Microsoft is getting a bad rep because they don’t want to let the Series S go. They are not handling these problems very well. The Series X should be the “cheap” platform and they should have a “Pro”, called Series XS (pronounced excess, you are welcome Microsoft), so they are the platform that people want and not the platform that’s holding back games.
The problem is the Series S sold a lot, last I read it was about two thirds of their user base. Microsoft also want to push platform independence using X Cloud, which solves their Series S issues, but with the feature parity requirement in the Series X and S, they keep hitting this issue.
That’s a very bad business strategy, it should be one or the other, X Cloud or in Console parity. The parity being the weak one. I would like to know the defense arguments for this strategy.
The thing is, if a game releases on Series X without any bonus bells and whistles like (pick one) 4K, 60fps, or ray tracing, it’s kind of failed the move to next gen. If it then cannot scale any of those things back for the Series S, then it’s failed at designing scalability.
The new consoles do not exist to serve programmer inefficiency.
Do developers still make different games for different consoles? I thought the Xbox X was just a stronger Xbox One. Does MS disable these high quality graphics options in the menus?
Xbox has a packaged release system designed for that. Since the Series S isn’t really meant to go over 1080p, developers are encouraged to only include smaller versions of textures since anything too detailed would be wasted.
PS5, by contrast, tends to have simplified video settings panels so gamers can prioritize what they want - be that raytracing, 4K, or 60fps. Often, just having the extra power doesn’t necessarily matter if the game is coded against taking advantage of it. (I think Bloodborne is infamous for this - it hasn’t gotten an update, so even on PS5, everyone must play it locked at 30fps).
Similar to how the PS5 had “8K” on the box; it’s only technically capable of that for the sake of videos, but most games tend to go a bit smaller resolution for practical rendering.
I mean…I think yes, at some point a marketing department made that claim, which is unfortunate because that’s ultimately far from reality and most people know it. The claims made of the Series X and PS5 are also usually exaggerated, because most salespeople can get away with prefixing any claim with the words “up to”.
I read that it has nothing to do with the hardware, and is in fact because of Sony having an exclusive deal to release only on their platform the first few months.
Sony no longer needs to convince anyone to give beneficial treatment to PlayStation because Xbox failed so hard. You can complain about exclusivity deals Sony made with a few publishers all you want, the fact is that only Microsoft is to blame for not developing any 1st party games people want. Xbox flat lined so hard, it’s a genuine “why waste money on porting and QA?” at this point.
Games like God of War drive platform sales. The few good games out of Microsoft are usually better on Windows anyway, so really no need to get an Xbox at all.
The problem is if Sony has a monopoly on the premium console market, they can charge any number they want and consumers have no other option. Less competition always means prices go up.
Sony’s practice of paying money not for exclusivity for their platform, just to stop developers from developing for Xbox for a period of time, is anti-consumer and needs to stop.
The problem is if Sony has a monopoly on the premium console market
“premium console” is such a weird qualifier to get around the fact that Nintendo Switch is the best selling console and Sony has no monopoly anywhere. Microsoft is the company that bought Activision-Blizzard, Bethesda, Minecraft, and more. They are the one with anti-consumer practices, scooping up everything with their money from their Windows and Office monopolies. You’re just bitter because you sank a lot of money into a bad system nobody likes. It really is not Sony’s fault that everybody wants God of War, Spider-Man, etc. and nobody wants mediocre games like Starfield, Redfall, Halo, etc.
Blame Microsoft for promoting the Series S to customers as being identical to Series X, other than games are just lower resolution and lacking a disk drive. It is Microsoft’s fault that the performance profiles of their two distinct consoles is that the Series S cannot play Baldur’s Gate multiplayer and that the policies prevented Larian to port their game to Xbox until they got a special exemption for feature disparity. It is Microsoft’s fault that the proclaimed 1440p system (Series S) needs further resolution, graphics quality, and framerate downgrades compared to Series X. It’s Microsoft who don’t even care that much about Xbox because all their games are better of Microsoft’s other platform (Windows) anyway.
Yeah, I’m leaning against it being a timed exclusivity thing, just because those are normally for much longer than just a month. I think it’s the S not having enough RAM causing problems.
“We’re excited for the launch of Black Myth Wukong on Xbox Series X|S and are working with Game Science to bring the game to our platforms. We can’t comment on the deals made by our partners with other platform holders, but we remain focused on making Xbox the best platform for gamers, and great games are at the center of that.”
But just remember that during the 360/PS3 era when MS were in the lead, it was Sony trying to by all consumer friendly, advocating online cross play and having free online service.
they have to find new ways of competing for business
Yeah haha. Regrettably doing right by the consumers because a competitor is.
Although I would not be surprised if they find a way to make a money pit out of it. (Such as not being chill like Sony and releasing on steam, forcing users on to the Windows store)
I wonder if MSFT would build an Xbox app that emulates Xbox, 360 and Xbox One on PC, making it possible to circumvent the need of cross saves/cross progression of older games. Currently it is annoying that you can’t just pick up a game on Xbox and continue playing it on your handheld gaming device for most games.
I think that just means not making any crazy technological decisions that will likely make games incompatible on future hardware. A great example was the PS3’s cell processor. It was excellent tech when used properly, but absolutley not “forward compatible”
Cell was just PowerPC as was the Xbox 360’s Xenon chip. PowerPC is all but dead now, but the same thing could happen to x86 or ARM in the future. No king rules forever.
I suppose, but in my mind, unless an absolutely revolutionary technology takes the world by storm, the industry wouldn’t just up and abandon x86 and ARM unless compatibility was decent. We’re talking ablut a world where businesses still use Windows XP because their software won’t work on later versions.
IDK, MS really went all the way with backwards compatibility. They literally built emulators for the 360 and OG Xbox in order to let people play old games using old disks they already owned.
I’d be shocked if they didn’t stay committed to this.
The rumored Series X refresh doesn’t have a disk drive.
It’d be hard for Microsoft to remain committed to game preservation in that way without them.
To me, this sounds more like they’re looking at Nintendo’s virtual store playbook and wondering how many times they can sell the same games to their customer base.
I refuse to build up expectations, the little I’ll hope for they will mess up. This is the same company that tried to make physical games unsharable long-term.
Which they walked back and hacen’t tried again since. Their latest console is also still backwards compatible with games from the first xbox.
I’m legitimately hopeful. Won’t ever stop the best option from being piracy and open source emulators on PC, but Microsoft’s track record for backwards compat is sparkling.
Sure, it’s not true hardware based backwards compat. It works by using the disc as a key to download and run a full copy of the original game + an emulation layer customized for the specific game, so if you don’t have internet or they pull the plug on their store servers you can’t just use the disk alone. If you lose the disc or it breaks, you have to buy the game again from their online store. Also, I’ve encountered some crashes and minor emulation issues with some titles. Poor, poor Kotor.
It’s sad, but that’s still leagues better than their competitors in the console market.
Sony makes you buy the old games again on each platform. Standard “Virtual Console” type shit. Thankfully, they usually do this by making a general emulator that homebrew folks can later shove non-supported games into.
Nintendo. Nintendo. Are you shitting me? An ongoing subscription to keep access to the same 30 year old games you’ve been reselling since the Wii?
You can use homebrew to shove other games in, but you risk a ban from their online services. Also, if you’re already doing homebrew, the consoles they offer games for this way on the Switch are more than easily handled by Retroarch running as homebrew.
Mario 3D All Stars? Take all the time and money to get a half port half emulation solution working on the Switch for one Gamecube and and one Wii game, sell it as time limited, don’t include the direct sequel to the Wii game that was built on the same fucking game engine in the package… and then never use that tech again? Are you fucking kidding me?
That last one shouldn’t surprise me too bad though. They managed to emulate the N64 on the Gamecube, and only used it for Legend of Zelda. Once in a limited preorder bonus for Wind Waker, and also in a limited Nintendo Power magazine bonus disc for subscribing.
There’s reason to believe that the next Xbox will just be a PC with a coat of paint, the same way that the Steam Deck is, and so this preservation team would, in that case, probably be built to legitimately emulate the Xbox 360 on PC, because that’s where the biggest compatibility gap is.
Emulation is the only thing that can long-term battle the difficulties of physical platforms evolving. Doubt x86_64 will be in main consumer hardware forever. I don’t even know if ARM will be forever. It’s all just a matter of timescale.
Like I said, they tried. They had leadership change, but at the end of the day consoles in general largely disrespect your freedom and are designed around it.
I do own several consoles and I like them for their emotional value, but I’m never going to trust lip service from ANY company that tolerates things like always-online DRM or worse: actively implements it themselves. (refer to figure A: latest Forza)
PS: I’ll admit I didn’t read all of your comment because by God that was WAY too much for 2:30am, but I’ll forget to reply otherwise and think I want to react to your initial statement at least.
Edit: Read the rest, my comment wasn’t to paint Xbox as worse than others (after reversing course), but rather expressing they all try to eat away your freedoms.
Backwards compat is nice, but only fixes self-imposed problems.
To be honest they’ve been doing this for a while with backwards compatibility so it’s continuation to make it forwards compatible as well. It’s a bummer they’re not following up with physical copies but it’s clear there’s been a lack of demand for Xbox games. Seems like they want to go the Steam route which I’m all for.
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