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Microsoft’s Xbox Series S Parity Demands Are Now Handing Sony Free Wins (www.forbes.com)
submitted 3 years ago by to c/gaming@beehaw.org
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Larian has delayed the release of Baldur’s Gate 3, currently on pace to possibly be 2023’s Game of the Year, until they can figure out how to make split-screen work on Series S.

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[–] 11 points 3 years ago (3 children)

No Series S owner will be mad if a game has Series X specific exclusive content. MS is shooting itself in the foot

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  • [–] 19 points 3 years ago (1 child)

    I think people would be mad. Imagine you play a game at your friend's home on his Series X, and then proceed to buy the game so you can play multiplayer online, only to then have a certain features or game modes missing (say you get team death match but not battle royale because it uses too much memory).

    It's not that easy to communicate feature disparity. Some people probably don't even know which Xbox they have.

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  • [–] 10 points 3 years ago* (last edited 3 years ago) (1 child)

    At some point, it’s on you to know what your machine can and can’t handle. They put big letters on the front of each game telling you if it’s able to play on the series X and series S. It is right there lol. 

    Also, with smart delivery, it would probably be trivial for Microsoft to have a modal pop up saying “this game is not optimized for series S and will not play, do you still want to purchase?”

    No, the real issue here is developers (not their fault mind you). The moment Microsoft says “you don’t have to make it playable on the S,“ they simply won’t. Because why would you? 

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  • [–] 6 points 3 years ago (2 children)

    A dev team is more likely to axe Xbox release or features. So because S won't have enough memory/gpu grunt, X won't be getting that feature either.

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  • [–] 1 point 3 years ago* (1 child)

    Why would they completely abandon Xbox just because the series S won’t be required? 

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  • [–] 6 points 3 years ago (1 child)

    S is required if you want to release a game on X. This means you cannot leverage the technical maximum of X, ever, because the game and all it's features must run on S.

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  • [–] 1 point 3 years ago* (last edited 3 years ago) (1 child)

    Yes we know. The comment at the top of this chain is talking about whether or not Microsoft could stop allowing that requirement and the potential blowback. Scroll to the top and start from the beginning you'll see. 

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  • [–] 3 points 3 years ago (1 child)

    You still don't seem to comprehend what I said. Hint: not about blowback.

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  • [–] 1 point 3 years ago* (last edited 3 years ago) (1 child)

    We know microsoft's current policy. It's obvious we do. Please stop this and discuss the topic at hand or move on.

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  • [–] 2 points 3 years ago* (2 children)

    Are you really not comprehending what I said? To re-iterate: the cost-to-returns ratio to spend man hours for certain features is not feasible because of how much time would need to be spent. This, at worst means some titles will simply not have feature X, and at average means the "worst first" development method means some games will just be worse, than they could have been, if it were merely X, PS5 and PC to consider.

    I think we agree that MS bungled their approach and overestimated that cloud powered gaming would take off. But the reality of it is that S has become a thing that holds down game development, and like with BG3, gives sony pseudo exclusivity on consoles. It's also likely what caused 343 to never ship couch-coop on Halo. It worked to some extent, but simply wasn't worth the hours to finish for S.

    Sooner or later MS has to tackle the issue somehow, and if I had to guess, they'll rather push for a 0.5 gen jump instead of just screwing with people who bought S.

    It's easier to say a game is "newest gen optimized" than to backtrack on their promise.

    If you are talking about something completely different, then no worries, carry on. This was merely my 2 cents on the topic.

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  • [–] 2 points 3 years ago (1 child)

    Are you really not comprehending what I said?

    I guess not and frankly I just don't feel like speaking further with you given the completely needless hostility over what is likely just our talking at cross purposes. Have a good one.

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  • [–] 2 points 3 years ago* (last edited 3 years ago) (1 child)

    I did not mean that in a hostile way. I asked because you kept replying to my comments, but disregarding their content while telling me to stop talking.

    Based on the vote ratio, other people got the point just fine and didn't feel like they needed to tell me to be silent or scroll back up.

    Sorry if it felt hostile.

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  • [–] 11 points 3 years ago (1 child)

    Problem is that it can turn into a slippery slope. Where should MS draw the line if they start to allow Series X exclusive content? Can developers cut entire game modes from the S version if they just ask kindly enough? Or maybe ignore the S version completely? The risk is that developers are going to abuse this opportunity.

    MS wants people to see the Series S as a viable purchase. Why should you buy it when you won’t be able to play the next big release in full?

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  • [–] 8 points 3 years ago* (1 child)

    Yes, they should be able to say "this game doesn't run on series S" because it's significantly worse than the other options and it doesn't deserve the work it takes. It doesn't even have CPU parity, which is a much bigger deal than less GPU cores.

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  • [–] 6 points 3 years ago (3 children)

    That will just betray all the customers who bought Series S. Will they upgrade to a Series X to play the next big thing? No, they will probably just buy a PS5 instead. Why should they continue to stay loyal with MS?

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  • [–] 4 points 3 years ago

    It was a stupid promise and even worse requirement for publishing a game on the platform.

    They should start considering them just different consoles and remove the parity (and requirement to release on both).

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  • [–] 3 points 3 years ago*

    How is it any different than the number of games coming out that betray all the things they promised?

    As a series S owner, I never expected this thing to be able to play modern AAA games for 7-10 years like previous gens. It’s delusional. It was $300 with a controller ffs lol

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  • [–] 5 points 3 years ago (2 children)

    If a game can't run on the Series S it means it also can't be ported to the PC. Turn down the resolution and graphics settings until you get the same fps target and continue in with your day.

    I would expect any game from a developer that complains about this to be so poorly optimized that it runs like it would on the Series S on the bigger consoles, and likely have garbage gameplay as well because they spent all of their budget on graphics.

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