eurogamer.net

WarmSoda, do games w GTA 6 has patented a new locomotion system to make "highly dynamic and realistic animations"

Meanwhile at Bethesda:
Hey look, I figured out how to animate them to look at you! What? Walk naturally? No I don’t have time for that.

superduperenigma,

The modders will figure that part out.

conciselyverbose, do games w $70 Mortal Kombat 1 Switch version called "robbery" as graphical comparisons flood the internet

Realistically it's entirely possible it took more platform specific work to make the switch version viable than anything else.

It's not their fault it's lesser hardware.

FooBarrington,

Realistically it’s entirely possible it took more platform specific work to make the switch version viable than anything else.

It’s possible, but that’s wild speculation, and I think pretty unlikely.

It’s not their fault it’s lesser hardware.

It’s their fault for releasing a 70$ game on “lesser hardware” while not spending the time to get it working and looking well-enough. They didn’t have to release it.

conciselyverbose,

It's not wild speculation. The CPU is 20 tiers worse than dogshit and getting anything that's even a hint of demanding to even function at all on it is a lot of work.

thedirtyknapkin,

that’s why most games choose not to release on it. this is still a greedy decision.

conciselyverbose,

The game doesn't cost them less and probably costs them more. Discounting it because the hardware is bad is not fair, rational, or reasonable.

thedirtyknapkin,

the point isn’t that it should cost less, it’s that it shouldn’t have been released to begin with AND it costs more than most games. the price isn’t really the problem, it just compounds on it to make it all seem worse.

conciselyverbose,

So they'd rather not have the option of running the game on their bad hardware?

Why not just not buy it?

ZOSTED,

Believe me that’s going to happen too. But it was still a mistake to release it on Switch if they couldn’t be arsed.

Jakeroxs,

Couldn’t be arsed to what?

ZOSTED,

Couldn’t be arsed to make a good Switch game.

FooBarrington,

No, it is wild speculation. Turning off graphical effects etc. until you get acceptable frame rates isn’t hard and doesn’t take long, definitely not as long as implementing them for the other consoles.

You don’t need to rebuild the game because the CPU is slower.

conciselyverbose,

Graphical effects have never been the problem. They're completely irrelevant and not even sort of part of the discussion.

CPU performance is exactly the entire problem, and yes, you absolutely do have to make fundamental changes to make it functional. The CPU is the reason the majority of last gen games are straight up impossible to port in any context, and current gen games are much worse.

FooBarrington, (edited )

Graphical effects have never been the problem. They’re completely irrelevant and not even sort of part of the discussion.

What? This whole topic is about the lower quality of MK1 on the switch. How is the CPU involved in the graphics of MK1? You’ll need to share a source that this is the problem.

CPU performance is exactly the entire problem, and yes, you absolutely do have to make fundamental changes to make it functional. The CPU is the reason the majority of last gen games are straight up impossible to port in any context, and current gen games are much worse.

Please share a source, or at least a detailed description of what exactly the CPU is too slow for to run MK1 with higher quality. It sure as hell isn’t involved in shader execution, which is where most of the graphical fidelity comes from (if you’re developing a game post 2000).

conciselyverbose,

The lower graphics quality is because the GPU can't do math. There's no way to mitigate that.

It's also absolutely none of the work involved in a port. The work on a port is entirely making the actual mechanics function on a CPU that was terrible for mobile years before the switch launched.

FooBarrington,

The lower graphics quality is because the GPU can’t do math. There’s no way to mitigate that.

Yes, which is why the CPU isn’t the problem. It’s the GPU.

It’s also absolutely none of the work involved in a port. The work on a port is entirely making the actual mechanics function on a CPU that was terrible for mobile years before the switch launched.

Please share a source for this. A game like MK1 doesn’t need a lot of CPU power, because there just isn’t anything complicated happening. It’s all GPU that’s missing.

Jakeroxs,

I spent like 15 minutes looking up and comparing the minimum requirements on PC for mortal Kombat 1 (a game I have no intention of ever playing) and the CPU and GPU of the switch, pointing out that the GPU and CPU of the switch are both so far below even the minimum requirements on PC (which are pretty low tbh)

Diabolo96, (edited )

Am not an expert but i think particles and physics are both calculated by the CPU. Both very intensive tasks. Graphic wise, from looking at the screenshot above, it seems they only lowered the quality of model and it looks awful because they went for realism. The not so easy fixable problem is the characters design, Switch games look cartoonish for a reason.

FooBarrington,

Physics are calculated by the CPU, but a game like MK1 doesn’t have many physics to calculate - almost everything is pre-made animations. Particles are updated by the CPU, but rendered by the GPU.

And yeah, that’s why my point was that it’s not the CPU that is limiting the graphics.

SnowdenHeroOfOurTime,

And yet Nintendo releases plenty of games on it that work fine

conciselyverbose,

What's your point? It's absolutely possible to make fun games that are simple and not demanding.

It's also extremely limiting. The vast majority of recent games can't possibly be made to run on anything anywhere close to as underpowered as the Switch.

SnowdenHeroOfOurTime, (edited )

I am just annoyed when people say the switch hardware is shit. It’s not shit, it’s just a completely different approach, that’s all. Also it’s annoying you’re using one of the shittiest ports ever to push this idea. They could have built this game from the ground up for switch and had something that looked and ran good. But that wasn’t their plan. The plan was a half assed port.

conciselyverbose, (edited )

But it actually is obscenely underpowered, even for mobile, and the CPU is a massive limitation that keeps the vast majority of last gen games from being possible.

It changed the space by showing low end open world games on handheld were possible, but it hit its ceiling extremely quickly. There's a reason most AAA games didn't support it, and it's because it isn't capable.

lowered_lifted,

Yeah I am a switch owner and also play on my Mac and on Windows with virtual machines, and the majority of switch ports are just garbage and should not have been released. I paid for the outer worlds on switch and it was awful, just a loading screen simulator.

SnowdenHeroOfOurTime, (edited )

Yes in a world that expects hardware to always get better and software to always be written sloppily and/or assuming those constant improvements I guess it makes sense to be angry at one of the greatest game consoles ever created

Remember when games used a few KB of memory and they did smart things to make that work? No you probably don’t because you’d be angered by that hardware’s existence

clanginator, (edited )

Right which is why first-party titles, which are built for the stupidly underpowered hardware found in a switch, run and look pretty damn good for the hardware inside. They are building the entire game around a singular shitty-ass chip. It can be optimized perfectly for just that.

But a developer creating a game for PC, Xbox, Playstation, potentially other platforms, AND Switch isn’t going to change the design of the entire game to accommodate the Switch’s dinky-ass hardware.

And yes old consoles and games used clever tricks to run well on slower hardware and it was amazing. But I guarantee that every single title you could think of as an example was either a first-party title, or in the case of something like Crash Bandicoot, was exclusive to that console.

You’re delusional if you think that third-party devs should be able to meet Nintendo’s level of polish on their console while creating graphically demanding games for current gen.

And yes it makes sense to be angry at “one of the greatest game consoles ever made” (okay fanboy) when that console was underpowered when it launched 6 years ago, has TERRIBLE controllers (joy cons are literally the least enjoyable controllers I’ve used, ever, and have serious drift issues), and has held back game development and caused headaches like the situation at hand for devs - they’re essentially in a no-win situation here.

SnowdenHeroOfOurTime,

Lol what a douche.

conciselyverbose,

Who's angry? It's not game developer's fault that it has 10% of the power needed to run a modern game.

There is no amount of optimization that could make most modern games run on the switch. It has nothing to do with laziness. If you were a first party making games built from the ground up to be comparable to other modern games, it could not be done.

There's a reason Nintendo leans hard into simple physics and extremely arcade style sports games, and it's not just to be more accessible to casual fans. It's because it's literally all the hardware can do.

SnowdenHeroOfOurTime,

You apparently are so dense you don’t realize they intentionally chose that hardware. I’m done with your dumb ass.

conciselyverbose, (edited )

They chose that hardware because Nvidia was offloading it dirt cheap, so they could make big margins on it.

That's the entire reason. There is no other. It's certainly not that it's capable of modern gaming, because it isn't.

SnowdenHeroOfOurTime,

Who’s angry?

Your moronic ass obviously is

There’s a reason Nintendo leans hard into simple physics and extremely arcade style sports games, and it’s not just to be more accessible to casual fans. It’s because it’s literally all the hardware can do.

Yeah when they chose the type of games they’d be known for in the 80’s, it sure was specifically because their crystal ball told them:

They chose that hardware because Nvidia was offloading it dirt cheap, so they could make big margins on it.

You’re too stupid to spend another moment on

clanginator,

Yeah when they chose the type of games they’d be known for in the 80’s, it sure was specifically because their crystal ball told them

Nintendo’s shift towards simpler games has absolutely coincided with their consoles being less powerful than the competition. And since we’re name-calling like children (bc some of us are fanboys who can’t accept valid criticism)… this has been apparent for the last 20 years, and I made the observation as a child during the Wii era, numbskull!

Nintendo is currently not known for their 80s catalog of titles beyond generally being associated with Mario and Co. - they are known for the games and systems that most people grew up with - and statistically, that’s overwhelmingly Wii/DS and newer.

During which time their hardware has consistently lagged behind other systems, and rather than focus on graphics, like Nintendo once did - when they were pushing the hardware envelope - with titles like Super Mario 64, Nintendo has shifted focus and decided to use commodity hardware for their consoles.

Now, as a shift in strategy, I’m not saying it’s necessarily wrong, but don’t try and deny what’s going on.

They absolutely chose the hardware for the switch because it was cheap. There isn’t anything particularly special about that Nvidia chip, it had been commercially available for two years by the time the switch came out, so yes it’s reasonable to assume Nvidia was offloading it cheaply.

Use your brain and maybe put away the Nintendo kneepads.

Mr_Dr_Oink,

Yeah, the physics on botw and totk are so simple. It hurts my brain how basic those games are.

Two of the highest rated games of all time.

On switch

The most underpowered console of our generation.

But yeah mortal kombat couldn’t make the game look even slightly better because it can only be as good at totk. That really basic shitty looking extremely popular and highly rated game.

clanginator, (edited )

Yeah, the physics on botw and totk are so simple. It hurts my brain how basic those games are.

Half Life 2 had physics like that 20 years ago.

Also totk is a stuttering mess when anything sufficiently complex happens unless you overclock the switch, which just proves the point of how underpowered the switch is.

Also also, art style CARRIES those games’ graphics. Running those games at higher res (or just on a TV) really shows the constraints they had to work within to get the games to run.

Two of the highest rated games of all time.

Yeah, and I’m sure the loyal Zelda/Nintendo fanboys have nothing to do with that.

Don’t get me wrong, they’re fantastic games, but I don’t think they’d be nearly as popular/well-received if they weren’t Zelda titles.

If you need an example in the opposite direction, I don’t even need to look up which Pokemon game it was that looked like dogshit on the switch bc you know exactly what I’m talking about.

Mr_Dr_Oink,

Your claim about half life 2 is bold and would need backing up. Im not going to just accept your assertion without proof. That’s not how this works.

Totk has some frame rate issues here and there, but when you give playes the power to do whatever they want with a set of tools, you will always overload a game engine. Name any sandbox game that players haven’t been able to overload and cause frame rate drops.

Also, there are AAA games that struggle with frame rate drops on PC, PS5, and Xbox series X. Which i guess just proves the point of how underpowered those are… obviously, the switch is the lower end of these. Im not deluded. But claiming some stuttering in totk when players have set up chaos means it proves the switch is underpowered is just incorrect. Any game that gives you a set of tools and the instructions ,“go” stutters when there’s too much going on.

The switch is 6 years old, im not suprisdd its showing its age now. I am suprised its remained relevant and has games that are rated to highly.

So art style carries the games? So what? Isn’t that just ingenuity? And dorsnt it prove the .ain point of this thread? That Mortal Kombat could have looked good with a tweaked art style for switch but was just a bad port? If the product looks bad on the switch, then dont release it on Switch, i guess.

Ok, but if there are zelda/nintendo fan boys it follows that nintendo are consistently making great games and that zelda games are consistently great… you dont keep enough people gushing over your games by releasing trash game after trash game. Also fan boys wouldnt be enough alone to get a game that highly rated. Remeber that this game only released on switch, meaning it didnt have all the pa5 and xbox owners to help boost its numbers.

So whilst im sure the fanboys had something to do with it, its likely that the fact that the game is good played a kuch bigger part.

People bought a switch when these games came out just because they saw how good they were and wanted to play…

Sorry i think i know what you mean but i dont play the pokemon games. Is it the one with the shit textures, was it online like an mmo, i seem to recall one like that. Didnt interest me because it looked shit compared to so many other games ive played on switch.

clanginator,

lmfao have you never heard of the source engine? Garry’s mod? HL2 was just the first game running Source that really showed some of the physics and creativity off.

While the physics on totk are cool, and the crafting system is impressive, especially for the hardware it’s running on, nothing it does is exactly revolutionary. Plenty of games have been doing similar stuff for a very long time, on much older hardware.

Not exactly the same, and they certainly deserve credit bc what totk has is impressive, but acting like totk was some revolution in videogame physic and one of the best games ever is a bit of a stretch IMO. It’s a fun, well-made, complete open-world game, that builds on the previous title’s map.

Also, there are AAA games that struggle with frame rate drops on PC, PS5, and Xbox series X

Yeah but their stuttering is dropping from 60FPS to 50FPS, or 180FPS to 100FPS, and because they’ve got actually capable hardware, they also support freesync, which greatly reduces how jarring FPS drops feel.

But claiming some stuttering in totk when players have set up chaos means it proves the switch is underpowered is just incorrect

Any game that can barely run at 30FPS (totk relies heavily on dynamic resolution scaling in denser areas, even without player contraptions) and drops to 20FPS when loaded with stuff built in game is a stuttering mess. Be it on PC, Xbox or Switch. Switch doesn’t get a break on a game being a stuttering mess because it’s weak.

That’s literally the whole reason ppl are criticizing the switch. It makes games like totk a stuttering mess, instead of allowing people to enjoy incredible games like that at a nice smooth 60 or 90FPS

My two-year-old phone can run games at beyond 1440P, 120FPS, with better graphics than a Switch.

Any game that gives you a set of tools and the instructions ,“go” stutters when there’s too much going on.

Yes every game is gonna have a limit to the physics it can crunch. TOTK’s limit before stuttering is pretty damn small, relatively speaking.

And dorsnt it prove the .ain point of this thread? That Mortal Kombat could have looked good with a tweaked art style for switch but was just a bad port?

No. Because that would have required the devs to literally create new textures for every single asset in the game, with new art style, which especially in a game that people are often very competitive in can cause massive headaches for the devs.

Ok, but if there are zelda/nintendo fan boys it follows that nintendo are consistently making great games

Andrew Tate is a good person bc he has a lot of fanboys, right? If that logic doesn’t follow, why would it follow for videogames? Fanboys are known for irrational support, not rational criticism.

fan boys wouldnt be enough alone to get a game that highly rated.

en.wikipedia.org/…/List_of_review-bombing_inciden…

Remeber that this game only released on switch, meaning it didnt have all the pa5 and xbox owners to help boost its numbers.

Wow, REALLY?? Nintendo didn’t release Zelda on Xbox??? 🤪

So whilst im sure the fanboys had something to do with it, its likely that the fact that the game is good played a kuch bigger part.

I never said it wasn’t a good game. It’s a great game. Not my speed, but it’s great. I don’t think it’s anywhere close to top 10 tho, and the only reason it’s even in that discussion is because of fanboys who are okay with Zelda becoming just another open-world RPG with towers to climb and now crafting shit.

Is it the one with the shit textures

Yep, that’s the one.

ZOSTED,

I have a PC, PS5, and Switch, and never felt like the Switch was underpowered. Samewise, my phone doesn’t feel underpowered compared to my laptop, because I recognise they’re completely different devices.

You don’t get a Switch to play the latest God of War, you get it to play Mario and Zelda games, and cute lo-fi indie games

Jakeroxs,

That’s not how power works lol

ZOSTED,

Yeah that’s what I mean. They’re bad comparisons, because we don’t compare the “power” of a phone vs a laptop.

Jakeroxs,

People definitely do and can

ZOSTED,

People run Doom on a fridge

Jakeroxs,

Right… I’m not sure what your point is exactly with that, doom came out in 1993 and had extremely low requirements and looks as dated as it is. Of course it can run on machines like fridges or ATMs or calculators in more recently made devices because the power of the chips in these machines are better then PCs back when doom released.

clanginator,

Yeah I looked and idk what to say - it looks like a switch game.

If you bought a switch, which was an extremely underpowered when it was released 6 years ago, and then get upset when AAA games releasing on current gen consoles look like dogshit… You have nobody to blame but yourself.

stillwater,

Isn’t a PS5 vs Switch comparison kind of like a PS4 vs Wii comparison? They’re not even the same hardware generation, it’s a wonder they’re even dedicating resources to this.

ThisIsNotHim,
@ThisIsNotHim@sopuli.xyz avatar

It doesn’t look like a hardware issue. Yes, the less powerful hardware is what forced graphical changes, but it looks like an art direction problem.

The changes mostly fail to capture the essence of the original design. The characters look like they were ripped from the SIMs.

No one is expecting the same lighting, textures, or poly counts, but they do expect something that looks like Mortal Combat. That isn’t an unreasonable expectation.

You’re right that this may be a budgeting issue of sorts, but if they can’t set aside enough resources to make it look like some sort of Mortal Combat game, then maybe they shouldn’t have made the port.

DarkThoughts, do games w GTA 5 AI mod taken down by Take-Two lawyers

Take-Two is such a shitty and rotten company.

heimy,

Seriously

Toad_the_Fungus,

will never forgive them for ruining ksp 2

smeg, do games w Black Myth: Wukong studio requests influencers not include "feminist propaganda" or Covid-19 references in coverage

However, it’s clear Game Science, through Hero Games, is keen to control the narrative around Black Myth: Wukong to avoid negative coverage and ensure focus is on the game itself.

Given that this is the first I’ve heard of this game and I know nothing about the game itself, I feel they’ve shot themselves in the foot a little, eh?

Alimentar,

Nah for a while now, this was highly anticipated within the gaming community. Journalists have covered allegations and controversies but honestly no one really cared. People wanted a good game and they got one. Politics or not, their steam review is 96% at overwhelmingly positive.

Leate_Wonceslace, do games w Steam is now banned in Vietnam
@Leate_Wonceslace@lemmy.dbzer0.com avatar

I’m taking this off of my list of places to move if I ever fake my death.

MrScottyTay,

If you faked your death you’d likely never want to tie yourself to any platform that requires you to make an account that could in time be used to identify you

bassomitron,

What if it’s tied to your new identity? But idk, starting your whole library over from scratch… Better hope that insurance payout is nice.

Neon,

That’s why we use GOG and download the Installers!

Firipu,
@Firipu@startrek.website avatar

You don’t have a separate 100% anonymous steam account to use in case of having to fake your death? Your loss tbh…

isles,

Why buy one steam library when you can buy two for twice the price?

Leate_Wonceslace,
@Leate_Wonceslace@lemmy.dbzer0.com avatar

I am moving “faking my own death” lower on the list of retirement plans.

Shalakushka, do games w Cyberpunk 2077 director thanks fans as the game hits a 95% positive review rating on Steam
@Shalakushka@kbin.social avatar

Reading this thread makes me feel like I'm taking crazy pills. This game was mediocre as fuck. The open world was practically empty. There were like five characters with anything but a superficial motivation. Combat is point and click nothingness, there is no strategy whatsoever and the AI is practically nonexistent. Constant bugs and graphical issues. The big fixes only fixes the very last thing.

AFC1886VCC,

Amen to that. Technical issues aside, it’s one of the most shallow open world games I’ve played. There’s nothing to do when you’re not doing missions. There’s no depth to the combat. It’s a 5/10 at best for me.

AWittyUsername,

CDPR has so many fanboys that they managed to convince other people that it was a good game.

Drewelite,

I’m not a CDPR fanboy. Or at least I wasn’t before Cyberpunk. Cyberpunk and Hades are probably the best games I’ve played in a decade.

MufinMcFlufin, (edited )

Eh, at least as far as the combat goes I liked doing the Net Runner thing: hacking cameras left and right and killing off enemies before they ever saw me. That being said I put the game down when it became too much of a chore to get much anything upgraded. My combat style may have been suboptimal but I had fun with it.

I also didn’t have any issues with bugs or graphical issues, but I also first played it pretty far into its life after they could fix plenty of things. Don’t remember exactly when it was, but it was after the anime was no longer super relevant but before that big 2.0 update. I also know I played using some mods, and I can’t remember if there was a mod that fixed a bunch of issues.

Emmie, (edited )

There is some truth to what you say but the game is more than a sum of its parts. Even though individual strokes of game dev brush may be not perfect the whole package as of today creates memorable, even unforgettable experience.

trslim,

Have you played it after the 2.0 update? The combat feels awesome, as least my build did. I also disagree with the openworld being empty, driving around, listening to music, was one of my favorite things to do. Occasionally coming across little stories and unmarked encampments was really fun.

barsquid,

Based on everyone telling me BotW and TotK are the finest games ever made, perhaps people just want mostly empty open worlds with basic combat and max five characters with personalities.

squeakycat,

I felt the same about BotW. At first I enjoyed the freshness and exploration but it quickly gave way to the sinking realization that it’s an empty world with smatterings of lifeless villages and MMO-style quests. Ew.

barsquid,

Yeah. I’d much rather have the small number of deeper side quests in OoT or MM than, “hey buddy can you catch me ten crickets in exchange for a fistful of rupees? Thanks.”

zalgotext,

So did you just mash through all the dialogue and cutscenes or

lepinkainen,

I think you’re one of the people who wanted a cyberpunk GTA game and didn’t get it.

The story is fucking amazing, some of the side quests will stay with you for a long time.

The combat and driving are fine, I endure both to get forward in the story.

stevedidWHAT, do gaming w Twitch "isn't profitable" admits CEO, in wake of recent layoffs
@stevedidWHAT@lemmy.world avatar

Oh please they couldn’t fucking handle moderation I don’t trust them to handle fucking money either.

Let it rot

hansl,

What’s your alternative? YouTube?

legion02,

Kinda? Though they need a better discovery page for live streams.

funkless_eck,

Maybe we don’t actually need 10 hours of video game playing and bikini wearing at a time. Maybe that’s not a good product.

legion02,

Clearly people want it. Who are you to say what’s a good product?

funkless_eck,

The average^^@ user watches Twitch from 4pm to 5.30pm twice a week. There is absolutely a delta between what is required to be a profitable service, what is quality entertainment and what the service is and does currently.

^^@ this isn’t literal, but illustrative

legion02,

No idea how you can come to any of these conclusions given that viewer numbers are publicly visible. If this were true the streamers wouldn’t be live as much as they are outside these hours.

Dasnap,
@Dasnap@lemmy.world avatar

Justin.tv 2.

Carighan,
@Carighan@lemmy.world avatar

I’ll be honest, if the solution is Twitch, then I don’t need my problem solved. That is, compared to Twitch, I don’t need an alternative. Not having Twitch is a solid improvement over having Twitch. (kidding of course, but all too often it feels like that with just how bad the technical aspects of their site are)

GlitterInfection, do games w You can't talk about 2023 in games without talking about layoffs

Sure you can. Didn’t you watch the video game awards?

bungle_in_the_jungle, do games w Starfield's new PC patch delivers the game we should have had at launch - Eurogamer

Sigh. All these publishers are doing by rushing games out the door is training future buyers to not want to buy games on release.

phillaholic,

Sales figures keep going up so why would they wait?

Caradoc879,

Exactly. It was on games pass and it was still the most profitable release Bethesda has ever had. Why put in real effort when you don’t have to?

phillaholic,

Xbox’s M.O.

lorty,
@lorty@lemmy.ml avatar

People are even paying more to play it early, what are you talking about.

Potatos_are_not_friends,

There’s always a disconnect between gaming communities and reality.

Like how many boycotts did we have, and then the sales figures say differently?

aaronstc, (edited ) do gaming w Larian drops Series S split-screen as "solution" to bring Baldur's Gate 3 to Xbox this year

I don’t care about split screen but more evidence that the Series S was a mistake. At the very least Microsoft is going to have to ease up on the requirements.

Edit: It has come to my attention that I need to improve my reading comprehension. This only affects the S. 🤦‍♂️

Venutianxspring,

I don’t think it was a mistake, it brought next gen gaming to people that can’t afford, or don’t need the highest spec machines. I have a series S so I can play Xbox games with my son, I also have a gaming PC and steam deck. The price of the S allowed me to justify buying this, but I wasn’t about to drop the dough on an X just to play a few Xbox games

Hypx,
@Hypx@kbin.social avatar

It’s less powerful than an Xbox One X. I think the problem is that they didn’t really think through what a console generational leap would actually consist of.

ampersandrew,
@ampersandrew@kbin.social avatar

I think they thought through just how important hitting that price point was, because it's done very well for them.

Hypx,
@Hypx@kbin.social avatar

PS5 outsold both versions combined by around 2x. I don't think it was nearly that big of a deal.

ampersandrew,
@ampersandrew@kbin.social avatar

And do you think that would have panned out better if the cheaper console option wasn't available? Not to mention it would only leave them with the console that shared a lot of the same components as the PS5 during supply shortages as well.

Hypx,
@Hypx@kbin.social avatar

Microsoft should really ask themselves why they couldn't have procured more components, despite being one of the most profitable companies on Earth.

ampersandrew,
@ampersandrew@kbin.social avatar

I mean, unless their goal is to lose even more money on each console sold, I doubt they were interested in that. But that's not their goal. Their goal is to get people subscribed to Game Pass.

Hypx,
@Hypx@kbin.social avatar

Game Pass includes PC gamers. It's probably not that profitable either.

ampersandrew,
@ampersandrew@kbin.social avatar

Game Pass does include PC gamers, which is why they're probably more interested in opening up that service to more people with a cheap console SKU than to sell Xbox consoles, likely because outselling Sony by doing the same thing Sony is doing is a very steep hill to climb.

Hypx,
@Hypx@kbin.social avatar

Then why even bother with a console? Just define the minimally specced PC box needed for Game Pass and call it a day.

ampersandrew,
@ampersandrew@kbin.social avatar

One day they might. PC has taken a larger and larger market share as time has gone on. PCs became easier to game on, consoles became less streamlined, and perhaps even the closed-off nature of consoles compared to the open nature of PCs has played a role. But as of 2023, you're still not making a $300 PC that plays games as well as an S. While consoles have become less streamlined, they're still more streamlined than a PC.

Hypx,
@Hypx@kbin.social avatar

We've already established that the $300 box is not viable for much longer. And since it sold around 1/3 the numbers of the PS5, it didn't even work as advertised.

ampersandrew,
@ampersandrew@kbin.social avatar

Did we establish that? Most of the biggest games are not the hardest on system requirements. And while Microsoft would obviously prefer that they sold more Xboxes and reached more Game Pass subscribers (the 25M-30M is impressive regardless), I'd be surprised if they expected the majority of those to be Series S; but they probably did recognize that that customer base is still worth reaching. We're just not at a point in the history of consoles where they all have the same business model anymore, like they did 20 years ago.

Hypx,
@Hypx@kbin.social avatar

They compromised their higher end system with their lower end system. It's time to admit they made a mistake here, and they are only now starting to fix it.

ampersandrew,
@ampersandrew@kbin.social avatar

I've got a really hard time calling it a mistake when it's been more successful, but you do you.

any1th3r3,

Yes, thank you!
Microsoft has historically never been profitably selling consoles, which is certainly part of their shift towards different business models, including Game Pass and a focus on more than just Xbox, but PC and Cloud as well. They don’t really have much of a financial incentive to sell consoles for that sake alone, they have to get people to subscribe to Game Pass and/or buy games (possibly digitally whenever possible) and the Series S is their best console for that, as the consumer is very much locked in.

masterspace,

It’s less powerful than an Xbox One X

Lmao, bruh, no one who has played games on both would ever claim that. It has slightly more raw graphical compute power while having a drastically weaker CPU, slower SSD, slower memory, and slower overall throughput.

Hypx,
@Hypx@kbin.social avatar

It has faster memory than the Series S. More importantly, it has more RAM. A few improvements here and there doesn't make the Series S a real next-gen console.

masterspace, (edited )

As someone who has a One X, a Series S, and a Series X, I can assure you that you have no idea what you’re talking about.

The One X doesn’t get used anymore and the Series S gets used ballpark more often than the series X. Pretty much all games play a very comparable experience on it compared to the series X, something that cannot be said about the One X.

Carter,

It just isn’t though.

aaronstc,

Yeah, I guess calling it a mistake is a bit much but it’s clearly holding the Series X back especially in this case.

Carter,

The most popular Xbox this generation was a mistake?

eratic,
@eratic@feddit.uk avatar

Most popular Xbox this generation, as opposed to… the second most popular Xbox this generation?

Carter,

The point being it’s hardly a mistake if most are buying it over the X.

eratic,
@eratic@feddit.uk avatar

So, does that mean the X was a mistake since the S has more sales? What is your point

Carter,

No it means there’s clearly more demand for the S. My point is you claiming it was a mistake could not have been any less accurate.

eratic,
@eratic@feddit.uk avatar

I never said it was a mistake? I’m just saying what you said was meaningless…

The dreamcast is the most popular SEGA console of its generation. A raging success!

Zorque,

Is that because people actually want an S... or because they settled because they couldn't find an X? Everywhere I go there's tons of S's available and almost no X's available. Obviously anecdotal, but maybe it's not so much buying it over the X as buying it because the X just isn't in reach... either because of price (though if you can't afford a hundred dollars extra for a console... you can't really afford the console at all, and you're just justifying it to yourself) or because of lack of availability in general.

Omegamanthethird,

Just a note, it’s not $100 difference. It’s $200 difference ($300 vs $500). Having said that, the only reason I got the SS was because I couldn’t get the SX. I tried and failed. I would have preferred a $400 digital version of the SX even. Settled for the SS. Had to get an SSD expansion card, feature parity is apparently not a thing, had to rebuy a couple games digitally.

masterspace,

Lol comments like this are proof that gamers are still toxic fanbois who will make a mountain of a molehill if it makes them feel superior to someone else.

aaronstc,

I don’t see how I’m a fanboy. The Series X lost a feature because of the Series S. I’m sure the parity requirement had good intentions but I doubt this is the last time this will happen.

As others are pointing out the Series S is selling well but it’s the weakest link.

I guess calling it a mistake is about strong…

Carter,

Read again. Spilt screen has been dropped for the S but not X.

aaronstc,

Well, it seems, I can’t read. ¯_(ツ)_/¯

towerful,

To be fair, I heard a lot of rumours about it not coming to Xbox because Microsoft required parity of features.
So, I can understand your misreading

blindsight,

Please respect the rules of the instance if you choose to comment here.

The only rule at Beehaw is Be(e) Kind. Your comment was needlessly aggressive and abrasive and you could have made your point just as easily in a kind way.

Thanks for keeping this a positive space for everyone.

hypelightfly,

The console itself wasn't a mistake. Their promises of feature parity was the mistake.

Not making it have the same amount of RAM was also a mistake, it could have been just a weaker GPU which would have had less issues.

soulsource,
@soulsource@discuss.tchncs.de avatar

Whoever made that decision obviously never worked in gamedev.

dillekant,

I don’t think anyone in these comments has worked in gamedev.

soulsource,
@soulsource@discuss.tchncs.de avatar

I was talking about the person(s) at Microsoft, who decided that it’s a good idea to have less RAM on the Series S than on the Series X…

(And for context: I work in gamedev, and in my experience making games stay within the memory budget is one of the toughest parts of porting games to consoles.)

dillekant,

who decided that it’s a good idea to have less RAM on the Series S than on the Series X…

Supply chains are complicated, and MS probably did their due diligence to ensure minimal blockages. From seeing the memory structures of newer video cards, I’m pretty sure there are supply constraints to memory to think of.

Honestly I think gamedevs leaning on memory this hard instead of compute is a mistake. You can have intelligently tiled, procedurally generated textures and have a lot more of them, but instead everyone is leaning on authored content on disc. This goes against industry trends in non-game rendering where procedural generation is the norm. If Doom Eternal can look that good with forward rendering, there are no excuses.

My main beef with the hate on the Series S is that both times it’s been a big deal (BG3 and Halo Infinite), it has been split screen which has held back shipping. The community would be as justified going after split screen as they are going after the Series S.

soulsource,
@soulsource@discuss.tchncs.de avatar

Tell that to our artists 😉. As a coder I’m all for procedurally generated content. I did replace several heavy textures in our games by procedural materials, to squeeze out a couple of extra MB. However, that’s not the way artists traditionally work. They often don’t have the programming knowledge needed to develop procedural materials on their own, and would need to rely on technical artists or programmers to do so. Drawing a texture however, is very much part of their skillset…

But yeah, the mention of “squeezing out a couple of MB” brings me to another topic, namely that (at least in our games) the on-disk textures are only part of the RAM usage, and a relativley small one on comparison. In the games I worked on, meshes made up a significantly larger amount of RAM usage. We have several unique assets, which need to fulfill a certain quality standard due to licensing terms, such that in the end we had several dozens of meshes, each over 100 MB, that the player can freely place… Of course there would still be optimization potential on those assets, but as always, there’s a point where further optimization hits diminishing returns… In the end we had to resort to brute-force solutions, like unloading high quality LODs for meshes even if they are relatively close to the player… Not the most beautiful solution, but luckily not often needed during normal gameplay (that is: if the player doesn’t intentioally try to make the game go out-of-memory).

But I’m rambling. The tl;dr is: The memory constraints would not be a big deal if there was enough time/money for optimization. If there is one thing that’s never enough in game dev, it’s time/money.

dillekant,

OK so this is now offtopic for the conversation, but…

However, that’s not the way artists traditionally work.

To some extent, it’s authoring tools which affect how they work. A procedural materials pipeline can help them compose on top of already procedural content. In a way, you could see PBR as a part of that pipeline because PBR materials are physics modelled. Having said that I do take your point, even building out that pipeline takes time. Creating a PBR materials library is not super easy, and obviously organic stuff is very hard to model as a material.

meshes made up a significantly larger amount of RAM usage

From watching blender modelling, I thought the pattern was to have minimal rigging on the base mesh and then tesselation via normal maps + subdivision (apparently this is very doable even with sculpting). Obviously for animation you need a certain quality but beyond that I thought everything would be normal maps, reflection maps, etc etc.

soulsource,
@soulsource@discuss.tchncs.de avatar

I’m not an artist - my 3D modelling experience can be summed up as “none”, so I can’t really answer your last point. I know for certain that we don’t use normal maps to the extent they could be used, and therefore have way more detail in the meshes than they would need to have. I’m also pretty certain that we don’t do any tesselation on player pawns, and I think (but am not certain) that this is due to some engine limitation (again, don’t quote me on that, but iirc Unreal doesn’t support tesselation on skeletal meshes on all our target platforms).

dillekant,

TIL for no tessellation on skeletal meshes. I hope over time Unreal / Epic will put some effort in on minimising memory usage, even though I know they “just” got done with Nanite and friends.

twistedtxb,
@twistedtxb@lemmy.ca avatar

Not everyone is able to afford a gaming PC, let alone a current gen gaming console.

Series S offers them a great opportunity. It is far from a mistake.

MJBrune,

At this point you can make a 600 dollar PC that is just as strong as a console.

twistedtxb,
@twistedtxb@lemmy.ca avatar

Still twice a much as a series S. $600 is alot of money for many people

MJBrune,

Certainly but it will last longer. Although people are instant gratification machines that won’t take anything less.

fiah,
@fiah@discuss.tchncs.de avatar

Certainly but it will last longer.

that’s highly debatable if we’re talking about a $600 PC. I mean, yes you can argue that with games on PC you can always figure something out to get acceptable performance, but people in the market to buy a $300 console likely lack the experience, knowledge or time to do that

MJBrune,

You might not be able to play the latest and greatest but you can still play many games and you don’t lose access to them. They are shutting down the Xbox 360 store soon, thus they’ll lose access to any games they don’t have downloaded. I have games on Steam older than time itself that I can still download, even if the publisher has delisted them and stopped them from being sold. I know people who still use laptops from 2005 to play indie games. Essentially pretty soon Xbox 360s are going to turn into disc-only consoles where a 600-dollar computer would never revert to that and people today play on computers from 20 years ago. It’s rare but it certainly happens, especially in the Linux crowd.

Lastly, you can always upgrade a computer part by part. Which doesn’t require knowledge of how the hardware connects. Just take it to a shop and tell them you want it to run faster for a game and they usually will do some inspections, charge you 100 dollars in labor and then whatever for parts, and get your machine upgraded.

YourFavouriteNPC,
@YourFavouriteNPC@feddit.de avatar

In what world is “It will last longer” an answer to “I can’t afford that”? I doesn’t matter how long something will last if people don’t have the extra money to spend on something more expensive.

MJBrune,

Because they will likely buy another thing in that same time. You don’t need an entertainment box immediately. You can wait, save, and buy an entertainment box that can do multiple things.

lustyargonian,

If it was a mistake, how the game now coming to Series S proving that? The only thing it proves is that split screen is a demanding feature and MSFT shouldn’t impose parity of that, which they shamelessly accepted after the success of BG3. It’s still a good console to play modern games, of course not at best fidelity, but I don’t think that matters.

Edit: just realised you’re saying that with an incorrect conclusion that split screen wouldn’t be coming on Series X. Well, that isn’t the case, and probably brings the game to more people with least amount of harm.

Fafner, do gaming w Starfield has housing system, player jail, and more reveals Bethesda in new Q&A
@Fafner@yiffit.net avatar

Remember: “It just works.”

Never pre-order, never have hope.

shiveyarbles,

Hope is the mind killer

Acedelgado,

Luckily it's on Gamepass that I subscribe to anyways. So no regrets of it's bad other than the wasted bandwidth to download.

Namstel,

Never give up, never surrender.

stmcld, do gaming w Denuvo adds watermarking to help developers trace leakers

I have nothing to add other than saying Fuck Denuvo. It’s one of the worst things to happen to the gaming world

CommanderCloon,

counterpoint: Ubisoft

Computerchairgeneral, do games w Star Wars: Battlefront Classic Collection used modder's work without credit

Aspyr really keeps stepping on rakes with this one don't they? Rereleasing a classic like this should have been a slam dunk. It's really becoming a trend with Aspyr to have issues with their Star Wars ports, but at the same time I have to wonder if if there was pressure from Embracer to rush this out the door. When you're still desperately axing and selling off studios, rereleasing a fan favorite Star Wars game probably sounds like easy money no matter how much more time the game needs to be finished.

Moonrise2473, do gaming w Epic's EU game store and Fortnite iOS plans stall as Apple bans developer account

Apple doing malicious compliance.

What’s the point of a third party app store if devs still need to be approved by Apple?

Hope they get fined

I_Comment_On_EVERYTHING, do gaming w CD Projekt Red devs unionise after its third round of layoffs in three months

Good for them! My union did massively right by me so far and as far as I am aware there have been zero downsides.

Blake, (edited )

For workers, unions are 100% upside.

The extent to which you are arguing against overwhelming evidence cannot be understated. You are arguing against something less controversial than evolution.

We know that unions promote economic equality and build worker power, helping workers to win increases in pay, better benefits, and safer working conditions.

But that’s not all unions do. Unions also have powerful effects on workers’ lives outside of work.

High unionization levels are associated with positive outcomes across multiple indicators of economic, personal, and democratic well-being

Unions raise wages of unionized workers by roughly 20% and raise compensation, including both wages and benefits, by about 28%.

Unionized workers are more likely to receive paid leave, have health insurance and pension plans.

Unionized workers receive more generous health benefits than nonunionized workers.

Unionized workers receive 26% more vacation time and 14% more total paid leave

How unions help all workers

Workers get significant economic benefits from labor unions

Unionized workers earn 10.2% more than their non-union peers

Supporting workers’ right to organize is a key way to help boost wages and support quality jobs.

Unions provide major economic benefits for workers and families

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