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[systemr123]

Devs really love the Series S.

They have to love it because that’s 75% of the Xbox series user base. Oh how stupid MS was ever releasing that console.

It should have died yesteryear on the drawing table and they should have released only the series X.

 

[Ozriel]

Why should they have done better? The margins on the S have to be lower than on the X. I mean if they think they are selling less and creating a distraction because of issues like this, then yeah they should have upped the specs. Still though they are selling the thing for 200 less, often 250 less. That should tell people it is last gen power that is compatible with current games and they should be OK with that trade off for 200 bucks.

I wonder how many of the people making a big deal about this have never deal with gaming on a PC. Shit has gotten pretty crazy in that space over the last few gens. If you want top performance you need to blow 2500 minimum on a system. If you want 1080p you can cut that in half. Same concept, larger cost difference.

Since people are buying the XSS, MS was right to try 2 different spec tiers and I expect they will continue and get better with this in future gens.

Prices of components drop over time. They really should have aimed for similar memory setup as the Xbox One X to ensure higher quality BC and made it easier for third parties. I’m not sure it would have cost more than an incremental $50 for more memory + a few more GPU CUs.

Even going with higher GPU clocks would have helped. Make the case slightly bigger to help with the additional cooling requirements.

I don’t think the dual SKU was a bad move. But a 6TF machine with 2GB more memory would have made life much easier on devs, and made the product more appealing to consumers.

 

[Ozriel]

They have to love it because that’s 75% of the Xbox series user base. Oh how stupid MS was ever releasing that console.

How you people are able to confidently push this deliberate misinformation truly needs to be studied.

 

[scarlet0pimp]

There is nothing surprising here of course a console with the specs of the S will require some extra effort to get working. So what, goes with the territory of game development I would say. You have to work with what you are given if you want to release on the platform.
I find it funny that people on here seem to think it's some kind of gatcha moment when the series s doesn't have 60fps or misses out on ray tracing or has lower res. The reality is that the games are still playable on the console and look fine unless you are using the S on a large tv. The people the S is targeted at are perfectly served with this console.

 

[Valt7786]

If Xbox had the balls to admit it's supposed to be a cheap PoS meant for running fortnite, fifa/madden and minecraft for children and casuals and stop this parity bullshit that devs are beholden to then all this would end.

 

[asdasdasdbb]

They have to love it because that’s 75% of the Xbox series user base. Oh how stupid MS was ever releasing that console.

It should have died yesteryear on the drawing table and they should have released only the series X.

MS's position would be a lot worse right now if they didn't do the Series S. Historically having the cheaper console has been a big big deal.

I have to say that I am surprised devs are having that hard of a time. Cutting the resolution and the texture size should be enough to account for the 2 GB less, you would think.

 

[Ozriel]

If Xbox had the balls to admit it's supposed to be a cheap PoS meant for running fortnite, fifa/madden and minecraft for children and casuals and stop this parity bullshit that devs are beholden to then all this would end.

Wouldn’t be an apt description, would it? Since it’s run every multiplatform and first party game this generation.


That ‘casuals’ jibe makes no sense. An enthusiast forum where some people like you think enthusiasm is tied to budget

MS's position would be a lot worse right now if they didn't do the Series S. Historically having the cheaper console has been a big big deal.

I have to say that I am surprised devs are having that hard of a time. Cutting the resolution and the texture size should be enough to account for the 2 GB less, you would think.

It’s certainly a challenge for devs, but none have popped up to say it’s an insurmountable one.

 

[SportsFan581]

Imagine if they pushed the fps down to 30 on the big kids consoles and tried "really hard" to get it running smoothly.

For a slower sp game it would be fine for me. I'd like to see a game like that with screaming graphics. They should really allow devs to take some things right out of the s version. BG3 did it but it doesn't always have to be so consequential as cutting a huge feature.

Or just let it run like shit. I don't care.

The S is a spoiler. At least we get more 60fps games this gen. But 30 would be fine sometimes. People seem to overwhelmingly like the matrix demo. Always asking when games will look like that. They did a great job both pushing the normal consoles and the S at 30. But it looks like it is not so easy to do that for everyone. Maybe for anyone. And unfortunately, the cast majority of xbs are the series s. So it's the new normal.

I really hope ms doesn't pull this again next gen. As it is, we are in for another three years of cross gen and those will all still be baselined to this pos. And if they do it again, well... I do like 60fps. But there are going to be would-be showcase games that could have blown us away, but don't get to do that because the developers don't have the resources to go hard on PS5 then drastically de-make the game for series s.

That Xbox dev kit is sitting right next to the PS5 one from the start. They have budgets and deadlines. The harder you go on ps5, the more of a struggle to make it work on the s. Of-fucking-course the series s is going to influence decisions. BG3 is a good example- you can't just turn down the resolution as falsely promised from MS, the broken promise emporium.

I've always said 60fps will be more common on console to the extent that it is marketable. And that's happened now. With so much cross-gen, the resolution, framerate, and load times are what makes the upgrade from a PS4 worth it. So they tried marketing 60fps and it's working. It is a good thing.

Personally, I'm overall satisfied with that. I thought PS4 graphics were really good. Having that running on a PS5 at multiple time the res and fps is great. Thanks, cross gen. And now that cross gen is ending, it's spirit lives on with the series s. There's an upside. Games will be encouraged to perform well by conforming to the low baseline. I'm not super mad.

I hope that if the PS5 pro comes out, sony will have the chance to push the fps down to 30 on the baseline PS5 and we'll see some rel eye candy. Then if I want that at 60fps I can get a pro. Sony is the only major pub who doesn't have to worry about series s at all. Between them and studios who can make all the xboxes sing like matrix (a graphics demo, mind you), we are going to end up with relatively few games that pushed the limits this gen. And it could happen next gen too now that Xbox sales would collapse without this impulse-buy priced ball and chain of a console.

That entire post just reads like an imaginary scenario from never-never land. The PS5/XSX already have a 30fps mode that is the primary in the eyes of the developers (from their statements) the 60fps mode is something they could do on the more powerful machines as an additive. The PS5/XSX are not going to become stronger machines if a weaker machine exists or doesn't, they are what they are. We've seen games running at 720p on them already, they are getting maxed out as it is. Sure, some more optimization could be done on some of these releases, but that's not a problem that the XSS effects, especially on the PS5 side.

 

[Filben]

I'm more interested in whether this game finally have proper and full DualSense support on PC. Control unfortunatley hasn't got them. Really loved that about the PS5 version, but it looks and run better on my PC.

As for the topic, we're slowly leaving the cross-gen time frame and of course the slowest/weakest denominator will show exactly that. I mean, for the price and size of this little box, it's actually amazing you can even run this generation's games at all. But it's easy to imagine that devs need to put in extra work and you'll still get a lot of compromises; especially if it's not an exclusive.

 

[S0ULZB0URNE]

4TF's has always been it's weakest part..
Saying ram is silly especially when many of its games are lower resolution and textures.

 

[Buggy Loop]

This thread is also going to get closed.
The mod wont even have to type a new reason for closing, they can just copy paste:
Dial it back on the clickbait titles misrepresenting what the developer has said.

Why cant you guys just quote what he said:
The GPU is an issue, the memory is a big problem


On Topic:
Since the other thread got closed.
Who gives a shit about the Series S except Series S owners?
All i care about is Full RT.......this game is def gonna be another benchmark title like Control.

Everything in this scene is so grounded, it almost looks offline.
I pray I have enough GPU power free to DLAA this game for some clean clean AA with full Raytracing.
I play at 1440p before you ask.

When does the EGS deal end?

 

[winjer]

When does the EGS deal end?

For this game, it doesn't.
I doubt it will ever come to Steam.

 

[Buggy Loop]

For this game, it doesn't.
I doubt it will ever come to Steam.

They all do

 

[winjer]

They all do

In this case, Epic sponsored the game's development. Not just some discount or some extra cash for a one year exclusive.
This game is not like all those other Epic deals.

 

[Buggy Loop]

In this case, Epic sponsored the game's development. Not just some discount or some extra cash for a one year exclusive.
This game is not like all those other Epic deals.

« Epic Games CEO Tim Sweeney has admitted the company was grappling with a "financial problem" 10 weeks before announcing sweeping layoffs, in an unexpected admission during Unreal Fest earlier this week »

Go Tim, keep injecting money and get little to no returns.

Poor fucking devs, the numbers will look like shit

 

[winjer]

« Epic Games CEO Tim Sweeney has admitted the company was grappling with a "financial problem" 10 weeks before announcing sweeping layoffs, in an unexpected admission during Unreal Fest earlier this week »

Go Tim, keep injecting money and get little to no returns.

Poor fucking devs, the numbers will look like shit

Don't worry, he will increase the price for those Fortnite skins. Again.

 

[Black_Stride]

When does the EGS deal end?

Probably never.
Epic is not only publishing the game, they are fully funding it.

 

[Buggy Loop]

Probably never.
Epic is not only publishing the game, they are fully funding it.

Ain’t handing them money for their shit exclusivity tactics.

 

[balls of snow]

Devs: We hate working with Series S, its soo weak.
Also devs: We got this game to work on nintendo switch, we're soo cool!

And thats why we have mortal kombat 1 switch edition. More power to you if you can enjoy that cutback lol.

 

[Black_Stride]

Ain’t handing them money for their shit exclusivity tactics.

In this case Alan Wake 2 making alot of money is a net positive.....once they ahve repaid Epic they dont need to use Epic Publishing for their next game.
Gonna support Remedy so they actually get enough money to leave Epic Publishing behind for Quantum Break 2.

 

[systemr123]

MS's position would be a lot worse right now if they didn't do the Series S. Historically having the cheaper console has been a big big deal.

I have to say that I am surprised devs are having that hard of a time. Cutting the resolution and the texture size should be enough to account for the 2 GB less, you would think.

Yes that’s what you would think if their design is good, but it apparently isn’t and that’s why they shouldn’t have done the console. If it was easy to scale there would be much less problems but in the current situation you literally cannot release the same games on both the series S and X because of their design flaws.

 

[willothedog]

Oh boo-hoo. The SoC provides challenges on the Switch no doubt but if they want to shift units you create solutions and work with what you've got. Devs be lazy.

 

[kruis]

What's good is that they didnt compromise their vision and delivered a true next gen version on the PS5 and XSX.

That was my fear all along that the series s would hold back the xsx and ps5. That doesnt seem to be happening so far this gen. if they are able to get this running at low settings at 720p on the xss, thats fine. Im sure the PS5 and XSX wont be running at native 4k either.

There's no way to know if the cross-platform games we're seeing were scaled back to make them run them on the XSS. We only notice when the games get too ambitious for them to run well on the XSX, but if they run perfectly fine it could either mean that the devs did a tremendous job or all ports were downgraded in order to reach that goal. But there's no way for us to know. We only see the final meal, we never get the inside view from the kitchen.

 

[ElCasual]

Like I said in the others thread:
Just give me a excelent story and good gameplay and I play even 30fps/1080p.

 

[Fabieter]

The game looks fantastic, but we don't really know that they didn't make compromises.

This is the thing with underpowered "anchor" consoles. We will never know what the vision would have been if their baseline was higher. We'll only get to see the final version and we can make a judgment whether it looks good or not.

But we will never what it could have been, and whether they did or didn't make compromises on their original vision -- which could have been way more ambitious for all we know.

I can't remember but some devs said that they absolutely do need compromises but they start in the concept phase already. I really hope xbox is stopping this low end consoles next gen.

 

[Krathoon]

Yeah. Series S is becoming the shit console. Way to go, Microsoft.

 

[Krathoon]

Epic is trying to charge non game developers for the Unreal Engine too. I think indie game developers are still fine.

 

[Negotiator101]

What's good is that they didnt compromise their vision and delivered a true next gen version on the PS5 and XSX.

That was my fear all along that the series s would hold back the xsx and ps5. That doesnt seem to be happening so far this gen. if they are able to get this running at low settings at 720p on the xss, thats fine. Im sure the PS5 and XSX wont be running at native 4k either.

Well that's it they've got the game running at 30fps on the S and Series X/PS5 get that and a 60fps option while looking genuinely next gen, everyone wins.

 

[Black_Stride]

Epic is trying to charge non game developers for the Unreal Engine too. I think indie game developers are still fine.

Gaming license hasnt change at all.

There was no license for other industries so people were literally just using Unreal as their renderer for free.

It makes sense to charge a seat license for people who are using Unreal in other industries.

I can't remember but some devs said that they absolutely do need compromises but they start in the concept phase already. I really hope xbox is stopping this low end consoles next gen.

Who starts making hardware concessions in the concept phase when you dont even know what your limitations will be once you have software actually on hardware.

As he said in the interview, most start with their vision and start working on it, then try their best to scale down to lower end machines.

The Series S biggest issue is its memory, if it had the same memory config as the Series X, it would have been a much much better machine.

But squeezing everything into the Series S memory is a clearly a chore as thats the most common complaint, not even the GPU.

 

[M1chl]

It yeah it does. X1X has perfect memory subsystem for a console, one pool, fast memory, run like a dream. It had shitty CPU, now what I don't understand is why MS didn't opted for upgrading CPU on that console and making it "series S", it does not matter that it does not have RT, it is still barely usable as it is. I know about new algo for RT, but that comes with games in like 1-2 year timespan, where we might see pro consoles. So it would do just find in the meanwhile. And would be much cheaper in development.

 

[Chronicle]

Numerous smart people on here called this. It's held the gen back. Microsoft going for mutually assured destruction now.

 

[Black_Stride]

Numerous smart people on here called this. It's held the gen back. Microsoft going for mutually assured destruction now.

Thats not what he said or even implied.

 

[Elder Legend]

Microsoft really shot themselves in the foot. On its own the Series S is a great well priced machine, but with the existence of Series X and a PS5 it's placed in a very weird spot and is just detrimental to the developers. It should either been the only console or not co-exist with the Series X. They should of just released a discless Series X like how Sony did with PS5.

Instead, they make it worse hardware wise. Yes, it's $200 cheaper but that price is costing a lot of game performance and problems for developers being forced into making it run on that system.

 

[Krathoon]

They kind of handicapped themselves. They will always have to make a version that runs on the lesser console.

Hopefully, Microsoft does not drop it like a hot potato like they did with the Kinect.

 

[UltimaKilo]

Like I said in the others thread:
Just give me a excelent story and good gameplay and I play even 30fps/1080p.

Not just you, results have proven this is more important than raw power, hence Nintendo's success with the Switch and many of their titles selling tens of millions of copies.

I own a Series S and love it. I am concerned how it will handle beyond next year with the limited RAM (that was likely a big mistake that is difficult to get around), but so far I've played 2 years on it and really enjoyed the console.

MS could always drop AAA support in 2026 and abandon the console generations all together.

 

[SlimySnake]

It yeah it does. X1X has perfect memory subsystem for a console, one pool, fast memory, run like a dream. It had shitty CPU, now what I don't understand is why MS didn't opted for upgrading CPU on that console and making it "series S", it does not matter that it does not have RT, it is still barely usable as it is. I know about new algo for RT, but that comes with games in like 1-2 year timespan, where we might see pro consoles. So it would do just find in the meanwhile. And would be much cheaper in development.

Yeah, had they gone with a 6 tflops GPU with a decent ram configuration, they would not be seeing so much pushback.

The problem with choosing the polaris 6 tflops gpu wouldve been a mismatch between the xsx and xss architecture which wouldve introduced more issues.

I think they shouldve just aimed for a $400 machine if they wanted to chase the casual crowd. figure out how to get to 8 tflops, if not stick with 6 tflops and take the hit against the $400 digital ps5. i think for a $100 more, they couldve easily hit 8 tflops.

 

[Krathoon]

Really, I am glad Microsoft is also releasing their games on the PC. I am just using that instead of an XBox and I have a PS5.

 

[Krathoon]

They always skimp on the memory. It is not like it is that expensive.

Nintendo pulled that way back with the N64.

 

[Crayon]

That entire post just reads like an imaginary scenario from never-never land. The PS5/XSX already have a 30fps mode that is the primary in the eyes of the developers (from their statements) the 60fps mode is something they could do on the more powerful machines as an additive. The PS5/XSX are not going to become stronger machines if a weaker machine exists or doesn't, they are what they are. We've seen games running at 720p on them already, they are getting maxed out as it is. Sure, some more optimization could be done on some of these releases, but that's not a problem that the XSS effects, especially on the PS5 side.

I'll try to narrow it down to one thing since my post was long and rambling. We now know that getting a game to run right on series s is not simply a matter of reducing the resolution. It's affecting decisions when building some games.

Yes we have immortals. We also have things like redfall and forspoken and other examples of games with big effort and not much to show for it. I don't think these are the place to go looking for technical limits.

Look at the technically competent games, instead. The 60fps modes are a no brainer across the board. The 30fps modes push the native res way up from the 1440p sweet spot. That or shovel performance into the incinerator for a sprinkle of raytracing.

Having the s as the baseline is not devastating. I said as much. The thing about things is they all have their ups and downs. The idea that this particular thing comes with no downsides at all is fundamentally whack.

 

[Ozriel]

Numerous smart people on here called this. It's held the gen back. Microsoft going for mutually assured destruction now.

It’s going to be a really weird couple of years for you when the Switch 2 comes out and becomes the low end target.

 

[BennyBlanco]

This game is gonna blow people’s cooch on PC.

 

[Daneel Elijah]

In this case Alan Wake 2 making alot of money is a net positive.....once they ahve repaid Epic they dont need to use Epic Publishing for their next game.
Gonna support Remedy so they actually get enough money to leave Epic Publishing behind for Quantum Break 2.

In general I would prefer that when a publisher and a dev studio work together they continue their collaboration and go from good to great. If Epic gave Remedy what they needed to make a great game, better for them to do it again, right? Of course I did not follow the full story of their relationship so I may be wrong.

Yeah, had they gone with a 6 tflops GPU with a decent ram configuration, they would not be seeing so much pushback.

The problem with choosing the polaris 6 tflops gpu wouldve been a mismatch between the xsx and xss architecture which wouldve introduced more issues.

I think they shouldve just aimed for a $400 machine if they wanted to chase the casual crowd. figure out how to get to 8 tflops, if not stick with 6 tflops and take the hit against the $400 digital ps5. i think for a $100 more, they couldve easily hit 8 tflops.

I disagree for 2 reasons: I think that we only know in hindsight that Sony did the PS5 Digital and that it was probably not considered a threat when this gen was planned by Xbox. And 2 their problem is not that much that the Series S is weak than the fact that the Series X is not good enough for Xbox to have a clear advantage against Sony and the PS5.

We know that the Xbox One was a dark period for Xbox. They choose to put their games on PC to help them stay in the race. This had the drawback to make their consoles less useful for some of the gamers(like me) but had the advantage that making a Series S will not harm them that much as they are already making their games for a lot of PC configurations. As they design their consoles mostly for their primary market( the USA) and simply hopes that the rest of the world will follow the Series S was probably designed for the US public first. And they are more sensitive to the price than most of the others countries IMHO. So making the S a 300$ console was more important to them than having a good enough console for devs. We know with the leaks that they loose a lot of money for the S. So asking for them to loose even more money is not the answer as it can get ugly really fast. We know and Xbox knew that the PS5 would set the standard for next gen, as it did for the PS4 gen by market inertia and the strenght of the brand. So they could not just do a Series X as it would fight a hard battle from day one. Xbox tried to compete on price, and that with Gamepass is a pretty good duo in theory.

With the Series X good enough for them not to be beat on price/performance, the Series S would be the ace in the hole that could make the balance go their way. IF Sony had planned a PS5 at 400 then it would be a lot weaker than the Series X( imagine a 8/9 TF PS5 versus the 12 TF Series X). If the PS5 was made with a 500 or a 600$ in mind then they would be equals, as Xbox is selling their consoles a lot cheaper than they cost to make. But Sony found a way for the PS5 to be really good and at cost. The PS5 digital is a great idea, but fondamentally Sony did not make the sacrifices that Xbox did and that means that the Series X can stay relevant. If Sony was willing to loose money like Microsoft did, a 400 PS5 and a 300 PS5 Digital would have made this gen a bloodbath. So Xbox can compete on equal terms and then in theory Gamepass and all the studios that they got would make them offering a great deal to gamers really fast. For me because the Series X is not that much better than the PS5( or even worse depending of what we are looking at) the Series S get a lot more scrutiny that it should. I would have loved for Xbox to accept the cost and make the Series S with 20 GB of RAM and have high frequency like the PS5. Even at 600$, that hypothetical Series X would be the clear best choice for third party games and that would have helped to hide the Series S weaknesses.

 

[Jinzo Prime]

Probably never.
Epic is not only publishing the game, they are fully funding it.

It's an Epic store exclusive? Oh fuck that!

 

[Thick Thighs Save Lives]

I was looking through the /r/games post on this same matter and noticed a different AAA dev chiming in with their experience working on the Series S for an upcoming major UE5 title. The OOM acronym they used in the reply means out of memory.

 

[HeisenbergFX4]

Just kill the forced parity with the Series X (which has begun) but other than that

 

[Del_X]

Oh damn now the game might run decent on older PCs and have a 60fps mode on Series X and PS5.

It’s a narrative SP game delivering insane ray tracing on PC. What is the fucking problem, here?

 

[Duchess]

Oh boo-hoo. The SoC provides challenges on the Switch no doubt but if they want to shift units you create solutions and work with what you've got. Devs be lazy.

Not sure if you're trolling, but I'll bite.

It's more complicated than that - MS enforces feature parity between the Series X and Series S, and also against the PS5.

Nintendo, as far as I'm aware, has no such requirements.

 

[mrcroket]

The game looks fantastic, but we don't really know that they didn't make compromises.

This is the thing with underpowered "anchor" consoles. We will never know what the vision would have been if their baseline was higher. We'll only get to see the final version and we can make a judgment whether it looks good or not.

But we will never what it could have been, and whether they did or didn't make compromises on their original vision -- which could have been way more ambitious for all we know.

So if the series s has compromised the quality then the SX/PS5 version would be native 4k/60fps right? And of course with the max settings that offers PC version.

 

[Black_Stride]

In general I would prefer that when a publisher and a dev studio work together they continue their collaboration and go from good to great. If Epic gave Remedy what they needed to make a great game, better for them to do it again, right? Of course I did not follow the full story of their relationship so I may be wrong.

Epic Publishing gives you the money to make your game, then you do a 50/50(this can be negotiated) revenue share until you have paid them back, after that the profit is yours.
Epic Publishing has no say in direction the game goes, all they provide is money.....I dont think they even print disks for you, or atleast I have not seen any games theyve printed a disk for.

Once Remedy is out from this deal they can go to 505 or whoever to publish Quantum Break 2, main thing with this deal was money.
I think Alan Wake was still a question mark IP so shopping it around was probably hard, Epic agrees you obviously take the deal.....but if you want to be on Steam you either get out from under the deal somehow or use another publisher.

 

[SEGAvangelist]

We have successfully transitioned from "lazy devs" to "anti-Xbox devs" now

He's not a dev. And what did I say that was untrue? Puha has been snarky when talking Xbox for the last 7 years.