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[DarkMage619]

It is kind of crazy how much cover they both got from the Series S debates. While the enthusiasts debated how much it would hold new gen back, Jim and Phil were probably texting each other emoji's over the cross gen future they knew was coming.

Phil Spencer was always up front about support for the last generation consoles and as far as I know through streaming you can even play NEW games on last generation Xboxes too. Cross gen shouldn't have been a surprise on Xbox at least.

Great post. Came here to say the same.

"Its not holding back because we are still in crossgen territory" is such a non answer.

Well even at crossgen phase we have games such as Metro Exodus that makes the Series S run at SNES levels of resolution

"We will have to wait and see". Sure. But the writting is on the wall and has been since Day One.

The idea that the XSS is holding anything back despite no evidence of it being true is pretty silly. How well did that version of Metro run on last generation consoles? Pretty sure the XSS was doing things none of the last generation consoles did despite the lower resolution. When was the XSS sold as a system with maximum graphical settings and resolution anyway? More importantly how were the larger more powerful consoles held back? Held back doesn't meant that the XSS version of the game won't have certain graphical features. Lower graphical settings is a feature of the XSS not some sort of bug. In a world where God of War:R runs on a PS4 the idea that the XSS is hurting gaming is nonsense.

 

[DaGwaphics]

If the next gen has mostly crossgen games like xbox one games today then that's mostly still true.

It will remain true regardless because there is an expectation for the results on XSX/PS5. Short of running everything on XSX/PS5 at ultra low at 540p those systems will be their own limiting factor.

 

[rofif]

If it was at least fucking significantly cheaper and it's only 100$ less than real console that is ps5 digital.
100$ !!!! is the difference between old and new gen almost

 

[rolandss]

Well PS4 is still clearly holding back PS5 so why wouldn’t this be any truer. It’s obvious that we’re still playing last gen games they are mildly prettier. This gen is a disappointment.

 

[ChiefDada]

Jesus Christ DF is on a roll with these embarrassing takes. I mean, where do I even begin? Did John really say Series S is good for next gen because the bigger consoles can have better performance? Does that not sound like "holding back for lowest common denominator" to you? Then they continue to double down and stupidly base performance concern on UE5 that's still a work in progress. As if no other current gen engine from Microsoft, Sony, and 3rd party developers (large and small) will have their own tech advancements that take advantage of the new consoles. And the award for dumbest take goes to none other than GAF's favorite Alex Battaglia, who claims Series S will be using the SSD much more than the other consoles. No dummy, all consoles will be using their SSD/IO to make experiences better. Why would the stronger consoles not use their I/O as often? At the end of the day, console with 16gb RAM will have unmitigated advantage over 10gb RAM console because all other features are the same.

FWIW, I do not think Series S will hold back next gen UNLESS Microsoft foolishly gets in their own way. Series S is a bonified current gen console with Zen 2 CPU, RDNA2 GPU and Velocity Architecture I/O. But if they require Series X and S to share the same development environment, as is rumored, then Series X will undoubtedly get held back. As Richard mentioned, there's more to RAM than just scalable graphics related features such as textures.

 

[freefornow]

Will Coalition be sent to every studio to help optimize the series s version?

The Coalitions "learnings" from that excersise will be shared with other developers. Generally how the developer community works.

 

[feynoob]

Phil Spencer was always up front about support for the last generation consoles and as far as I know through streaming you can even play NEW games on last generation Xboxes too. Cross gen shouldn't have been a surprise on Xbox at least.

You are right. Especially, when there is few 1st party games in the 1st 2 years.
That Phil guy is smart.

 

[DeepEnigma]

Did John really say Series S is good for next gen because the bigger consoles can have better performance? Does that not sound like "holding back for lowest common denominator" to you?

Pretty much, lol.

"Cross-gen should remain because the new gen consoles can have better performance." - Same energy.

 

[BigbyTheSheriff]

Y'all should just focus on playing games instead of worrying 24/7 about Series S.

It's honestly embarrassing the amount of threads about the console that we have here.

 

[S0ULZB0URNE]

Geez does it really bother you that much?

I got banned for it so yes.

 

[Roxkis_ii]

Y'all should just focus on playing games instead of worrying 24/7 about Series S.

It's honestly embarrassing the amount of threads about the console that we have here.

 

[feynoob]

Nice face reveal Roxkis_ii

 

[Captain Toad]

Games will always be limited by the least common denominator. That's you, S.

 

[Captain Toad]

Lol no

Then you weren't around. That's all the Xbox guys said for months.

 

[MisterXDTV]

Then you weren't around. That's all the Xbox guys said for months.

Yes, there was a guy here that kept saying for months that Series S didn't exist as well

 

[DaGwaphics]

Then you weren't around. That's all the Xbox guys said for months.

I don't remember that, there were lots of jokes about the PS5 being weak, but not about it holding back the generation. The XSS info was essentially already out very soon after the first whispers of the PS5 began to spread, that first leak in mid summer 19 that windows central reported on proved to be very accurate. Though I think the CPU clocks were rumored to be lower than what we got at that point and they thought the S model price would be $250. So, if Xbox fans were saying that PS5 was going to hold back the generation they weren't looking at much of the info that was available. LOL

 

[Tripolygon]

Then you weren't around. That's all the Xbox guys said for months.

I don't remember that and i was in those threads.

 

[MikeM]

Devs are the biggest limiting factor unless those devs are the Coalition, Insomniac or Naughty Dog.

 

[S0ULZB0URNE]

Then you weren't around. That's all the Xbox guys said for months.

Yup

 

[Slicker than your average]

DF and Eurogamer are paid Microsoft shills at this point so it's not like their opinion which is an opinion btw can be trusted any more than your average gaf poster

 

[Zathalus]

Curious how DF are labeled MS shills when saying anything remotely positive about Xbox despite the reverse almost never being true, they cover the PS5 far more often (and praise PS5 games far more as well) but never get labeled Sony shills. I guess the ramifications of PS4 Pro vs Xbox One X are still being felt to this day.

 

[Iced Arcade]

Then you weren't around. That's all the Xbox guys said for months.

My account 2013, your account 2020

 

[Eddie-Griffin]

Not yet. What's holding back gaming is the lowest common denominator. Currently that's XB1.

XB1 was discontinued years ago.

 

[Razvedka]

Lots to unpack here.

• John mentions feedback from devs stating issues with the memory limitations of the series s.
• Alex says its not holding back next gen atm because X1 and PS4 are holding back next gen, but eventually series s might.
• Richard brings up how the series s is cheap and is needed in the current economic climate. Sales are 50:50 in UK and Europe so it will be impossible to ignore it.
• They bring up the Matrix demo as proof that it wont hold back next gen gaming.
• Alex says that the lower memory pool of the series s will force the devs into optimizing the streaming aspects of their engine which is a good thing.
• Richard points out the miscalculation during the spec phase of the series s was likely them thinking that textures make up the most amount of memory usage but RT has proved that to be a false assumption.
• Alex brings up the software lumens as a fallback option for series s especially since Epic recently mentioned that they were able to halve the frametime budget of the original PS5 UE5 demo from 8 ms to 3.5 ms essentially doubling performance.

I am not a fan of how they all bent over backwards to defend this thing. Is it going to hold back gaming? Well if devs are telling you it will, why deny or make excuses for it? Who gives a shit that the price of a new console is too high? Thats how its always been. PS5 even with the price hike is still cheaper than the original 1995 $299 console adjusted for inflation. People struggling to put food on the table wont buy a $299 console or a $550 console., They are the ones who buy consoles at the end of the gen. Why are we bending over backwards for that audience all of a sudden? Even if they buy the $299 console, where the fuck would they get the money for a $70 game? Or even a $15 gamepass sub for a year? They are litera

They bring up how Coalition essentially optimized the series s version of the Matrix demo as a positive. Surely, the fact that the best MS studio had to be contracted to come help ship the Series S version is a bit of a concern. Will Coalition be sent to every studio to help optimize the series s version?

No mention of how according to their own counts the series s runs at resolutions significantly below 533p. Yes, it runs on the series s but at what cost? Are devs going to settle for that or target higher resolutions on the xsx thus limiting visual fidelity in favor of higher pixel counts. No comments there. Surely this is something that they can go to the devs with. Even if its off the record.

Expected better from DF especially since they mentioned they had feedback from the devs and then proceeded to completely ignore it.

I'm not going to weigh in completely, but them talking about how it is 'needed in the current economic climate' doesn't make an ounce of sense given that the PS5 is perpetually sold out and selling like hotcakes. And the digital only SKU is more expensive than the S. Someone can correct me if I'm wrong, but I'm not aware that the XSX is struggling to have units moved either (at least I'm not aware of it).

People who want a next gen console can absolutely save up and afford them at the 'premium' price points (XSX, PS5 Disc edition) based on the numbers. Not saying I agree with anything else they're saying, but that point in particular seems.. Odd.

 

[Esca]

We honestly won't know for awhile. Arguing about it isn't going to change anything.

 

[CloudShiner]

These guys and this channel are super cringe. If I had an Xbox console, these would be the last people I ever listen to.
Side note: I miss the OG and 360 Xboxes.

They have the occasional interesting feature, but I can't stand the overbearing smugness they exhibit on this weekly direct thing, especially Linneman and Leadbetter. And the constant chuckling they do at each other, after comments that aren't remotely amusing, is plain weird.

 

[MarkMe2525]

Extreme damage control from them and people wonder why many don't trust them.

Is it possible that maybe they just know better than you? They do regularly speak with the actual people that makes the games.

I bet that 9.2 out of ten developers are not significantly hindered with Series S development as it's done on a unified platform that does most of the work. All that is left for them is to decide what optimizations need to be made to hit their performance and image quality targets. I'm sure there are edge cases of course.

 

[S0ULZB0URNE]

Is it possible that maybe they just know better than you? They do regularly speak with the actual people that makes the games.

I bet that 9.2 out of ten developers are not significantly hindered with Series S development as it's done on a unified platform that does most of the work. All that is left for them is to decide what optimizations need to be made to hit their performance and image quality targets. I'm sure there are edge cases of course.

They know better than the multiple devs who have said this from the start?

Oh wait they claim that devs told them otherwise but yet can't name them.

The blindness is comedy gold.

 

[sachos]

I get the feeling they get a little too defensive here, like they are scared of angering the fanboys, like when Rich plays devils advocate and prefaces by saying "I love the Series S, but...".

They keep saying they have heard some complaints and keep citing examples of where the Series S falls short while at the same time dancing around the answer. I think John and Rich make a good point when talking about how the hardware architects may have not predicted the memory importance when it comes to RT, and how that shows with many games not having RT support for the XSS. There is a chance devs will not focus fully on RT only games in the future (like Metro for example) because they can't get it to fully work on the XSS.

To me the answer is an obvious "Yes", we've always known this, developers develope with the lowest common denominator in mind and in the future once cross gen ends that will be the XSS. Now, the question is how MUCH will it hold back the gen? That we don't know, maybe its 1% or 5% or 10%, you get the point. Even if graphics and design dont end suffering, you are still hold back just by the fact you need to target resources to making your game work on yet another device.

But i like Rich's point by the end, the XSS is here to stay and many people seem to like it so we better accept it as it is, even if it may end up being a little rock in our collective shoes. Games will still be awesome either way.

 

[Three]

And the award for dumbest take goes to none other than GAF's favorite Alex Battaglia, who claims Series S will be using the SSD much more than the other consoles. No dummy, all consoles will be using their SSD/IO to make experiences better. Why would the stronger consoles not use their I/O as often? At the end of the day, console with 16gb RAM will have unmitigated advantage over 10gb RAM console because all other features are the same.

It certainly may be just dumb guesswork but memory management makes that a possibility. The stronger consoles have more RAM and could be doing a lot less OS level swapping. Any system with more RAM (or at least more abundant free RAM) needs to do a lot less swapping to virtual memory because it doesnt run out of it as often. Whether they have used part of that OS reserved SSD space for a swap file hasn't been publicly confirmed though so whether he is right or wrong on that is still up in the air.

 

[HumanoidSharks]

The only thing holding gaming back is the huge influx of terrible games.

 

[plip.plop]

Imo of course it does. The same reason I never wanted PRO consoles market segregation

I agree pro consoles were the exact same thing SEGA did with the genesis attachments. At that point, money and resources would have been better spent on a new console.

 

[Synless]

XB1 was discontinued years ago.

Yet games are still being developed having to run on it… so yeah, it’s what’s holding games back.

 

[damidu]

I get the feeling they get a little too defensive here, like they are scared of angering the fanboys, like when Rich plays devils advocate and prefaces by saying "I love the Series S, but...".

they are usually like that for both sides, and can’t really blame them. console warriors are the weirdest bunch.

 

[Eddie-Griffin]

Yet games are still being developed having to run on it… so yeah, it’s what’s holding games back.

No it's not, PS4 is the base platform, those games are just being brought over easily to X1.

 

[Synless]

No it's not, PS4 is the base platform, those games are just being brought over easily to X1.

Anything last gen is holding games back but don’t tell me that Xbox 1 isnt the bottle neck for Xbox exclusives. Your delusional to blame Sony when no matter how you slice it, the X1 is still the weakest console they are porting to… unless in the rare occasion they throw Switch into the mix.

 

[SmokedMeat]

When the realese date is set in stone and they are still some minor problems Sony studios fixed them mostley with a realeseday patch, problem solved

Severe stuttering isn’t a minor problem, and no release date is set in stone.

It’s a digital game. There’s no product hitting store shelves.

 

[MarkMe2525]

They know better than the multiple devs who have said this from the start?

Oh wait they claim that devs told them otherwise but yet can't name them.

The blindness is comedy gold.

Is it blindness? I mean you have a handful of devs out of literal 1000's complaining. This is a textbook example of confirmation bias.

Also, they aren't claiming to know better than the handful of devs that have an issue with the existence of Series S, they are literally sharing anidotes and insight from the many devs they speak with as part of their job. Your misrepresenting their statements.

I don't know how old you are, but I remember a time when there were many in the industry that were struggling with development on the ps3. In many cases, if not all, games generally performed and looked worse on the console compared to its competition. Even though the ps3 was a very capable machine, it wasn't until the industry developed game engines to take advantage of the unique hardware (cell, split memory pool between two types of ram, etc..) that we started to see parity, and in many cases, superior performance.

You are already aware, but fail to give credence to the fact that Series S has hardware that assists in mitigating memory bandwidth and size limitations. The industry will of course develop engines to take advantage of these feature sets just as they did with every other console that has been released since the atari 2600.

Again, you already know these things I'm sure, but go ahead and keep your head buried in the sand. Your conspiracy theories regarding the secret intent of digital foundry are quite entertaining. It gives many of us here on Gaf something to chuckle at.

 

[Physiognomonics]

Lots to unpack here.

• They bring up the Matrix demo as proof that it wont hold back next gen gaming.
• Alex says that the lower memory pool of the series s will force the devs into optimizing the streaming aspects of their engine which is a good thing.

I would like to comment on those 2 points here.

1/ The demo was designed in order to run on the X1S. We'll never know how the demo could have being if designed to run on XSX and PS5. But maybe we already have that demo with the first demo running exclusively on PS5...
2/ The problem will still be the same as if they start streaming data on X1S they will be able to stream as much data on XSX.

They always make those arguments (or similar) since the start of the gen, how can they not understand their logic is so wrong?

 

[Eddie-Griffin]

Anything last gen is holding games back but don’t tell me that Xbox 1 isnt the bottle neck for Xbox exclusives.

The base platform for Xbox development was moved to the ONE X which was replaced by the new consoles not too long after it was discontinued. Any developer is downscaling the game to the one, or third-party wise starting on PS4 and moving right to the One. There's nothing for the Xbox one to hold back, in fact it's the OPPOSITE issue and you can clearly see that with recent games being near unplayable on it because no one is bothering to optimize. They do just enough to get the games to work on a One X at best. But most devs have moved on.

If you don't know what the phrase "holding back" means and what's required to actually do that just say so. The Xbox One nor the X which is stronger than the PS4 and Pro are completely irrelevant in 2022.

 

[hinch7]

Its obvious that that memory capacity in the Series S was always going to be an issue and extra work for devs in the long haul. Doesn't help that there's also a huge gulf in the memory bandwidth between the Series X and PS5 to the Series S. We have 16GB of relatively fast GDDR6 of the duo, verses the much slower 10GB GDDR6 on the Series S. Which offer two times more, or greater memory bandwidth.

 

[ChiefDada]

Lol, Battaglia's nightmares of the peasant console outperforming the 3070 still keeping him up at night I see.



But seriously, he's right. PC/Nvidia folks looking to buy 4000 midrange cards will likely screw themselves over going with anything less than 12gb VRAM, no many how many RT cores they sell you. Tbh, I'm not fully convinced 12gb is enough but god forbid I'm labeled a fanboy lol.

 

[adamsapple]

I would like to comment on those 2 points here.

1/ The demo was designed in order to run on the X1S. We'll never know how the demo could have being if designed to run on XSX and PS5. But maybe we already have that demo with the first demo running exclusively on PS5...

Source ? Citation ? Reference ?

 

[MarkMe2525]

I would like to comment on those 2 points here.

1/ The demo was designed in order to run on the X1S. We'll never know how the demo could have being if designed to run on XSX and PS5. But maybe we already have that demo with the first demo running exclusively on PS5...
2/ The problem will still be the same as if they start streaming data on X1S they will be able to stream as much data on XSX.

They always make those arguments (or similar) since the start of the gen, how can they not understand their logic is so wrong?

Just addressing your first idea that maybe the Matrix demo could have been more if it didn't have to run on the Series S. The fact that neither the PS5 nor XSX can run the current build at a steady 30fps, leads me to believe that there were already pushing as hard as they could with their current console optimizations at the time. Adding more scene complexity or higher resolution targets would have simply drug the fps down further. I don't follow your logic.

 

[Ezekiel_]

 

[skit_data]

Gold for a DF Direct thread, now I have truly seen everything

 

[Xaero Gravity]

These fucking thumbnails are always them with the dumbest faces.

 

[pasterpl]

Just tell me which game on Series X looks like GOWR, TLOU, Horizont?

Just tell me which game on PS5 looks like GoW Hivebusters, forza horizon 5. Ms flight sim?

 

[Heisenberg007]

LOL. And you mention as an example games with PS4 version and you say that XSS is limiting XSX??

As DF says, XSS has so far not been a limitation. When crossgen developments are completely abandoned, it will be time to draw conclusions. As they also say, we have the Matrix demo example as a demonstration that XSS can move UE5 with all its technology (including GI RT, shadow RT and reflection RT in an ultra detailed open world) in a state still to be improved in optimization.

That is, XSS has not yet shown its limit, this is a discussion for the future when you compare what XSS offers vs what XSX and PS5 can offer. Because it's going to be funny to see games on XSX and PS5 at 1080p and struggling to keep 30fps stable and people wanting to blame XSS for it

So we're gonna believe Digital Foundry and random forum dwellers (including me) but discard what actual game developers say? Why?

 

[Silent Viper]

Only PS fanboys believe that XSS holding anything back.

Smart and sensible gamers know that its not holding anything. Multiplatform games are made keeping low end Pac hardware in mind not XSS.

Plus RDNA2 features like FSR, sampler feedback and all will help devs to optimise games better for consoles.

Optimisation for SS will result in better optimisation for all consoles.