me.......it's just more about balance. But you can't fix the world so I probably should have kept the comment to myself.
foamdino
Member
If you advocate targeting series s hw as the target, then you're essentially saying that next-gen is a device with the same amount of ram as last gen...
This "lazy devs" narrative just has to stop. Designing software systems takes into account a whole bunch of things, the "you just select the series s profile in VS and it 'scales'" was always bullshit and was rightly called out by everyone who knew anything about sw. Yes taking a last-gen game and adding extra flourishes on X was always possible, but that *isn't a next-gen game*.
BG3 is a true next-gen game and as such requires more (and faster) ram for the game data that it needs to hold in memory. I suspect Starfield will run poorly on series s for similar reasons.
azertydu91
Hard to Kill
You might want to talk to more tech knowledgeable people than me to get a more thorough answer (being in english doesn't help me either) but the bolded part feels like a good scenario of what may have happenned.And probably why split screen is more problematic on the S following your explanation the game then need more "constant pool" than normally and the barely anything left for the rest.
foamdino
Member
I think it's fine to say the series s isn't perfect, you're correct it's not an absolutely terrible machine to code for (step forward PS3) - however the way it has been linked to current gen has led to games being limited from day 1 to run on effectively a last-gen powered machine. To me the worst thing about this is that there are probably some cool ideas that were cut from games to get them to fit - ideas we'll have to wait until the next gen for now.
THE DUCK
voted poster of the decade by bots
I'm not sure it's fair to cast that blame onto series S though, for the vast majority of AAA Games this gen so far at leaat there was either a ps4, xbox one, or pc version of the games being made with specs worse than series S to contend with.
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avin
Member
I appreciated your explanation, it helped me make my own clearer. For now, I've had more time to think about it, and I agree there's likely to be some truth to what I wrote; and at least it provides a rational explanation, and more importantly, predictive power. But I recognize it's likely incomplete, and hopefully someday I'll know more.
avin
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Meh, as mentioned it just means Sony with secure more exclusives. Multiplatform games are regularly having an 80/20 split in favour of PlayStation in terms of sales. So so to secure an exclusive all Sony needs to do is cover the 20% shortfall. Which for devs also means they don’t need to pour resources into trying to make it run on series S, and/or compromise gameplay features (and their vision) on all platforms just so it runs on the S. for some devs; and increasingly more as the generation goes on and devs start pushing the limits of what the new consoles can do it’ll be a pretty easy decision.
Doczu
Member
People comparing XSS to PC's with comparable or lower specs are kinda funny tbh.
Devs on PC don't give a shit if their game runs at 720p, low settings 15 fps on your potato PC. Some games won't run at all and they won't hear gamers crying and screaming they are left out.
They target the few million users that have the "average +" rig which is at least better than the Series S. And they have a nice hardware overhead on these.machines
Devs on PC don't give a shit if their game runs at 720p, low settings 15 fps on your potato PC. Some games won't run at all and they won't hear gamers crying and screaming they are left out.
They target the few million users that have the "average +" rig which is at least better than the Series S. And they have a nice hardware overhead on these.machines
Danteyke223
Member
Hot take, but I think Microsoft should just scrap the Series S, refund people and just keep the Series X.
twinspectre
Member
But they talk about "being inclusive" guess what? If you're poor and have a Series S, then you can go F yourself bunch of hypocrite.
twilo99
Member
Very true..
twilo99
Member
The x is much bigger and uses more power... I don't want it.
If the xss didn't exist, I wouldn't bother with a console at all.
GreyHand23
Member
adamsapple
Or is it just one of Phil's balls in my throat?
PeteBull
Member
Just gonna link fellow GAFer post here, its from recent DF thread, i think he summed it up nicely there https://www.neogaf.com/threads/digi...image-quality-suffers.1660297/#post-268320865
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twinspectre
Member
Are you being serious or not?
adamsapple
Or is it just one of Phil's balls in my throat?
As serious as you are telling everyone whose poor and may have a series S to go fuck themselves.
twinspectre
Member
I'm sure this isn't what I meant, I own series s, i'm not "rich" and I can't afford a beefy machine like a Series X, but these devs are telling me to go fuck myself because I don't have shit tons of money to buy a 499€ console.
adamsapple
Or is it just one of Phil's balls in my throat?
It's a bit of a passive aggressive attitude. It's (Series S) an entry level console, you are getting all the games with expected cuts. The day they stop making ports for Series S, I will grab a pitchfork with you.
twinspectre
Member
Of course it is, they claim to be "socialist", "anti capitalism" and then they pull this? what kind of bullshit is this? do they know they preach one thing and do another thing?
Thirty7ven
Banned
This is a bunch of bull anyway. Series S isn’t for poor people, it’s for cheap people. It’s not an entry level console, it’s a side bitch you call when nobody else is picking up and your nutz heavy. It’s who you bring home for thanksgiving when you know they sitting you at the kids table.
You know who buys Series S? Xbox fans who couldn’t find an X, and Xbox fans who buy them for their kids.
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Flash Junkins
Member
Shut the fuck up. You sound retarded.
twinspectre
Member
This sounds a lil bit childish.
Shake Your Rump
Member
As someone who has had a PS5 since day one, I wish developers would “just create a PS5 version”. Instead, they always seem to create a PS4 version and simply enable higher resolution when running on a PS5.
ShadyAcshuns
Member
Some really weird takes, when applied to the real world. Some people just aren't as invested in this gen as some others are. For them, they get a console that will play new gen titles without the bells and whistles that more core gamers want. If they're happy, then who cares?
I know adults who own it and they don't care about 4k and 60fps even if they own 4k tvs. The thing they do notice however, is the increased loading speed.
I know adults who own it and they don't care about 4k and 60fps even if they own 4k tvs. The thing they do notice however, is the increased loading speed.
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Kumomeme
Member
thats why phil spencer scared to release XSX pro. it will make devs hate Series S more and add another extra sku for more unnecessary work. too late to u-turn like how he usually does.
he should prioritize developers feedback from very beginning instead of trying to please those corporate bussinessman executive and shareholder over something with no guarantee of success. in the end it is not them the one making game but the devs. rather than wasting time with tons of buzzword trying to turn other company into 'bad guy' narrative he better spend time to take serious over developers concern instead.
he should prioritize developers feedback from very beginning instead of trying to please those corporate bussinessman executive and shareholder over something with no guarantee of success. in the end it is not them the one making game but the devs. rather than wasting time with tons of buzzword trying to turn other company into 'bad guy' narrative he better spend time to take serious over developers concern instead.
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Hoddi
Member
I'm one of those people. I already had a perfectly decent gaming PC and only bought the S for an old plasma TV that I didn't want to throw out. I've been quite happy with it so far.
I also have my PS5 on the same TV and I mostly don't care which system I'm playing on. If the game is on Game Pass then I'll simply play it on the S. Or the PC if I'm sitting there for that matter.
twilo99
Member
yeah the next gen defning feature and I think you mean "decreased" ?
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Krathoon
Member
This was a brilliant moment in the show. Totally showed how Microsoft screws things up.
Moonjt9
Member
I recall a LOT of people at the start of this gen saying Series S would hamstring the entire generation, and they were called crazy fanboys.
Imagine the games we could have if devs weren’t forced to include that underpowered machine. Could actually use some of that hyped current gen tech in third party games.
Imagine the games we could have if devs weren’t forced to include that underpowered machine. Could actually use some of that hyped current gen tech in third party games.
ShadyAcshuns
Member
The SSD increases loading speed while decreasing wait times.
Hoddi
Member
We don't have to imagine. PS5 already has exclusives and we've seen how low some games drop. Would FF16 be dropping into the 720p range if they were forced to optimize for Series S? Probably not.
People keep ignoring that Series S also works as a canary build for the stronger consoles. It's the only reason you aren't seeing more 720p games.
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Duchess
Member
Just want to point out for those who are unaware that this is a doctored photo. Her t-shirt actually says, "Stop Being Desperate".
(Edit: adamsapple obviously didn't do the tweaking - this is a photo from many years back)
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