The rationale for why concern has damped seems to be, in my opinion, that devs will just target the S and boost graphics to 4k / better FPS on the X. To me this is not a win for people hoping to see what the X is truly capable of. At this point I see no purpose for the X unless you want 4k graphics.
In all seriousness, what is the point of a Series X if you don't have a 4k TV?
Just...
what?!?
Dude, that's
not how this is going to work. If any developer were doing that right now, we'd of gotten some substantive rumors pointing to such. And if that were the case, then I could see your concern.
But it's literally not what they're doing; Series S and Series X are not fully analogous to XBO S and XBO X. The latter used the S as the baseline since the S was essentially the original XBO which was the original system release. With all of MS's marketing and messaging so far it's pretty clear the Series X is their baseline and the Series S is the port-down machine. It's there as the alternative, not the main.
If it turns out I'm wrong, and MS are actually using Series S as the baseline (and mandating devs to use Series S as the baseline, even though they aren't even forcing 3rd-parties to support cross-gen if they don't want hence Scorn and The Medium among sure-to-be many others), I will be the first to eat the biggest, fattest crow of all time and wash my hands of all of that.
But I doubt that's something I'll need to do at all.
Sorry OP, while I agree that S won't hold back X games, this is not even remotely the same case as the one you're specifying.
These new consoles wil have the same exact CPU, which is the most important in terms of game experience, but GPU are different only for resolution scale.
In example, Xbox One and One X have the same exact CPU, but One X has a buffed GPU only for 4K, and the games look at higher res while keeping same gaming experience.
Also, the RAM in Series S is gonna be smaller but that's more than enough for 1080p games, since these new consoles will use SSD for supporting I/O.
Actually, games would probably run better in Series S than in PS5, only at lower resolution, if they go to over the top with resolution and IQ, leaving framerate as second class citizen, afaik, it actually happens in current gen base vs buffed consoles.
Hmm...I dunno if the OP came through as clear as I wanted. My point was actually to debunk the notion that Series S will hold back the Series X from a POV aside from graphics, mainly in terms of game mechanics. As to say, I don't think it will hold back ambitious game mechanics that work on Series X but not Series S, as the devs can simply cut those mechanics out of the Series S version if need be.
The visual point you bring up remains true, but I think most people have come around to agreeing on that. There's still a lot who think Lockart/Series S will hold back Series X (and even PS5) in terms of game design ambition, though, and I wanted to use SOM as an example of how supporting wildly different systems in terms of power doesn't mean the version for the higher-end system needs to gimp on ambition.
Honesty I probably could've used The Witcher 3 as an example here too, but I dunno if any game mechanics/features were cut from the Switch version. If so, it still kind of proves a point, granted Witcher 3 was probably not natively designed with a Switch port in mind during the original development cycle.
My question was as simple as it was written, but I can understand if I seem naive asking it. I had hoped X would utilize its power in different ways, perhaps even with games that don't target 4k because of how demanding the games were just at lower resolutions like 1080p. But it seems clear that won't be the case, and that X will instead just be better resolution and FPS of what runs on the S. As my family has all 1080P TV's, I honestly wonder if its just a big waste of money for us to get the X. And that dampens my enthusiasm for next gen.
If that's really how you feel, I'd say wait until the July event before making a decision, at the very least. I don't think your concerns are warranted, but ultimately you're in power to do with your money as you see fit and no one can change that except through convincing.
And in this case, MS has to convince you that your concerns should be alleviated with their games in action at the July showcase. Hopefully they can accomplish this because it's apparent you aren't the only person on the fence due to Series S factoring into the equation. I and others may not have the concerns regarding it holding back Series X as you might, but it doesn't mean your concerns aren't coming from a place of honesty.
Which I suppose is at least refreshing because it's not concern-trolling xD.
Mate. You know I have agreed with many of your opinions, and although I'm very interested in the business model of Lockhart, I believe there are a few complaints already been made by developers about how they don't want to develop for Lockhart.
Suppose that's fair. I won't pretend there aren't developers with their own reservations on Lockhart; at the same time, we haven't actually had a single developer outright come forth and provide criticism about Lockhart, either.
In fact, most of the dev concerns from what I can see, are just really loose "devs are saying" quotes from a few insiders, some who may or may not have a dubious reputation and/or dubious track record. Maybe a few of those rumors have come from a few MS-centric spots too, I don't remember, but the main point is no developer has actually come out and mentioned anything negative regarding Lockhart.
I know there are NDA reasons preventing that if it were the case, but I figure if it was as much of a complication as some feel to think there'd be at least one dev basically saying "IDGAF" and leaking out issues with Series S/Lockhart that are actually believable and maybe backed up with data that can be correlated with what we already know about the Series X.
I don't know what you mean by completely false. Maybe I am only speaking for myself alone, but I am indeed concerned about Lockhart holding back graphical innovation in the same way consoles hold it back on PC, regardless of how easy it is to scale. Part of why high resolutions and framerates are so common in PC gaming is because developers really aren't pushing the boundaries of what our video cards can handle anymore.
I'm not saying Microsoft can't go this route, or that they won't do it for 1st party versus 3rd party - I'm just saying it would be a disaster.
That's not the only reason resolution and framerate dominate on PC; there's also the lack of sufficient install base. High-end GPU cards among PC gamers, you're talking about maybe a few dozen-thousand, maybe 50,000 LTD for the most popular high-end cards and that's considering a lot of them being sold on sale and well after they're replaced with yet more high-end cards. That's part of the reason the MSRPs are so high, they need big profit margins on those. And also consider a lot of non-gaming folks are buying those cards too for things like graphics rendering, animation workstations, etc.
Series X would be different because you're easily looking at a few dozen million of those systems out there in terms of install base, which in turn incentivizes developers to target it. I actually picture the split between Series X and Series S to be roughly 1:1, maybe 1.25:1 in Series S's favor. I don't suddenly expect a 2:1 or 3:1 ratio for Series S over Series X simply because MS as a cheaper option available, unless the Series S is just
that much of a hit with the casual gamers and MS literally gimps Series X's potential on purpose with artificially high prices and nonsensical refusals to reduce the price over the generation (or purposefully gimp unit production on Series X to try artificially move purchases over to the Series S).
Which would probably be legally difficult for them to do for a lot of reasons I guess, so fat chance of that happening.
Until then, I treat most of the "dev" concerns as gossip because there's virtually no way to substantiate any of it.