Is the Xbox Series S a "potato" console holding next gen game dev back?

[Lorfarius]

The Witcher 3 For Xbox Series S Contains Impressive 60FPS Performance Mode

[Strafe]

Good to see the Series S hasn’t held back a game released 7 and a half years ago!

 

*ducks*

[Strafe]

https://www.purexbox.com/news/2023/03/video-digital-foundry-questions-whether-features-should-be-dropped-on-xbox-series-s
 

I guess feature parity isn’t solely limited to resolution.

[thesnwmn]

Nah.

 

Just devs needing to work it out. I'd honestly rather see simplicity for the consumer maintained. Drop the feature from XBox entirely if they're incapable of solving their issues with this (and retained on PC if they want). The only shame from my perspective is it getting a public airing and becoming a story

 

 

A cheaper entry point into be generation is (imo) massively more important than more shiny shit on screen.

[Rayn]

I haven't read the entire thread so I'm sorry in advance if this already has been discussed to death.

 

First and foremost, I will be quick to admit I'm a huge fan of the current generation of Xbox consoles. I've one of each but use the S more than the X as the S is only used by me while the X is set up as my main console with family sharing activated. 

 

Overall, games looks and perform great on the S, even compared to the X but it really depends on the game. I've started to see some games where the differences between the two consoles are so huge that I prefer to only play the game on the X only.

Of the games I've played, Cyberpunk is the one with the biggest difference. Not only does the S version look like a whole generation behind in fidelity, it also performs a lot worse, to the point of being a lot less fun to play. 

 

Hogwarts Legacy also looks a lot more like a PS4 game on the S while it looks rather tasty on the X and even here the S performs notably worse. I really don't mind the lower fidelity aspect of the Series S version but when it performs a lot worse I'm not as forgiving. I love playing The Witcher 3 remaster on the S as it has maintained the 60 fps performance so even if it looks worse than on X it plays just as good. 

 

Wether the S actively holds back devs from making "proper" next gen games, I'm not sure but I doubt it. I suspect the huge install base of last gen consoles, especially PS4 and Switch have a bigger impact on devs holding back rather than the Series S but I'm basing that notion on nothing but my own inner voice. 

[footle]

It’s a balance:

- will it “hold back the heights” - probably

- will it allow more people the opportunity to play, who couldn’t otherwise afford twice as much to buy todays cheapest PS5 on Amazon, sure.

[Mallet]

With the way the economy is the importance of the low price can't be over stated, especially if you buy used from somewhere like here or facebook marketplace. Combined with game pass it's a superb value proposition. I mean the price of the big consoles is not going down it is going up!

 

Personally I can drop £500 on a PS5 and be fine but millions of people can't. £500 is a lot of money for an awful lot of people in today's economy.

[Stanley]

I think Steam Deck should be included in this discussion as well. Most games run on it albeit at lower res and performance, but is it therefore holding back development of high end PC games? No. 

[Fry Crayola]

I think the Deck's a different beast because Valve aren't stating that if you want to be on Steam, you must support it, whereas Microsoft insist on feature parity between S and X versions.

 

But I still don't think the S is holding anybody back. Imagination is.

[LaveDisco]

1 hour ago, Stanley said:

I think Steam Deck should be included in this discussion as well. Most games run on it albeit at lower res and performance, but is it therefore holding back development of high end PC games? No. 

 

That's an interesting link, we forget because of the craziness of Graphic Card pricing and the relative newness of the XSX/S and PS5, but a good half of each gen is PC users complaining that Consoles are holding back the PC editions of their games.  Towards the end of this gen, I can imagine the same being said about the S in a similar manner to now, but with a bit more substance.

 

The crux of the issue is what the ratio in sales is between the S and X. If the S is outselling the X, then it's absolutely the right decision. 

[Stanley]

1 hour ago, Fry Crayola said:

I think the Deck's a different beast because Valve aren't stating that if you want to be on Steam, you must support it, whereas Microsoft insist on feature parity between S and X versions.

 

But I still don't think the S is holding anybody back. Imagination is.

Yeah, I’d like to think though that with the success of Steam Deck, and Valves support (which is very good) that more developers will try and include a profile for it and get their games running nicely on it. Of course when it comes to the crunch they can release Steam Deck 2, but even that will be much less powerful than high end graphics cards.