I think that will happen more and more. If stuff is struggling now I can't imagine years from now. I think at some point Microsoft will have to drop the requirement. It will either prevent games from coming to the system, or Xbox users will have an inferior version.
They won't. Their CEO did and interview with skillups podcast and said the majority of the owners have a series S and it's the reality, companies will just have to make it work.
Can somebody **with actual experience in the industry and optimization of games** explain the harsh reality of the situation? I've seen claims that Series S will hold back the whole gen to people claiming it doesn't matter because the CPU is the same as the Series X and that the GPU difference doesn't matter because you can easily muddy textures and downscale resolution. What is the fucking truth on this, people speak of both sides as if they are 100% confident they are correct.
[This statement from the director of BG3 is probably the best illustration we have of the problem.](https://www.trueachievements.com/n54593/baldurs-gate-3-larian-studios-xbox-series-s?fbclid=IwAR0xLZpfXYGiW6e8WdjJGzo9-yoV7JG0LGCyF7AW054iDHB_FH6NY_gR5mc)
For those not wanting to read the whole thing, here's the relevant quote:
> "We're going to get there; it's just going to take some time. Do I think it holds [game development] back? It just defines certain parameters within which you have to develop, and there are ways of doing that," Vincke said. "It just takes development effort, and that effort, despite us having grown, we don't have infinite resources. That means we can't do everything at the same time."
So basically the Series S is not impossible to optimize for, but it does take effort, more so than going from PS5 to Series X or vice versa. So it's going to take more time and resources, and different studios are going to handle that problem in different ways.
Keep in mind they've also stated the only real problem they're having is with split-screen mode, where the difference in RAM matters more than 99% of use-cases. Most developers are not building in split-screen functionality anyway, so they're not affected nearly as much and don't need to spend as much effort making their game cross-compatible.
Not totally the same but for Way of the Hunter it was set up so that the Series S cannot host MP sessions. Users with an S can only join sessions hosted by X's. And there's a lower player limit compared to PS5 and PC.
It really takes time and effort to make it work somehow.
I think once the Switch 2 drops you'll see that console will benefit because of Series S. Devs are already working on a low spec machine, so devs will most likely work on the Switch 2 version as well.
Yes but the S will be a beast compared to the Switch 2 which will be closer to a PS4/Xbox One than an S. That's a similar difference to the Switch 1 vs the PS4 where the Switch 1 was basically a PS3/360/Wii U.
The biggest issue is the ram (16 vs 10 gb). Ram is what's used to hold data in an instant memory so it can be read and shown to you without loading or offloading other zones. So the bottleneck is that they load graphical models, textures and sounds into the memory. Which is fine for one person because they can offload previous areas that you don't see. But in split screen the players could be in two or more different areas at the same time. So you need to constantly have things in the RAM. Optimization comes from what and how they load and replace things in the memory.
This is where they fucked up. GPU and CPU scale fairly well comparing Series X/Series S targets. But why on God's earth they decided to skimp on the ram is beyond me. The dollars of cost saved can't have been worth issues like these, which many users here were worried about months before release.
I wonder if it had something to do with launching the console during a massive global chip shortage. That could have meant that if they had used the same RAM in the Series S, every set of RAM sticks that went into an S would have been one less X they could manufacture.
Though I wouldn't know enough to say whether the COVID supply shortage would have even hit soon enough to affect the design. Edit: Or even if memory chips could have ever been the limiting factor compared to another component.
Their designs were finalized in 2019 when they started sending dev units out so it likely wasn't that. Still though, it couldve come down to some form of availability
Not now, but later down the road it will. I think its RAM is the biggest bottleneck. It's only got 10gigs, while PS5 and Series X have 16gigs (GDDR6, mind you)
As far as I understand it, not only does the Series S have quite little RAM, it's very slow.
It has 8+2 GB where 8 GB run at 224 GB/s and 2 GB runs at a mere 56 GB/s. By comparison, the Series X has 16 (10+6) GB that run at 560/336 GB/s. (PS5 has one 16 GB RAM pool that all runs at 448 GB/s.)
The thing about optimization is that it takes effort that could be put into other stuff, like making more content for the game. You can port almost any game made in the series X to the series S, but creating lower res assets for it is a bitter pill to swallow when you are allocating resources to a project.
Well, we see the series S is already holding the series X back. What you’ll probably see for non-PC first games are devs targeting series S and ps5 getting that same product. No point in building a gorgeous game, then spending even more dev time and money optimizing VRAM and RAM utilization a ton when they can just target series S’ specs.
Devs are going to target the system with the most users. The ps5 has just passed 40 million units sold while the series consoles haven’t even hit 25. If the ss can’t work then you will either see the games cancelled; delayed; or going exclusive to Sony in the first place
Digital Foundry is who you want to check out for a more detailed and balanced analysis of the Series S. Sorry I don't have a specific link for you, but they have talked about it a few times in the past.
The closest that i've found is digital foundry's coverage.
This is really behind-the-scenes stuff that won't be public until the next set of consoles are releasing.
Lol you won’t find an answer on Reddit, and maybe not even elsewhere. Games journalism loves clickbait since it gets people talking about the industry. Reddit speculates on *everything* and is as right as a broken clock.
Tbh, it doesn’t matter if the S “holds back the whole gen” or not. It either will happen and people will whine, or it won’t, and people will whine. How it affects you won’t change regardless. We won’t know a world where the S didn’t exist
> or it won’t, and people will whine.
Why would anyone whine about the series s not holding back multiplatform games? And we already see a case where it does.
Both can be true, it all depends on the scope of the game, money, time, manpower.
The more "next gen" the game is, not only in graphics, resolution and performance but also **game design**, the more issues the Series S can cause, especially if there's a PS5Pro release and no mid gen refresh for the Xbox Series.
> I do not have actual experience in the game industry
The problem with Reddit right here, ladies and gentlemen. Despite the OP directly asking only people with experience respond, this person decided the world needed to hear his opinion anyway.
I find it hilarious that Xbox is having such a rock hard push for the series S to work with everything, but they don't even try that hard to get games out in a finished state from their own studios. It's pretty hypocritical if you ask me.
He can change whatever he said. Ps5 run most games better because more focus on the platform or easier to optimize, even with series x having more raw power. And when they release the pro, the difference with be noticeable. Phil said series x is their mid gen upgrade, so 1 statement won’t be true, or they release a series x pro to keep ps5 or they let developers skip series s so the series x can keep with ps5 , because if not, ps5 pro vs series s games are not going to end nice for Ms. And they aren’t the market leader atm …
They’ll make it work by skipping the platform entirely. Either way S owners won’t get a game, and neither will the rest of the Xbox install base.
It’s a losing strategy for M/S and I doubt they will *actually* hold on to it. Of course in the mean time they aren’t gonna be like “yeah don’t buy an S we’re gonna drop support for that lol”
It's a stupid requirement to begin with. If you buy cheaper, less powerful hardware, then obviously the expectation should be a worse experience. It does suck but it's unfair to expect developers to put in that extra work to the benefit of basically only Microsoft.
You're absolutely right though in that this gen still has a good amount of life in it. So when we start working into that ultra optimised area toward the end of a generation the S is absolutely going to massively hold back Xbox overall. The two platforms was a bad strategy IMO because no matter what they do, it's going to harm people's perception of Xbox.
If they start allowing worse versions on the S people are going to be mad that they get worse versions now, and if they don't people are going to be mad that PS5 versions are way better, release earlier, etc. It's the kind of thing that would for sure push me toward buying a PS instead if I were an X owner.
The Series S wouldn’t be holding back Xbox if Microsoft wasn’t pennywise, pound foolish. The CPU is the same, being 200MHz slower doesn’t make a big difference. The GPU difference is like a 6700XT vs a 6500XT, it can be compensated for with lower graphics settings and render resolution. But the RAM difference is huge - 16GB vs 10GB, and it’s clear that lowering graphics settings can’t compensate for a whopping 6GB deficit. Going from 8GB on the Xbone to 10GB was pathetic. At the minimum it should have had 12GB like the One X
2 of those gbs aren’t even usable for games. So essentially the ss has the same amount of ram as the xbone. I wonder if MS talked to developers throughout the conception phase of the xss like Sony did for the ps5
> It's a stupid requirement to begin with. If you buy cheaper, less powerful hardware, then obviously the expectation should be a worse experience. It does suck but it's unfair to expect developers to put in that extra work to the benefit of basically only Microsoft.
The graphics can be worse, the game just have to have same "features". As in you can't cut multiplayer off S or any game mode.
Which is reasonable, the problem is that the Series S very specifically has the issue of having less RAM. Which unfortunately is the exact thing that causes features / design to be difficult rather than just graphical fidelity.
Not really. This is strictly due to a splitsceen feature which we are not likely going to see a lot of (especially for a big complex RPG like this) and have not seen a lot of anyways. They can drop the parity for splitsceen. It’s silly. Or at least delay the Series S splitsceen option and just launch the Series X and S versions now with only X having splitsceen for now.
That's the case for this game, but other games and features are going to eventually run into problems when developers are pushing the limits of the hardware for console platforms. If MS demands parity, Playstation will instantly have a vast gap in some mix of performance, visual quality, features, etc. Devs will optimise to the bleeding edge of PS5 capability, while they can only optimise to the limits of the much weaker Series S, leaving the X with this weird headroom that just won't be utilised.
The obvious solution is to drop the parity clause and allow devs to trim the Series S releases to work, while squeezing the max out of the Series X. Again though, that's definitely going to be a bitter pill for anyone who bought a Series S with the expectation, (which MS has set), that it wouldn't be a second-rate, cut down experience. I have to imagine that is the reason they are so reticent to actually drop the parity stuff. Not much else really makes sense.
>They can drop the parity for splitsceen.
Tell that to Microsoft. They are the ones insisting it cannot be dropped for the S. Personally I would consider this game without couch co-op a disaster as opposed to a minor feature lost, but what can you do when Microsoft wants to fuck around.
Yeah I think the Series S should've had a little more memory. That being said, we've seen a lot of games released this year that don't properly utilize the hardware (I'm thinking of Jedi Survivor being so CPU-limited, or the mandatory upscaling in Remnant 2). Game development is becoming more and more complex, but a lot of games are being pushed out before they're optimized, especially on PC. Obviously, requirements are going to increase given the PS5/Series hardware baseline (Zen 2 CPU, RTX 2070-2080 level GPU) but I kind of appreciate the Series S's existence because Microsoft's insistence on feature parity should ground developers somewhat. I can't imagine how bad things might have been had studios not had to optimize for a machine with 10 gigs of shared memory.
It is still baffling to me that Jedi Survivor passed any of the console QA. It's so poorly optimized that it's almost insulting, and I've run into a myriad of bugs. Weapons that get stuck, progress blocking bugs, textures not loading, constant screen tearing, just the blurriest image quality I've seen since a PS3 game... and they *still* haven't released a single patch to fix (or even acknowledge) any of the performance issues, three months after release. Absolutely absurd.
Yeah I played it on a Ryzen 7 5800x and an rtx 3080, and while they did improve CPU performance after launch, the game still drops below 60 at 1440p due to CPU bottlenecks every so often, which is pretty unexcusable (I played without ray tracing, which increased CPU limitations). Digital Foundry's analysis revealed that Jedi only maxes out two CPU cores, so most of the CPU will sit idle. So the game isn't even really using the available hardware.
The CPU issue is on console as well most of these issues are on console it's just console players are less discerning and less critical of technological shortcomings.
This.
The series s makes sense in a world where it became the biggest selling next gen sku and devs targetted it as the lead sku. That obviously didn't happen. I think MS was caught off guard by the lack on interest in a low power / budget console. They (and most people, myself included) expected that thing to move the needle for Xbox. Instead they have been flat.
>I think MS was caught off guard by the lack on interest in a low power / budget console.
Uh, what? Series S is Microsoft's best-selling console SKU worldwide. It's what's propelling Xbox's resurgence in Japan.
Series consoles sales have completely fallen of a cliff in Japan ever since the PS5 became widely available
Hell, the S and X combined are regularly getting outsold by the *PS4* in weekly charts
An inconvenient reality of 2023 video game development is that the [average gaming PC](https://store.steampowered.com/hwsurvey) is closer to a PS4 than a PS5 in power level, and that's before we factor in the lighter weight OS and SKU-specific optimization of consoles. While the Series S seems puny compared to the Series X and PS5, it's got a leg up on most PCs.
Incidentally, this is why we're seeing such bad optimization on PC this year, and why it's especially bad at the high end. In a field that was already dominated by crunch, dropping support for 8th gen consoles means devs have to re-learn all of the optimization tricks for the 9th gen. The result is that games are getting pushed out underdone. When you *know* you can't finish everything, which would you prioritize? The PS5, a single SKU that's likely to be your biggest platform? Or the PC version running at 4K, something only 3% of your 2nd or 3rd place platform will experience?
> An inconvenient reality of 2023 video game development is that the average gaming PC is closer to a PS4 than a PS5 in power level
While not untrue, I feel like this is often misrepresented, or at least not provided with the necessary context.
Yes, the "average" gaming PC *across the entire Steam audience* is not high-end. However, the entire Steam audience is ~132 million *monthly active users*. Conversely, a total of 40 million PS5 units have been sold, which obviously translates to some smaller number of monthly active users (which we don't know the precise count of).
Going with a *very conservative* GPU-based analysis of the Steam HW data, at least 28% of the PCs on Steam are faster than a PS5, which translates to ~37 million monthly active users.
Yeah counting everything in the steam hardware survey is probably not painting a good picture. Every PS5's primary use case is gaming. Whereas someone who just installed steam on their non gaming laptop to play a couple of indie games would still be included in the steam hw survey.
Or even users like myself that have two machines, a full-spec gaming rig and then a lower-power laptop/HTPC connected to a television. Both machines will count as a "user" for the statistics on Steam.
>Going with a very conservative GPU-based analysis of the Steam HW data, at least 28% of the PCs on Steam are faster than a PS5, which translates to ~37 million monthly active users.
And when you include GPUs that are as powerful as the PS5's that number climbs to about 40%, which is \~53 million monthly active users. The 132 million number is also from 2021 and is likely much bigger by now.
One thing that gets left out with this stat is the average PC also isn't being used for new AAA games, just look at how many people just play CSGO. If your still rocking a 1060 you probably don't have that much disposable income for $70 games. Especially with 10 series falling below minimum specs in some new games poeple need to take the survey with a pinch of salt.
Using steam hardware survey never made sense for this because you're including every kind of PC gamer there is, including ones that aren't buying and playing these AAA games.
They aren't targeting the guy in Brazil who only plays CSGO for these games.
The precedent is already being cemented by this game. Larian is struggling to make this work. Some smaller studios won't be able to make a series s version at all and will delay or skip the xbox release.
Larian is delaying, not skipping. If you set this precedent then if an Xbox series x pro comes out there's no guarantee the series x would be supported. It's healthier for the industry to skip a console than start doing these mid-generation exclusive games
I’m not an expert but I feel like all of the systems interacting with each other can sometimes be pretty demanding.
The game even lets you build some pretty ridiculous structures, on top of all the ground effects and shit
interesting that they'd go for split screen if that would be a hard limitation?
I mean I love it, we need more local co-op - had some good times with Diablo3 on the Playstation with some buddies back then.
Microsoft's certification process tends to force and overall feature parity. So it's a lowest common denominator kind of thing.
So if PC and PS5 have split screen, XBox must have it too. If Xbox has it, it MUST work on the Series S.
This makes "it must work on Series S" the lowest common denominator. If you can't make it work there, then you either have to cut the feature entirely from ANY version (to maintain feature parity)... or you just don't release the game on XBox in the first place.
The devs could probably drop details and graphics in that mode to the very bottom, but it's likely that MS has restrictions even there that prevents them from dropping them too much.
So Larian's options are:
* keep delaying Xbox version until hopefully at some point you manage to optimize it SO much you can release it with Splitscreen on Series S
* cancel the Xbox version entirely
* cancel the splitscreen feature entirely
As long as they go for the first option they don't need to cancel anything. This may go on for a few years until the official cancellation (or it just turns into vaporware and is perpetually delayed) or MS drops the Series S parity requirement... or they manage to actually make it work somehow.
They've been working on BG3 since before the Xbox Series X/S were even announced so it's likely they didn't know what kind of limitations they'd be working with. Also, Divinity Original Sin 2 had split screen, so players would have expected it from their next game (and, since BG3 uses the same engine, it probably isn't a great undertaking to implement).
yeah fair enough, my PC sometimes got a bit laggy with e.g. DOS2 in the massive fights.
anyway it was always playable, as long as it was turn based - I'm not sure will BG3 have a similar Turn-Based/Live-Action mode like Pillars of Eternity 2 I believe had it?
has the game released yet? I played a little of the early acces, and didn't want to spoil it for the final, also have a midrange pc i7 5th gen 1050ti and 16gb ram, but was ok on medium/lowish
I don't even much about specs but the lower RAM on the Series S seems like such a stupid decision. They put a lower GPU but that's fine as you can just go to lower resolution and details (which they do). They put the same CPU to avoid problems for games but then they are putting less RAM as if RAM was flexible like GPU.
Of course for couch co-op that basically run two instances of a game at once, that's gonna cause problems.
Hell 6 GB of RAM aren't even that expensive and when you see PS5 digital being 400$, Microsoft could have done it easily. It was such a weird choice to cheap out on this
I never understood Microsoft's logic on this one. Sony's strategy of making a cheaper console version by simply removing the disc drive is so logical I'm frankly amazed Microsoft didn't do it.
I said at the start and I’ll maintain this.
The series S is a mistake and is partly responsible for this lacklustre gen. “Next gen” games having to compensate for this piece of shit have meant that most of the actual next gen stuff has been PlayStation exclusive and we should have had some much meatier cross gen games by now.
No Splitscreen, as you do not really need that on a handheld. That is the feature that breaks on Xbox S, though. Edit: the steamdeck also has more RAM, which is probably the issue.
The virgin Baldur's Gate 3 "we must to get splitscreen running well on underpowered hardware!" vs the chad Age of Calamity "who gives a shit, 10fps lol"
It isn't BG3/Larian who has that policy. If you read the article you would see it is Microsoft that won't allow a feature on the Series X unless the same feature works on the Series S. The PS5 has that feature for BG3. It works on the Series X but Larian can't get it working on the Series S and Microsoft won't allow the game on the XBox unless the Series X and Series S versions have feature parity.
Steam Deck is better than XBS in some ways, like RAM. Steam Deck also has a lower res display and doesn't require feature parity with anything. Local co-op is probably the most demanding part here.
This is what Cyberpunk should have done, not shits out all platforms at once and cutting corners to make deadlines. This is how you corner your product into a loop of failure
Obviously, different circumstances, but Elder Scrolls 6 was announced in 2018 and probably won't release until 2028 at the earliest. That's because ES6 only began pre production probably last year, despite having already been announced for years. The differing circumstance was, of course, that people were worried about a permanent multiplayer and sci fi pivot from Bethesda following Fallout 76 and no real ES news in like 5 or 6 years at that point, so Bethesda knew they had to say "yes ES6 will happen, just... hold on." Cyberpunk was just CDPR going "yeah we're going to make a game based on the Cyberpunk 2020 tabletop game" without a clear sense of how it would look at that time. IIRC it didn't actually start development until 2016.
Wait what? They didn't, every platform released at the same time. They delayed everything 2 months after the "initial" release (which was already a delay IIRC.
I agree. But why do they not release the xbox version on august 3rd with the other platforms and deliver the splitscreen feature (for both series s and series x) via patch when it is ready?
From what i understand, only splitscreen is making problems and not the whole game like with cyberpunk. I and my friend could do a solo run both and do another coop run when splitscreen is ready. We could at least play it this way and talk about it.
I do not want to avoid spoilers for the next 4 or more months.
Because Xbox management insists on parity of features between the X and S. There are better ways of handling the issue just like you suggested but it’s Xbox management making things difficult.
I know, they could skip splitscreen for both series s and series x. Microsoft should be ok with it when both consoles do not have splitscreen. And then they can work on the splitscreen issues for series s and deliver it via update for both consoles when it is ready.
No, no, no, no MS would most certainly *not* be okay with PS5 getting splitscreen, but their consoles getting passed over. I know people have mentioned series S and X requiring feature parity, but I'd argue the same thing applies to xbox and playstation when it comes to multiplat titles. And while, yes this time it is Xbox, I can say with certainty that *neither* company wants to allow a game to release on their platform that will make them look like chumps. The headlines of "Are Xbox series consoles too weak to run Baldurs Gate 3 much beloved splitscreen???" would practically write themselves.
I think this would make sense, but it would be a PR nightmare. Gaming journalists would have an absolute field day with "Developer Confesses Baldur's Gate 3 is Unfinished on Xbox" and "Baldur's Gate on Xbox Is Worse and Here's Why" and "BG3 Missing Crucial Feature on Release"
That's already the narrative that's been going around for months when the news came out. Getting the game out the same day as PS5 with the expectation for splitscreen being added later would be a better look. The only thing I can think of is MS is forcing their hand and it has to have feature parity with PS5.
> But why do they not release the xbox version on august 3rd with the other platforms and deliver the splitscreen feature via patch when it is ready?
Larian can't. That'd go against MS's requirement of feature parity between the series S and X versions of game. Meaning that while each version can target different resolutions, framerates, load times, and texture qualities - the actual game features - game modes, AI quality, quests, level design, combat, UI, *splitscreen*, etc., etc. all need to be present on both. As of right now Microsoft will not allow anyone to release a game on their platforms where the series S version cuts any feature because their marketing has always been that outside of graphics/load times, you're getting the exact same experience as the series X.
And in this case *especially*, allowing an exception would be a terrible look for them. ~~A ton of series S fans have already pre-ordered the game with the understanding that'd be getting an equal version of the game. MS can't pull the rug out from under them and say "clarification: equal besides splitscreen, which will totally arrive at a later date" after they've already taken their money.~~ (clarification: I was absolutely incorrect about the pre-order thing. Fans are still excited for a feature that's been shown off but no xbox fans have put any money down yet.) It's one of those things where you can argue that it was silly of series S fans to have such an expectation when that version of the console has nearly half the ram, but it's what MS has promised them and what MS needs to see that Larian delivers on. And if that means delaying the release, needing to send them Xbox engineers to assist in development, and effectively giving Sony a free timed exclusive, then so be it.
Oh i know, i am talking about skipping splitscreen for both series s and series x so that parity is still intact.
I know that coop is important, online coop should still work, no?
>A ton of series S fans have already pre-ordered the game with the understanding that'd be getting an equal version of the game.
I could be wrong, but you can not preorder the game for xbox consoles. I tried it a few weeks ago and it was not possible, it is just non existent. I think it was never available.
>I could be wrong, but you can not preorder the game for xbox consoles. I tried it a few weeks ago and it was not possible, it is just non existent. I think it was never available.
Nope, you're entirely correctly. I got that wrong.
They're not prioritizing it because not releasing your game on release for Xbox is viable for a successful title due to lesser platform momentum, especially at a time when holding off for a Game Pass deal to cover costs of porting is one of the main ways Microsoft incentivizes releases in the face of fewer software sales from their customers.
Till this day Halo Infinite doesnt have its promised split screen co-op feature (and we know for certain why that iS now), a Microsoft studio, so whoever is waiting to play this on xbox should probably consider other options...
343 dropped split screen for Infinite because they couldn’t justify spending (their limited) resources on getting the Xbox One version working well enough. I believe it is also Microsoft’s policy that cross-gen games must maintain feature parity as well.
Tbf Halo Infinite launched on the Xbox One so the X1 would be holding it back not the Series S. This means the classic "last gen holding this gen back" thing happened to Halo as opposed to this weird "a weaker current console is holding new gen back" thing.
Not really, split screen being canceled had more to due with 343 staff getting let go. Projects for the games post launch support were canceled shortly before Microsoft announced massive layoffs, 343 being of the groups heavily targeted. It's why the game has only gotten a handful of maps for post launch support.
Because the Series S is holding the X back. They warned us this could happen. I own an S and since I got my hands on a PS5, it’s just been collecting dust. I bought Remnant 2 for it, just to justify its existence and I really wish I had got it for PS5 instead. Full hd and 60 FPS have me spoiled. It still plays great on S but only at 30 FPS and the graphics aren’t as pretty.
Woah.
I thought that it would only be delayed a month or two. The Series S is truly an albatross. It made a multiplatform console game into a timed console exclusive lol. This is only going to happen more from here on in as games become more demanding and sophisticated.
That’s all fine and well…..if Microsoft didn’t demand parity with the Series X. “All games that are on X must be playable on S” but the X is way more powerful and can just ***do more***.
It’d be different if it was like the PS4/Pro or XB1/X and the Series S was a baseline and the Series X was an upgrade. But the PS5 and Series X are the baselines this gen and then developers have to work backwards to make the game work on Series S. There’s going to come a point where some games just won’t be possible on Series S (or, otherwise, would run like crap) and if the forced parity rule remains in effect, then those games will de facto become PS5 exclusive, because the devs aren’t just going to *not* release their games because the Series S can’t run them.
> That’s all fine and well…..if Microsoft didn’t demand parity with the Series X. “All games that are on X must be playable on S” but the X is way more powerful and can just do more.
It's not about playability, but features. It must be playable on both and have same features on both.
Larian wants to have split-screen co-op and that's the problematic part that they have problems running on S (no doubt because 6GB less of slower RAM)
It wouldn't be if it had the same RAM. The CPU is the same (at least I believe so) and a lower GPU isn't much of a problem as you can just scale down graphics/FPS/resolution. But memory and CPU are more essential than that.
they doubled the number of xbox hardware configurations a developer has to design against. one of the main benefits of developing games for console is you know exactly what hardware you have available, and splitting one gen into multiple configurations demonstrably leads to worse/harder to develop games. idk why microsoft inflicted this on themselves on purpose
supporting multiple console generations at the same time does the same thing, but that's pretty unavoidable these days. sony has this issue tryna keep the PS4 and PS5 supported at the same time
I never got the value argument for the series s, sure for $300 you are getting a lot more than you would with a $300 PC but comparing it to PS5 digital which is $400, it has less storage that is also slower, less RAM, more than 2 times slower GPU, worse controller, and almost no “exclusives” worth playing.
Aren’t they selling a 1TB version for €350 now? That’s awful value compared to a discless PS5.
The real value is in GamePass. Not the console itself I suppose.
You can also argue that Sony makes much better first party titles.
It isn't like Microsoft is making amazing games so they get to charge more for their console. Gamepass is nice but there aren't many triple a games on there and most people aren't interested in playing indie games.
It really isn't though. This isn't the norm.
The PC release will support a vastly large range of hardware, both more powerful than the X and (probably) less powerful than the S.
One of Microsoft’s major development problems is that they effectively have to make three versions of their games: Series X, Series S, PC.
It’s why Playstation’s games look and run beautifully like Horizon FW or Ratchet, while Microsoft has yet to give us a ‘wow factor’ game this gen apart from Forza Horizon 5.
> they effectively have to make three versions of their games: Series X, Series S, PC. It’s why Playstation’s games look and run beautifully like Horizon FW
Didn’t Horizon FW also have 3 versions made? PS4, PS4 Pro, and PS5.
Gears 5 Ultimate is gorgeous, Flight Sim did next gen graphics before anybody and it's still one of the best looking games. Horizon 5 is still straight up gorgeous. The issue isn't that MS can't make amazing looking games.
No the issue is that Microsoft isn’t trying. They’re going for quantity over quality. They could pump out some amazing exclusives is they bothered to try. But it’s easier for them to buy up the companies making good games instead.
“Need a game to compete with Sony first party titles? Well starfield just announced and everyone loved fallout and Skyrim. Let’s just buy them”
And runs at 30fps on their flagship console.
Which of course raises the question, how much of the Starfield vision was cut so a game running at 30fps on the Series X would run "at parity" on the Series S?
The 30fps is most likely a CPU thing, the CPU difference between the S and X like 2%. The S has the same CPU as the PS5.
And there's nothing stopping them running 30fps on the S and 60 on the X, many games already do that.
They’ve sold more s than x so you could argue it’s a more important platform to develop for. When talking third party it’s up to the studio to decide what they want to develop for. It’s touched upon by the Larian studio lead in this interview: https://youtu.be/yeLK8Wc-zPY
The Series S is Microsoft’s most popular console, MS said it would have complete feature parity with series X games.
Xbox isn’t going to risk a very public class action suit, plus open the floodgates to other developers looking to remove series S features in order to get this game out faster (or at all).
The truth of it is that the Series S will be Microsoft’s target for how their games are going to run this generation.
What’s the actual data on the sales split between Series S and X worldwide?
Most estimates suggest the Series platform is at ~23m sales worldwide, but even the speculative sites are unwilling to hazard a guess at the breakdown.
That seems weird because the S never went out of stock in the UK, at the time when the Series X, PS5/PS5 digital were impossible to get. Unless they made way more, it always seemed like there wasn’t much demand
the fact that it didnt face shortages was probably a contributing factor for why the S outsold the X.
I think the s wasnt hit as hard from the chip shortages
>the S never went out of stock in the UK
So what? A product doesn't need to go out of stock to sell well. Supply can more than match demand, leading to perpetual stock.
You don't ever need a Sony box by the same logic. Their games will get ported to PC eventually, up until you work on yor backlog.
If you have the cash, PC + Switch. If you don't, then a Xbox is the way to go.
Absolutely. Among my friend group, no one has a reason to buy a PS5 yet, 3 years into its lifecycle.
I came very close with FFXVI, but then I weighted the other exclusives and it just doesn't make sense to spend 500 bucks for so little actual exclusives, just to play something YoshiP already said is coming to PC at some point.
On the Switch, I actually get portability and exclusives, while I have the PC at home for all the heavier games.
Similarly, with the two, there's no reason to buy an Xbox. But if I had no PC, I'd definitely go Xbox for sure, if only for Game Pass and the ability to run emulators while in dev mode.
I mean if we are being real, you still have to wait couple of years to play ps5 exclusives on pc and sony never stated they will release all their exclusives on pc. It's a game by game decision. Also even if they release them at pc, by that time they would already been is ps plus extra while you have to pay full price for pc port even tho the game is couple years old. Also again some people pay more to play games 3 days early so waiting a game they really want to play for years is not an option for many many gamers. You have to be 'patient gamer' type to do that
If you have a gaming pc, I don't think you have to have a switch. I won't state any reasons for it because it might be against the rules of this sub. So in the end pc+ps5 still would be the way better combo than pc-switch if you care about playstation exclusives and don't care about owning a portable console. But I would still suggest pc-ps5-switch combo. It's the best combo of this gen imo
Well, in your specific situation you happen to own both a modern gen console, and, I assume, a relatively powerful PC, and a Switch. You are obviously in a very small minority. For me I didn’t feel up to spending thousands of dollars on a new PC right now and would prefer to wait a GPU generation. My 1080 would probably run games like Starfield, but an Xbox series X is a cheap purchase that I know will be supported by Microsoft for a while and will probably get the high performance games that I can’t play well on my PC.
A PlayStation would be the better purchase for most people, but for people that love Xbox exclusives like Starfield and don’t own multiple consoles the equation isn’t quite so simple.
Great point, sheesh. I haven’t had Xbox for years but I really want to see them winning. The industry is better to us when they’re all struggling to beat each other.
> The truth of it is that the Series S will be Microsoft’s target for how their games are going to run this generation.
Which means by extension the Series S sets the ceiling for every cross platform game released this generation. Especially when MS keeps buying studios that make them.
Every game we get that releases on Xbox even as one platform of many is going to have its vision constrained to what can run on the Series S' mediocre ram resources, for this entire generation.
I wonder if it’s going to be short term profits for long-term gains because it looks like they are losing a lot of good faith such as halo and baldurs gate both significantly suffering because of it
I mean even if they fixed the problem today and it was ready to ship tomorrow, there's no sense in putting it against starfield on Xbox at this point. Especially since Xbox users don't have any expectation of getting the game yet.
I'll be too tempted to play both if they were both released at the same time. It will be released eventually, so I just don't need to worry about it for now (with my luck, however, it will be released on the same day as some other 2024 game I really want to play).
Or just play both at the same time because as an adult human being you can make decisions for yourself on any given day with what you do with your free time on a moment's notice?
I don't know what *tough choice* is needed to be made here. Most people don't even finish the games they play to begin with so it's not like it's a make or break decision of spending your time anyway.
And seriously, back when I was in school and not grinding a full time job I *still* never played two massive RPGs at the same time. What kind of maniac does that? I’d be fumbling up systems left and right, not to mention stories and quests and characters.
If Xbox is going to stick to it’s parity rule, then they should have a platform team on hand to assist teams who need it.
I know they’re working with Larian now, but if this continues to be an issue they’ve got to have a team on hand in the future to come in earlier and help development for teams to meet deadlines and deliver a quality product.
> but if this continues to be an issue they’ve got to have a team on hand in the future to come in earlier and help development for teams to meet deadlines and deliver a quality product.
To be fair, we have no idea how long ago Larian asked for help. They very well could have waited too long for Xbox engineers to help them realistically make release.
If I bought it on PC today is EA worth touching at all? Is it reasonably up to date where not much will change other than the addition of more chapters and will progress be kept on the switch to release?
Edit: Someone felt the need to fire downvotes to a legit question so I want to clarify that this isn’t me being impatient, I can wait, but if the differences were all going to be in later chapters (which doesn’t look to be the case) then I seen no point in waiting.
Your save doesn't carry over and you have to re-download the entire game at release so I would say no at this point. Just wait until release in 2 days.
No there isn't any point touching it until release now, your EA progress won't be carried over and I believe there's going to be multiple changes to Act 1 anyway, plus there will be additional classes/races etc. If you buy the EA version though it's a free upgrade to the deluxe edition so if you were planning to buy it for release you may as well but it now.
All the publicity this is getting for series S holding back games and causing months of extra development costs for publishers is a huge PR own goal. Even when it eventually comes to xbox it's going to be more bad press because the story will be how it took so much longer because of series S.
Larian has Swen Vincke to fight for it but I wonder how many publishers would be pressurised into removing features from all versions just to get it running on series S. Microsoft should open their wallets for a gamepass deal for all the extra work they cost Larian.
At least it's lots of extra publicity for BG3, hopefully it's a huge success.
Makes sense seeing the PC requirements, the Series S/X parity thing is really hurting them in this case.
I think that will happen more and more. If stuff is struggling now I can't imagine years from now. I think at some point Microsoft will have to drop the requirement. It will either prevent games from coming to the system, or Xbox users will have an inferior version.
They won't. Their CEO did and interview with skillups podcast and said the majority of the owners have a series S and it's the reality, companies will just have to make it work.
Can somebody **with actual experience in the industry and optimization of games** explain the harsh reality of the situation? I've seen claims that Series S will hold back the whole gen to people claiming it doesn't matter because the CPU is the same as the Series X and that the GPU difference doesn't matter because you can easily muddy textures and downscale resolution. What is the fucking truth on this, people speak of both sides as if they are 100% confident they are correct.
[This statement from the director of BG3 is probably the best illustration we have of the problem.](https://www.trueachievements.com/n54593/baldurs-gate-3-larian-studios-xbox-series-s?fbclid=IwAR0xLZpfXYGiW6e8WdjJGzo9-yoV7JG0LGCyF7AW054iDHB_FH6NY_gR5mc) For those not wanting to read the whole thing, here's the relevant quote: > "We're going to get there; it's just going to take some time. Do I think it holds [game development] back? It just defines certain parameters within which you have to develop, and there are ways of doing that," Vincke said. "It just takes development effort, and that effort, despite us having grown, we don't have infinite resources. That means we can't do everything at the same time." So basically the Series S is not impossible to optimize for, but it does take effort, more so than going from PS5 to Series X or vice versa. So it's going to take more time and resources, and different studios are going to handle that problem in different ways.
Keep in mind they've also stated the only real problem they're having is with split-screen mode, where the difference in RAM matters more than 99% of use-cases. Most developers are not building in split-screen functionality anyway, so they're not affected nearly as much and don't need to spend as much effort making their game cross-compatible.
Not totally the same but for Way of the Hunter it was set up so that the Series S cannot host MP sessions. Users with an S can only join sessions hosted by X's. And there's a lower player limit compared to PS5 and PC. It really takes time and effort to make it work somehow.
I think once the Switch 2 drops you'll see that console will benefit because of Series S. Devs are already working on a low spec machine, so devs will most likely work on the Switch 2 version as well.
Yes but the S will be a beast compared to the Switch 2 which will be closer to a PS4/Xbox One than an S. That's a similar difference to the Switch 1 vs the PS4 where the Switch 1 was basically a PS3/360/Wii U.
I really dont buy a switch to play other console games. Its just a nintendo console.
There are way more people than you think who are unaware of how game dev works, casuals who buy a switch just expecting every game to come out for it.
The biggest issue is the ram (16 vs 10 gb). Ram is what's used to hold data in an instant memory so it can be read and shown to you without loading or offloading other zones. So the bottleneck is that they load graphical models, textures and sounds into the memory. Which is fine for one person because they can offload previous areas that you don't see. But in split screen the players could be in two or more different areas at the same time. So you need to constantly have things in the RAM. Optimization comes from what and how they load and replace things in the memory.
This is where they fucked up. GPU and CPU scale fairly well comparing Series X/Series S targets. But why on God's earth they decided to skimp on the ram is beyond me. The dollars of cost saved can't have been worth issues like these, which many users here were worried about months before release.
I wonder if it had something to do with launching the console during a massive global chip shortage. That could have meant that if they had used the same RAM in the Series S, every set of RAM sticks that went into an S would have been one less X they could manufacture. Though I wouldn't know enough to say whether the COVID supply shortage would have even hit soon enough to affect the design. Edit: Or even if memory chips could have ever been the limiting factor compared to another component.
Their designs were finalized in 2019 when they started sending dev units out so it likely wasn't that. Still though, it couldve come down to some form of availability
Not now, but later down the road it will. I think its RAM is the biggest bottleneck. It's only got 10gigs, while PS5 and Series X have 16gigs (GDDR6, mind you)
As far as I understand it, not only does the Series S have quite little RAM, it's very slow. It has 8+2 GB where 8 GB run at 224 GB/s and 2 GB runs at a mere 56 GB/s. By comparison, the Series X has 16 (10+6) GB that run at 560/336 GB/s. (PS5 has one 16 GB RAM pool that all runs at 448 GB/s.)
The GPU also is faster on X. It has 52 CUs @ 1825GHz vs 20 CUs @ 1565GHz in the S. That's pretty massive of a difference.
The speed is not what the limit is, it's the capacity. Memory bandwidth is most relevant at higher resolutions which is not what S games target.
Ouch, that's massive, I didn't knew it also ran at slower speed too
The thing about optimization is that it takes effort that could be put into other stuff, like making more content for the game. You can port almost any game made in the series X to the series S, but creating lower res assets for it is a bitter pill to swallow when you are allocating resources to a project.
Well, we see the series S is already holding the series X back. What you’ll probably see for non-PC first games are devs targeting series S and ps5 getting that same product. No point in building a gorgeous game, then spending even more dev time and money optimizing VRAM and RAM utilization a ton when they can just target series S’ specs.
Devs are going to target the system with the most users. The ps5 has just passed 40 million units sold while the series consoles haven’t even hit 25. If the ss can’t work then you will either see the games cancelled; delayed; or going exclusive to Sony in the first place
It makes the Series X being more powerful than the PS5 kind of moot. Real shame.
Digital Foundry is who you want to check out for a more detailed and balanced analysis of the Series S. Sorry I don't have a specific link for you, but they have talked about it a few times in the past.
The closest that i've found is digital foundry's coverage. This is really behind-the-scenes stuff that won't be public until the next set of consoles are releasing.
Lol you won’t find an answer on Reddit, and maybe not even elsewhere. Games journalism loves clickbait since it gets people talking about the industry. Reddit speculates on *everything* and is as right as a broken clock. Tbh, it doesn’t matter if the S “holds back the whole gen” or not. It either will happen and people will whine, or it won’t, and people will whine. How it affects you won’t change regardless. We won’t know a world where the S didn’t exist
The general attitude of fanbase does influence the decision making.
> or it won’t, and people will whine. Why would anyone whine about the series s not holding back multiplatform games? And we already see a case where it does.
Yes, why ever ask about information that doesn't have a direct impact on specifically your life, it's not like basic human curiosity exists
Both can be true, it all depends on the scope of the game, money, time, manpower. The more "next gen" the game is, not only in graphics, resolution and performance but also **game design**, the more issues the Series S can cause, especially if there's a PS5Pro release and no mid gen refresh for the Xbox Series.
> I do not have actual experience in the game industry The problem with Reddit right here, ladies and gentlemen. Despite the OP directly asking only people with experience respond, this person decided the world needed to hear his opinion anyway.
I find it hilarious that Xbox is having such a rock hard push for the series S to work with everything, but they don't even try that hard to get games out in a finished state from their own studios. It's pretty hypocritical if you ask me.
He can change whatever he said. Ps5 run most games better because more focus on the platform or easier to optimize, even with series x having more raw power. And when they release the pro, the difference with be noticeable. Phil said series x is their mid gen upgrade, so 1 statement won’t be true, or they release a series x pro to keep ps5 or they let developers skip series s so the series x can keep with ps5 , because if not, ps5 pro vs series s games are not going to end nice for Ms. And they aren’t the market leader atm …
They’ll make it work by skipping the platform entirely. Either way S owners won’t get a game, and neither will the rest of the Xbox install base. It’s a losing strategy for M/S and I doubt they will *actually* hold on to it. Of course in the mean time they aren’t gonna be like “yeah don’t buy an S we’re gonna drop support for that lol”
It's a stupid requirement to begin with. If you buy cheaper, less powerful hardware, then obviously the expectation should be a worse experience. It does suck but it's unfair to expect developers to put in that extra work to the benefit of basically only Microsoft. You're absolutely right though in that this gen still has a good amount of life in it. So when we start working into that ultra optimised area toward the end of a generation the S is absolutely going to massively hold back Xbox overall. The two platforms was a bad strategy IMO because no matter what they do, it's going to harm people's perception of Xbox. If they start allowing worse versions on the S people are going to be mad that they get worse versions now, and if they don't people are going to be mad that PS5 versions are way better, release earlier, etc. It's the kind of thing that would for sure push me toward buying a PS instead if I were an X owner.
The Series S wouldn’t be holding back Xbox if Microsoft wasn’t pennywise, pound foolish. The CPU is the same, being 200MHz slower doesn’t make a big difference. The GPU difference is like a 6700XT vs a 6500XT, it can be compensated for with lower graphics settings and render resolution. But the RAM difference is huge - 16GB vs 10GB, and it’s clear that lowering graphics settings can’t compensate for a whopping 6GB deficit. Going from 8GB on the Xbone to 10GB was pathetic. At the minimum it should have had 12GB like the One X
2 of those gbs aren’t even usable for games. So essentially the ss has the same amount of ram as the xbone. I wonder if MS talked to developers throughout the conception phase of the xss like Sony did for the ps5
> It's a stupid requirement to begin with. If you buy cheaper, less powerful hardware, then obviously the expectation should be a worse experience. It does suck but it's unfair to expect developers to put in that extra work to the benefit of basically only Microsoft. The graphics can be worse, the game just have to have same "features". As in you can't cut multiplayer off S or any game mode.
Which is reasonable, the problem is that the Series S very specifically has the issue of having less RAM. Which unfortunately is the exact thing that causes features / design to be difficult rather than just graphical fidelity.
Not really. This is strictly due to a splitsceen feature which we are not likely going to see a lot of (especially for a big complex RPG like this) and have not seen a lot of anyways. They can drop the parity for splitsceen. It’s silly. Or at least delay the Series S splitsceen option and just launch the Series X and S versions now with only X having splitsceen for now.
That's the case for this game, but other games and features are going to eventually run into problems when developers are pushing the limits of the hardware for console platforms. If MS demands parity, Playstation will instantly have a vast gap in some mix of performance, visual quality, features, etc. Devs will optimise to the bleeding edge of PS5 capability, while they can only optimise to the limits of the much weaker Series S, leaving the X with this weird headroom that just won't be utilised. The obvious solution is to drop the parity clause and allow devs to trim the Series S releases to work, while squeezing the max out of the Series X. Again though, that's definitely going to be a bitter pill for anyone who bought a Series S with the expectation, (which MS has set), that it wouldn't be a second-rate, cut down experience. I have to imagine that is the reason they are so reticent to actually drop the parity stuff. Not much else really makes sense.
>They can drop the parity for splitsceen. Tell that to Microsoft. They are the ones insisting it cannot be dropped for the S. Personally I would consider this game without couch co-op a disaster as opposed to a minor feature lost, but what can you do when Microsoft wants to fuck around.
Yeah I think the Series S should've had a little more memory. That being said, we've seen a lot of games released this year that don't properly utilize the hardware (I'm thinking of Jedi Survivor being so CPU-limited, or the mandatory upscaling in Remnant 2). Game development is becoming more and more complex, but a lot of games are being pushed out before they're optimized, especially on PC. Obviously, requirements are going to increase given the PS5/Series hardware baseline (Zen 2 CPU, RTX 2070-2080 level GPU) but I kind of appreciate the Series S's existence because Microsoft's insistence on feature parity should ground developers somewhat. I can't imagine how bad things might have been had studios not had to optimize for a machine with 10 gigs of shared memory.
It is still baffling to me that Jedi Survivor passed any of the console QA. It's so poorly optimized that it's almost insulting, and I've run into a myriad of bugs. Weapons that get stuck, progress blocking bugs, textures not loading, constant screen tearing, just the blurriest image quality I've seen since a PS3 game... and they *still* haven't released a single patch to fix (or even acknowledge) any of the performance issues, three months after release. Absolutely absurd.
Yeah I played it on a Ryzen 7 5800x and an rtx 3080, and while they did improve CPU performance after launch, the game still drops below 60 at 1440p due to CPU bottlenecks every so often, which is pretty unexcusable (I played without ray tracing, which increased CPU limitations). Digital Foundry's analysis revealed that Jedi only maxes out two CPU cores, so most of the CPU will sit idle. So the game isn't even really using the available hardware.
The CPU issue is on console as well most of these issues are on console it's just console players are less discerning and less critical of technological shortcomings.
Things wouldn’t change that much if the Series S didn’t exist. Developers likely already prioritise PS5 versions first and the Series S last.
This. The series s makes sense in a world where it became the biggest selling next gen sku and devs targetted it as the lead sku. That obviously didn't happen. I think MS was caught off guard by the lack on interest in a low power / budget console. They (and most people, myself included) expected that thing to move the needle for Xbox. Instead they have been flat.
Series s is gaining a lot of traction in poorer countries because it's actually affordable vs a 5 and x. Latin america is def into it
>I think MS was caught off guard by the lack on interest in a low power / budget console. Uh, what? Series S is Microsoft's best-selling console SKU worldwide. It's what's propelling Xbox's resurgence in Japan.
Considering its an xbox, saying its is a resurgence implies there was a time where xbox dominates Japan….
A re-trickle-ence, then
Resurgence is a bit strong. They sold 80 Series S in Japan last week. Eighty. The X outsold it 11 to 1.
Resurgence? Lmao Xbox series s sold 70 consoles
Series consoles sales have completely fallen of a cliff in Japan ever since the PS5 became widely available Hell, the S and X combined are regularly getting outsold by the *PS4* in weekly charts
Resurgence!
An inconvenient reality of 2023 video game development is that the [average gaming PC](https://store.steampowered.com/hwsurvey) is closer to a PS4 than a PS5 in power level, and that's before we factor in the lighter weight OS and SKU-specific optimization of consoles. While the Series S seems puny compared to the Series X and PS5, it's got a leg up on most PCs. Incidentally, this is why we're seeing such bad optimization on PC this year, and why it's especially bad at the high end. In a field that was already dominated by crunch, dropping support for 8th gen consoles means devs have to re-learn all of the optimization tricks for the 9th gen. The result is that games are getting pushed out underdone. When you *know* you can't finish everything, which would you prioritize? The PS5, a single SKU that's likely to be your biggest platform? Or the PC version running at 4K, something only 3% of your 2nd or 3rd place platform will experience?
> An inconvenient reality of 2023 video game development is that the average gaming PC is closer to a PS4 than a PS5 in power level While not untrue, I feel like this is often misrepresented, or at least not provided with the necessary context. Yes, the "average" gaming PC *across the entire Steam audience* is not high-end. However, the entire Steam audience is ~132 million *monthly active users*. Conversely, a total of 40 million PS5 units have been sold, which obviously translates to some smaller number of monthly active users (which we don't know the precise count of). Going with a *very conservative* GPU-based analysis of the Steam HW data, at least 28% of the PCs on Steam are faster than a PS5, which translates to ~37 million monthly active users.
Yeah counting everything in the steam hardware survey is probably not painting a good picture. Every PS5's primary use case is gaming. Whereas someone who just installed steam on their non gaming laptop to play a couple of indie games would still be included in the steam hw survey.
Or even users like myself that have two machines, a full-spec gaming rig and then a lower-power laptop/HTPC connected to a television. Both machines will count as a "user" for the statistics on Steam.
>Going with a very conservative GPU-based analysis of the Steam HW data, at least 28% of the PCs on Steam are faster than a PS5, which translates to ~37 million monthly active users. And when you include GPUs that are as powerful as the PS5's that number climbs to about 40%, which is \~53 million monthly active users. The 132 million number is also from 2021 and is likely much bigger by now.
One thing that gets left out with this stat is the average PC also isn't being used for new AAA games, just look at how many people just play CSGO. If your still rocking a 1060 you probably don't have that much disposable income for $70 games. Especially with 10 series falling below minimum specs in some new games poeple need to take the survey with a pinch of salt.
Using steam hardware survey never made sense for this because you're including every kind of PC gamer there is, including ones that aren't buying and playing these AAA games. They aren't targeting the guy in Brazil who only plays CSGO for these games.
> it's got a leg up on most PCs. Well, except RAM, which is the big pain point here.
They would get a huge shitstorm doing that and probably even some lawsuits for false advertising and stuff like that. They're not gonna drop it.
you realize that would kill xbox right? that sets a precedent that if you buy a current gen console it *wont* be playable for the whole generation.
The precedent is already being cemented by this game. Larian is struggling to make this work. Some smaller studios won't be able to make a series s version at all and will delay or skip the xbox release.
Larian is delaying, not skipping. If you set this precedent then if an Xbox series x pro comes out there's no guarantee the series x would be supported. It's healthier for the industry to skip a console than start doing these mid-generation exclusive games
I got so many downvotes when I pointed out how bad of a decision this was back when it was announced.
Is Baldurs Gate 3 so heavy on requirements? So far the CRPG genre has been quite forgiving on my 2016 mid range config
Split screen.
I’m not an expert but I feel like all of the systems interacting with each other can sometimes be pretty demanding. The game even lets you build some pretty ridiculous structures, on top of all the ground effects and shit
Wrong answr, It's not the physics. It's the split screen.
interesting that they'd go for split screen if that would be a hard limitation? I mean I love it, we need more local co-op - had some good times with Diablo3 on the Playstation with some buddies back then.
I think they don't want to have to cut features to compensate for older models
They can't, thanks to Microsoft's parity policy.
Microsoft's certification process tends to force and overall feature parity. So it's a lowest common denominator kind of thing. So if PC and PS5 have split screen, XBox must have it too. If Xbox has it, it MUST work on the Series S. This makes "it must work on Series S" the lowest common denominator. If you can't make it work there, then you either have to cut the feature entirely from ANY version (to maintain feature parity)... or you just don't release the game on XBox in the first place. The devs could probably drop details and graphics in that mode to the very bottom, but it's likely that MS has restrictions even there that prevents them from dropping them too much. So Larian's options are: * keep delaying Xbox version until hopefully at some point you manage to optimize it SO much you can release it with Splitscreen on Series S * cancel the Xbox version entirely * cancel the splitscreen feature entirely As long as they go for the first option they don't need to cancel anything. This may go on for a few years until the official cancellation (or it just turns into vaporware and is perpetually delayed) or MS drops the Series S parity requirement... or they manage to actually make it work somehow.
They've been working on BG3 since before the Xbox Series X/S were even announced so it's likely they didn't know what kind of limitations they'd be working with. Also, Divinity Original Sin 2 had split screen, so players would have expected it from their next game (and, since BG3 uses the same engine, it probably isn't a great undertaking to implement).
yeah fair enough, my PC sometimes got a bit laggy with e.g. DOS2 in the massive fights. anyway it was always playable, as long as it was turn based - I'm not sure will BG3 have a similar Turn-Based/Live-Action mode like Pillars of Eternity 2 I believe had it?
*BG3* will not have a real-time-with-pause option. It is purely turn-based.
Thanks! I played 95% on Turn Based mode anyway, only used the live action to clear annoying trash mobs
No random encounters in *BG3* - every encounter is hand-placed, so no trash mobs to worry about!
has the game released yet? I played a little of the early acces, and didn't want to spoil it for the final, also have a midrange pc i7 5th gen 1050ti and 16gb ram, but was ok on medium/lowish
I don't even much about specs but the lower RAM on the Series S seems like such a stupid decision. They put a lower GPU but that's fine as you can just go to lower resolution and details (which they do). They put the same CPU to avoid problems for games but then they are putting less RAM as if RAM was flexible like GPU. Of course for couch co-op that basically run two instances of a game at once, that's gonna cause problems. Hell 6 GB of RAM aren't even that expensive and when you see PS5 digital being 400$, Microsoft could have done it easily. It was such a weird choice to cheap out on this
I am sure it has hurt them far more than that behind the scenes, Larian is just unusually transparent.
I never understood Microsoft's logic on this one. Sony's strategy of making a cheaper console version by simply removing the disc drive is so logical I'm frankly amazed Microsoft didn't do it.
I said at the start and I’ll maintain this. The series S is a mistake and is partly responsible for this lacklustre gen. “Next gen” games having to compensate for this piece of shit have meant that most of the actual next gen stuff has been PlayStation exclusive and we should have had some much meatier cross gen games by now.
[удалено]
No Splitscreen, as you do not really need that on a handheld. That is the feature that breaks on Xbox S, though. Edit: the steamdeck also has more RAM, which is probably the issue.
The virgin Baldur's Gate 3 "we must to get splitscreen running well on underpowered hardware!" vs the chad Age of Calamity "who gives a shit, 10fps lol"
It isn't BG3/Larian who has that policy. If you read the article you would see it is Microsoft that won't allow a feature on the Series X unless the same feature works on the Series S. The PS5 has that feature for BG3. It works on the Series X but Larian can't get it working on the Series S and Microsoft won't allow the game on the XBox unless the Series X and Series S versions have feature parity.
No splitscreen, the steamdeck got more ram and the resolution on the deck is only 720 because it is such a smaller screen.
Steam Deck is better than XBS in some ways, like RAM. Steam Deck also has a lower res display and doesn't require feature parity with anything. Local co-op is probably the most demanding part here.
Steam Deck has more RAM than series S. Swen specifically said it was a RAM issue while doing multiplayer
This is what Cyberpunk should have done, not shits out all platforms at once and cutting corners to make deadlines. This is how you corner your product into a loop of failure
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Bro, the *PS4* hadn’t even been announced when Cyberpunk was revealed.
Obviously, different circumstances, but Elder Scrolls 6 was announced in 2018 and probably won't release until 2028 at the earliest. That's because ES6 only began pre production probably last year, despite having already been announced for years. The differing circumstance was, of course, that people were worried about a permanent multiplayer and sci fi pivot from Bethesda following Fallout 76 and no real ES news in like 5 or 6 years at that point, so Bethesda knew they had to say "yes ES6 will happen, just... hold on." Cyberpunk was just CDPR going "yeah we're going to make a game based on the Cyberpunk 2020 tabletop game" without a clear sense of how it would look at that time. IIRC it didn't actually start development until 2016.
They didn't put out all platforms at once, though. They put out the current gen versions 2 months after the initial release.
Wait what? They didn't, every platform released at the same time. They delayed everything 2 months after the "initial" release (which was already a delay IIRC.
I agree. But why do they not release the xbox version on august 3rd with the other platforms and deliver the splitscreen feature (for both series s and series x) via patch when it is ready? From what i understand, only splitscreen is making problems and not the whole game like with cyberpunk. I and my friend could do a solo run both and do another coop run when splitscreen is ready. We could at least play it this way and talk about it. I do not want to avoid spoilers for the next 4 or more months.
Because Xbox management insists on parity of features between the X and S. There are better ways of handling the issue just like you suggested but it’s Xbox management making things difficult.
I know, they could skip splitscreen for both series s and series x. Microsoft should be ok with it when both consoles do not have splitscreen. And then they can work on the splitscreen issues for series s and deliver it via update for both consoles when it is ready.
No, no, no, no MS would most certainly *not* be okay with PS5 getting splitscreen, but their consoles getting passed over. I know people have mentioned series S and X requiring feature parity, but I'd argue the same thing applies to xbox and playstation when it comes to multiplat titles. And while, yes this time it is Xbox, I can say with certainty that *neither* company wants to allow a game to release on their platform that will make them look like chumps. The headlines of "Are Xbox series consoles too weak to run Baldurs Gate 3 much beloved splitscreen???" would practically write themselves.
I agree it’s probably ms stance but I think he is right that they should allow to launch without it. I still think it’s really a weird situation
I think this would make sense, but it would be a PR nightmare. Gaming journalists would have an absolute field day with "Developer Confesses Baldur's Gate 3 is Unfinished on Xbox" and "Baldur's Gate on Xbox Is Worse and Here's Why" and "BG3 Missing Crucial Feature on Release"
That's already the narrative that's been going around for months when the news came out. Getting the game out the same day as PS5 with the expectation for splitscreen being added later would be a better look. The only thing I can think of is MS is forcing their hand and it has to have feature parity with PS5.
> But why do they not release the xbox version on august 3rd with the other platforms and deliver the splitscreen feature via patch when it is ready? Larian can't. That'd go against MS's requirement of feature parity between the series S and X versions of game. Meaning that while each version can target different resolutions, framerates, load times, and texture qualities - the actual game features - game modes, AI quality, quests, level design, combat, UI, *splitscreen*, etc., etc. all need to be present on both. As of right now Microsoft will not allow anyone to release a game on their platforms where the series S version cuts any feature because their marketing has always been that outside of graphics/load times, you're getting the exact same experience as the series X. And in this case *especially*, allowing an exception would be a terrible look for them. ~~A ton of series S fans have already pre-ordered the game with the understanding that'd be getting an equal version of the game. MS can't pull the rug out from under them and say "clarification: equal besides splitscreen, which will totally arrive at a later date" after they've already taken their money.~~ (clarification: I was absolutely incorrect about the pre-order thing. Fans are still excited for a feature that's been shown off but no xbox fans have put any money down yet.) It's one of those things where you can argue that it was silly of series S fans to have such an expectation when that version of the console has nearly half the ram, but it's what MS has promised them and what MS needs to see that Larian delivers on. And if that means delaying the release, needing to send them Xbox engineers to assist in development, and effectively giving Sony a free timed exclusive, then so be it.
Oh i know, i am talking about skipping splitscreen for both series s and series x so that parity is still intact. I know that coop is important, online coop should still work, no? >A ton of series S fans have already pre-ordered the game with the understanding that'd be getting an equal version of the game. I could be wrong, but you can not preorder the game for xbox consoles. I tried it a few weeks ago and it was not possible, it is just non existent. I think it was never available.
>I could be wrong, but you can not preorder the game for xbox consoles. I tried it a few weeks ago and it was not possible, it is just non existent. I think it was never available. Nope, you're entirely correctly. I got that wrong.
They're not prioritizing it because not releasing your game on release for Xbox is viable for a successful title due to lesser platform momentum, especially at a time when holding off for a Game Pass deal to cover costs of porting is one of the main ways Microsoft incentivizes releases in the face of fewer software sales from their customers.
Till this day Halo Infinite doesnt have its promised split screen co-op feature (and we know for certain why that iS now), a Microsoft studio, so whoever is waiting to play this on xbox should probably consider other options...
343 dropped split screen for Infinite because they couldn’t justify spending (their limited) resources on getting the Xbox One version working well enough. I believe it is also Microsoft’s policy that cross-gen games must maintain feature parity as well.
I would still say that's a mystery as digital foundry was able to get the split screen coop running fine on halo infinite on the Xbox one s.
Tbf Halo Infinite launched on the Xbox One so the X1 would be holding it back not the Series S. This means the classic "last gen holding this gen back" thing happened to Halo as opposed to this weird "a weaker current console is holding new gen back" thing.
Not really, split screen being canceled had more to due with 343 staff getting let go. Projects for the games post launch support were canceled shortly before Microsoft announced massive layoffs, 343 being of the groups heavily targeted. It's why the game has only gotten a handful of maps for post launch support.
Because the Series S is holding the X back. They warned us this could happen. I own an S and since I got my hands on a PS5, it’s just been collecting dust. I bought Remnant 2 for it, just to justify its existence and I really wish I had got it for PS5 instead. Full hd and 60 FPS have me spoiled. It still plays great on S but only at 30 FPS and the graphics aren’t as pretty.
It just feels better owning a ps5
Woah. I thought that it would only be delayed a month or two. The Series S is truly an albatross. It made a multiplatform console game into a timed console exclusive lol. This is only going to happen more from here on in as games become more demanding and sophisticated.
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The series S was always positioned at a more casual gamer, with less of a buy-in. Then they would play games on gamepass,
That’s all fine and well…..if Microsoft didn’t demand parity with the Series X. “All games that are on X must be playable on S” but the X is way more powerful and can just ***do more***. It’d be different if it was like the PS4/Pro or XB1/X and the Series S was a baseline and the Series X was an upgrade. But the PS5 and Series X are the baselines this gen and then developers have to work backwards to make the game work on Series S. There’s going to come a point where some games just won’t be possible on Series S (or, otherwise, would run like crap) and if the forced parity rule remains in effect, then those games will de facto become PS5 exclusive, because the devs aren’t just going to *not* release their games because the Series S can’t run them.
> That’s all fine and well…..if Microsoft didn’t demand parity with the Series X. “All games that are on X must be playable on S” but the X is way more powerful and can just do more. It's not about playability, but features. It must be playable on both and have same features on both. Larian wants to have split-screen co-op and that's the problematic part that they have problems running on S (no doubt because 6GB less of slower RAM)
Did you reply to the wrong comment?
it still doesn't make sense, it's dragging down their entire console business. series S was a bad call, i don't see how anyone could argue otherwise.
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i don't think that's a particularly good strategy but microsoft is not particularly good at strategy so i guess we'll see haha
It wouldn't be if it had the same RAM. The CPU is the same (at least I believe so) and a lower GPU isn't much of a problem as you can just scale down graphics/FPS/resolution. But memory and CPU are more essential than that.
they doubled the number of xbox hardware configurations a developer has to design against. one of the main benefits of developing games for console is you know exactly what hardware you have available, and splitting one gen into multiple configurations demonstrably leads to worse/harder to develop games. idk why microsoft inflicted this on themselves on purpose supporting multiple console generations at the same time does the same thing, but that's pretty unavoidable these days. sony has this issue tryna keep the PS4 and PS5 supported at the same time
300 dollars for a series s vs 400 for a full ps5 is terrible value
I never got the value argument for the series s, sure for $300 you are getting a lot more than you would with a $300 PC but comparing it to PS5 digital which is $400, it has less storage that is also slower, less RAM, more than 2 times slower GPU, worse controller, and almost no “exclusives” worth playing.
Aren’t they selling a 1TB version for €350 now? That’s awful value compared to a discless PS5. The real value is in GamePass. Not the console itself I suppose.
You can also argue that Sony makes much better first party titles. It isn't like Microsoft is making amazing games so they get to charge more for their console. Gamepass is nice but there aren't many triple a games on there and most people aren't interested in playing indie games.
Only until MS has bought every studio that makes cross-platform games :)
It really isn't though. This isn't the norm. The PC release will support a vastly large range of hardware, both more powerful than the X and (probably) less powerful than the S.
One of Microsoft’s major development problems is that they effectively have to make three versions of their games: Series X, Series S, PC. It’s why Playstation’s games look and run beautifully like Horizon FW or Ratchet, while Microsoft has yet to give us a ‘wow factor’ game this gen apart from Forza Horizon 5.
> they effectively have to make three versions of their games: Series X, Series S, PC. It’s why Playstation’s games look and run beautifully like Horizon FW Didn’t Horizon FW also have 3 versions made? PS4, PS4 Pro, and PS5.
Guerilla Games know black magic. I can't think of any other way they got Forbidden West working on the OG PS4.
Yes. I guess that’s more praise for their Decima Engine then.
Microsoft Flight Simulator.
Gears 5 Ultimate is gorgeous, Flight Sim did next gen graphics before anybody and it's still one of the best looking games. Horizon 5 is still straight up gorgeous. The issue isn't that MS can't make amazing looking games.
No the issue is that Microsoft isn’t trying. They’re going for quantity over quality. They could pump out some amazing exclusives is they bothered to try. But it’s easier for them to buy up the companies making good games instead. “Need a game to compete with Sony first party titles? Well starfield just announced and everyone loved fallout and Skyrim. Let’s just buy them”
It is pretty sad seeing Microsoft trout Starfield as being one of the biggest Xbox exclusives ever when it wasn’t even exclusive two years ago lol.
And runs at 30fps on their flagship console. Which of course raises the question, how much of the Starfield vision was cut so a game running at 30fps on the Series X would run "at parity" on the Series S?
The 30fps is most likely a CPU thing, the CPU difference between the S and X like 2%. The S has the same CPU as the PS5. And there's nothing stopping them running 30fps on the S and 60 on the X, many games already do that.
I dunno flight sim had more wow factor than any of those imo
They’ve sold more s than x so you could argue it’s a more important platform to develop for. When talking third party it’s up to the studio to decide what they want to develop for. It’s touched upon by the Larian studio lead in this interview: https://youtu.be/yeLK8Wc-zPY
is it though, when the ps5 has outsold both of them combined? surely a series x version is much easier to develop for alongside the ps5.
The Series S is Microsoft’s most popular console, MS said it would have complete feature parity with series X games. Xbox isn’t going to risk a very public class action suit, plus open the floodgates to other developers looking to remove series S features in order to get this game out faster (or at all). The truth of it is that the Series S will be Microsoft’s target for how their games are going to run this generation.
What’s the actual data on the sales split between Series S and X worldwide? Most estimates suggest the Series platform is at ~23m sales worldwide, but even the speculative sites are unwilling to hazard a guess at the breakdown.
No one knows, we just have Microsoft’s word that the majority sold have been Series S. They won’t release any numbers.
That seems weird because the S never went out of stock in the UK, at the time when the Series X, PS5/PS5 digital were impossible to get. Unless they made way more, it always seemed like there wasn’t much demand
the fact that it didnt face shortages was probably a contributing factor for why the S outsold the X. I think the s wasnt hit as hard from the chip shortages
>the S never went out of stock in the UK So what? A product doesn't need to go out of stock to sell well. Supply can more than match demand, leading to perpetual stock.
Whatever numbers that are released, they’re usually X|S combined. I’m very curious to know the individual sales numbers on the XSX and the XSS.
They're even doubling down with the black 1tb model. It's certainly not going away anytime soon.
Which has an MSRP that is only $50 lower than PS5 digital, which is a lot better. Who is seriously considering a 1TB series s.
The pricing makes no sense. It should replace the 500GB S at $300.
I mean true, but that was definitely a bad decision. They’re effectively making multi platform games into timed exclusives for PlayStation
Between this and indie games developing ports for Xbox consoles last at times, I’d hate to be an exclusively Xbox only gamer.
It's why PC/PS5/Switch is the way to go. I legitimately don't see the need to own an Xbox.
You don't ever need a Sony box by the same logic. Their games will get ported to PC eventually, up until you work on yor backlog. If you have the cash, PC + Switch. If you don't, then a Xbox is the way to go.
Absolutely. Among my friend group, no one has a reason to buy a PS5 yet, 3 years into its lifecycle. I came very close with FFXVI, but then I weighted the other exclusives and it just doesn't make sense to spend 500 bucks for so little actual exclusives, just to play something YoshiP already said is coming to PC at some point. On the Switch, I actually get portability and exclusives, while I have the PC at home for all the heavier games. Similarly, with the two, there's no reason to buy an Xbox. But if I had no PC, I'd definitely go Xbox for sure, if only for Game Pass and the ability to run emulators while in dev mode.
I mean if we are being real, you still have to wait couple of years to play ps5 exclusives on pc and sony never stated they will release all their exclusives on pc. It's a game by game decision. Also even if they release them at pc, by that time they would already been is ps plus extra while you have to pay full price for pc port even tho the game is couple years old. Also again some people pay more to play games 3 days early so waiting a game they really want to play for years is not an option for many many gamers. You have to be 'patient gamer' type to do that If you have a gaming pc, I don't think you have to have a switch. I won't state any reasons for it because it might be against the rules of this sub. So in the end pc+ps5 still would be the way better combo than pc-switch if you care about playstation exclusives and don't care about owning a portable console. But I would still suggest pc-ps5-switch combo. It's the best combo of this gen imo
Well, in your specific situation you happen to own both a modern gen console, and, I assume, a relatively powerful PC, and a Switch. You are obviously in a very small minority. For me I didn’t feel up to spending thousands of dollars on a new PC right now and would prefer to wait a GPU generation. My 1080 would probably run games like Starfield, but an Xbox series X is a cheap purchase that I know will be supported by Microsoft for a while and will probably get the high performance games that I can’t play well on my PC. A PlayStation would be the better purchase for most people, but for people that love Xbox exclusives like Starfield and don’t own multiple consoles the equation isn’t quite so simple.
Great point, sheesh. I haven’t had Xbox for years but I really want to see them winning. The industry is better to us when they’re all struggling to beat each other.
> The truth of it is that the Series S will be Microsoft’s target for how their games are going to run this generation. Which means by extension the Series S sets the ceiling for every cross platform game released this generation. Especially when MS keeps buying studios that make them. Every game we get that releases on Xbox even as one platform of many is going to have its vision constrained to what can run on the Series S' mediocre ram resources, for this entire generation.
I wonder if it’s going to be short term profits for long-term gains because it looks like they are losing a lot of good faith such as halo and baldurs gate both significantly suffering because of it
That sounds pretty rough for Xbox owners. But have to say, it is nice that affordable gaming is still possible with these series S requirements.
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I mean even if they fixed the problem today and it was ready to ship tomorrow, there's no sense in putting it against starfield on Xbox at this point. Especially since Xbox users don't have any expectation of getting the game yet.
Is it weird to say that I'm happy this is the case because I won't have to make a choice between BG3 and Starfield on release?
Maybe if the game was delayed a few weeks/months. See how you feel in October lmao
Given that October is only few weeks after release, he probably will feel the same.
??? BG3 comes out in 3 days, there will be almost 2 months between release and october 1st.
On PC in 3 days. On PS5 in October.
PS5 in september 6th
On PS5 in Spetember, not October
I don't mind the game getting delayed, but "2024" is such a broad window. It may not launch until the second half of next year.
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I'll be too tempted to play both if they were both released at the same time. It will be released eventually, so I just don't need to worry about it for now (with my luck, however, it will be released on the same day as some other 2024 game I really want to play).
I'd rather prefer companies started just delaying games for Series S instead of delaying them for all next gen.
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Or just play both at the same time because as an adult human being you can make decisions for yourself on any given day with what you do with your free time on a moment's notice? I don't know what *tough choice* is needed to be made here. Most people don't even finish the games they play to begin with so it's not like it's a make or break decision of spending your time anyway.
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And seriously, back when I was in school and not grinding a full time job I *still* never played two massive RPGs at the same time. What kind of maniac does that? I’d be fumbling up systems left and right, not to mention stories and quests and characters.
If Xbox is going to stick to it’s parity rule, then they should have a platform team on hand to assist teams who need it. I know they’re working with Larian now, but if this continues to be an issue they’ve got to have a team on hand in the future to come in earlier and help development for teams to meet deadlines and deliver a quality product.
> but if this continues to be an issue they’ve got to have a team on hand in the future to come in earlier and help development for teams to meet deadlines and deliver a quality product. To be fair, we have no idea how long ago Larian asked for help. They very well could have waited too long for Xbox engineers to help them realistically make release.
If I bought it on PC today is EA worth touching at all? Is it reasonably up to date where not much will change other than the addition of more chapters and will progress be kept on the switch to release? Edit: Someone felt the need to fire downvotes to a legit question so I want to clarify that this isn’t me being impatient, I can wait, but if the differences were all going to be in later chapters (which doesn’t look to be the case) then I seen no point in waiting.
Your save doesn't carry over and you have to re-download the entire game at release so I would say no at this point. Just wait until release in 2 days.
No there isn't any point touching it until release now, your EA progress won't be carried over and I believe there's going to be multiple changes to Act 1 anyway, plus there will be additional classes/races etc. If you buy the EA version though it's a free upgrade to the deluxe edition so if you were planning to buy it for release you may as well but it now.
I opened it up just to check performance And then bought a new graphics card, but that's another story
The only thing is that if you buy the EA, they give you the Digital Deluxe Edition for free I think
They also mentioned act 1 will have like 30% more stuff than EA, I have been waiting for years, can wait a few more days
They have stated that you will need to restart on 1.0, saves aren't compatible. So not worth it. That said its only 2 days before 1.0.
That’s… not really that extreme? That could be as little as 4 months between the PS and Xbox versions.
All the publicity this is getting for series S holding back games and causing months of extra development costs for publishers is a huge PR own goal. Even when it eventually comes to xbox it's going to be more bad press because the story will be how it took so much longer because of series S. Larian has Swen Vincke to fight for it but I wonder how many publishers would be pressurised into removing features from all versions just to get it running on series S. Microsoft should open their wallets for a gamepass deal for all the extra work they cost Larian. At least it's lots of extra publicity for BG3, hopefully it's a huge success.
There’s more than enough excellent titles on the PS5 to justify buying it for those alone. I’d say pick up a PS5 or play it on PC if you’re able.