"MANY developers have been sitting in meetings for the past year desperately trying to get Series S launch requirements dropped"

DenchDeckard said:
Just woke up, how is this thread still going? I'm guessing for my own mental health I don't want to read it...lol

Two years in and still so much salt about the incredible series s
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Honda Singing GIF
 
Happy Series S gamer here. I like this guys take. He has a channel dedicated to testing all the games for series S and X. One of the more positive, happy content creators out there.
 
BouncyFrag said:
Happy Series S gamer here. I like this guys take. He has a channel dedicated to testing all the games for series S and X. One of the more positive, happy content creators out there.
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The last time the "developers problem aren't consumers problems" approach was tried from a company was the Cell on the PS3 and yeah.. it's not a good approach when it comes to designing hardware.

Probably not a perfect analogy because the Cell was a more fundmental architecture difference but I still think it would've been wise to give the Series S just a little bit more and a little bit faster RAM. It's not only no name indie developers that mention it, it has been mentioned by engineers from iD software and others. It's also been mentioned by developers according to Digital Foundry. It's just a little too much smoke to be something entirely made up at this point.

Will it have an impact long term? Maybe not, but I'd say there are more than enough indications that it creates issues than to just wave it away as a nothingburger.
 
jumpship said:
This topic is about current gen development.

It shouldn't need to be pointed out that PS4 is a last generation console, GOWR is a cross-gen title, and the PS5 version is the PS4 game with current gen enhancements. PS4 will already or soon be dropped from devs plans going forward.

There are no devs having meetings with Sony to have PS4 removed from current gen launch requirements. SMH this is even brought up as a comparison.
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Uh....just optimize it for XSX and PS5 and just lower the resolution and FPS for Series S! .......... There! Solved!
 
Hmmmm.........I bet Horizon: FW and God of War: Ragnarok would look 10x better and run better on the PS5 if the PS4 was not holding them back. They WOULD be next-gen games otherwise.
 
Gambit2483 said:
It makes me wonder if that's why SE still hasn't bothered putting FF7R on Xbox...or why Silent Hill 2 is currently a PS5 exclusive.

If devs don't want to limit their potential they can always just ignore the Xbox completely.
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No, that's actually business with Sony paying for exclusivity... Management won't see the XSS and think "Oh no, our poor devs gonna have to suffer by not targeting just the bigger machines, we have to leave that money on the table and forget about selling on the third biggest seller console in the market or they won't achieve their artistic vision, we can't just do that them!!"

Lol
 
Well it was just a dumb move that no console platform have done before. Who releases a next gen console with 2 different models on day 1.
mxbison said:
People thinking miminum requirements don't matter is so crazy.

Comparison to PC is silly. If your PC is too slow to run a game, that is your problem, nobody cares. Much different than having a low power console as base line that has to run the game.
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Id agree butI guess it depends on the game.
And whats the normal minimum specs for AA-AAA PC games that push graphics/ fast gameplay etc. Im guessing lower than a Series S, I have no idea?
 
Three said:
A rocksteady dev publicly tweeted recently about Series S too "entire generation of games [are] hamstrung by that potato".

I suspect because MS have introduced requirements that simply cannot be bypassed.
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You suspect Hamstrung? please elaborate as you're always playing devils advocate when it comes to xbox anything. Series S is more capable than a PS4 or Xbone, hamstrung in what way?
 
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TheThreadsThatBindUs said:
Can you name any next-gen exclusive games so far? Of course, there are very few because we're still in the cross-gen development period.

This is an inane argument.
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Exactly. That's why I said that RIGHT NOW, while PC is the min baseline, there's no reason to say XSS is limiting anything. It will in the future, but saying it does right now is an stretch imo.

Three said:
Again what you deem to be running on min spec is not something that would be certified by MS.
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- Do you have access to Microsoft certification requirements?
- Don't developers choose min specs based on what they think it's a reasonable experience?
 
cireza said:
Yeah, definitely a super stupid move from MS.

Imagine, having from the first day of a new gen, a console that has the exact same games as the other consoles that are 200+ $ more expensive, as well as being able to produce this budget console without any constraint while the two others are almost never available.

I can bet that people at MS regret selling a ton of these, without a doubt.
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That's great as long as everyone is okay with games looking barely any better than last gen. At least Sony first party isn't shackled by the series S weaknesses
 
onesvenus said:
- Do you have access to Microsoft certification requirements?
- Don't developers choose min specs based on what they think it's a reasonable experience?
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Not really, try playing Ark on min spec requirements. It will look like an N64 game and run at 10fps. That certainly wouldn't pass certification though. Point is min specs mean jack shit and they certainly don't mean it's the same as being certified on xbox or PS.
 
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oldergamer said:
You suspect Hamstrung? please elaborate as you're always playing devils advocate when it comes to xbox anything. Series S is more capable than a PS4 or Xbone, hamstrung in what way?
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Quotation marks are there because it's a quote. I'm not the one who 'suspects' it is hamstrung.
 
I don't believe a single word of this lol. And I'll explain why

  1. Studios don't sit around and chit-chat with each other, they are in competition, not friends and are normally tight-lipped about any internal processes. Why would he know "what a large number" of studios are asking for? Studios don't have weekly meetings with each other to "catch up" lmao. ????
  2. Why would said studio simply not publish on the platform rather than try to convince a fucking mega-corporation from removing an entire SKU? M$ is never the leading platform anyway...?? This makes literally no sense.
  3. Dev-kits were given out, THAT is when changes are to be suggested. Not 2 years after the launch of a console.
  4. All games are still cross-gen, what is he talking about? Besides, the Series S is powerful enough to target 1080/60. That's not a huge ask.
  5. PCs are often what bottleneck development, not consoles. 1060s are still usually targeted as the minimum is still common place.

I have not read any replies to this thread, but considering where I am I expect all of them to be cancer.
 
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Three said:
Not really, try playing Ark on min spec requirements. It will look like an N64 game and run at 10fps. That certainly wouldn't pass certification though. Point is min specs mean jack shit and they certainly don't mean it's the same as being certified on xbox or PS.
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That isn't true, Ark on minimum (a gtx 670 and a Sandy Bridge i5) will run at 1080p low or 900p medium/low at around 30fps. Hell it's better than the sad story state that it launched on consoles and I don't even have to include the Switch version.

There likely games that match your description, but Ark isn't one of them.
 
Kataploom said:
No, that's actually business with Sony paying for exclusivity... Management won't see the XSS and think "Oh no, our poor devs gonna have to suffer by not targeting just the bigger machines, we have to leave that money on the table and forget about selling on the third biggest seller console in the market or they won't achieve their artistic vision, we can't just do that them!!"

Lol
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Lol...Honestly, I think at this point, management is more like, "why invest millions of dollars to develop our Japanese based game for a console that sells like crap in Japan and historically has the lowest software attachment rate? Now, if we can get 30 million 💰💰💰 upfront and drop it on Gamepass then who cares how much it sells!"

😅
 
oldergamer said:
Sorry what's your opinion then? Why do you "suspect" there is something developers are forced to implement?
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Not any particular thing but generally more strict about framerate modes and raytracing parity they are pushing back on is what I suspect. Might be completely wrong though and they just need to drop it due to RAM on their current engine.
SomeGit said:
That isn't true, Ark on minimum (a gtx 670 and a Sandy Bridge i5) will run at 1080p low or 900p medium/low at around 30fps. Hell it's better than the sad story state that it launched on consoles and I don't even have to include the Switch version.

There likely games that match your description, but Ark isn't one of them.
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Sandy Bridge i5 is the minimum now? They have changed it then. Its original min spec was an Core duo E4400:

https://web.archive.org/web/20150519030512/https://www.systemrequirementslab.com/cyri/requirements/ark-survival-evolved/12631

And it ran really badly on min spec. waybackmachine seems to show it changing with the min spec going up (RAM requirement up from 4GB to 8GB and CPU from E4400 to i5-2400) in 2018. consoles don't have the privilege of doing that until the gen is over I suppose.
 
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Three said:
Not any particular thing but generally more strict about framerate modes and raytracing parity they are pushing back on is what I suspect. Might be completely wrong though and they just need to drop it due to RAM on their current engine.


Sandy Bridge i5 is the minimum now? They have changed it then. Its original min spec was an Core duo E4400:

https://web.archive.org/web/20150519030512/https://www.systemrequirementslab.com/cyri/requirements/ark-survival-evolved/126

And it ran really badly on min spec. waybackmachine seems to show it changing with the min spec going up (RAM requirement up from 4GB to 8GB and CPU from E4400 to i5-2400) in 2018. consoles don't have the privilege of doing that until the gen is over I suppose.
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It was never a Core 2 Duo, it was a vague dual core and a DX 10 GPU when it was in early access, but before the final version came out it was changed to the ones now.



It's less the ability to change requirements and more the work in progress nature of early access games. But the final games's requirements were always the same.

Edit: it's auto linking to the current page, here's the original capture

Code: 
https://web.archive.org/web/20151115190834/http://store.steampowered.com/app/346110/

https://web.archive.org/web/20170902004049/https://store.steampowered.com/app/346110/
 
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anthony2690 said:
I am looking at the dudes profile, he made that crappy I am fish game that was according to another user here, was only 30fps on series X. 🤷‍♂️



How dare the Series S hold back this crappy game...

I can imagine further in the gen though, the series s may get less than desirable ports when games start taxing series X/ps5 more.

How is plague tale requiem on series s?
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Link to your resume plz?
 
Corndog said:
And a terrible gpu. Plus the cpu was difficult to utilize.
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The Cell assisted with graphics as well so the subpar gpu wasn't as much of a issue as the split ram architecture.

Hard to program for but the games that showed it off were that gens best looking minus Crysis PC.
 
Séries S was a mistake. It will bite back MS in the ass I the near future, if it did not already happened...
But, as Sony extracts as much money from PS4 has they can, making all their flagship exclusives cross gen, it does not matter on the other hand. PS4 is the one holding back this gen for sure....
 
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S0ULZB0URNE said:
The Cell assisted with graphics as well so the subpar gpu wasn't as much of a issue as the split ram architecture.

Hard to program for but the games that showed it off were that gens best looking minus Crysis PC.
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It also had less usable ram. OS footprint was much larger at launch though it gradually came down. Cell still was a handicap for games. It only had one main core.

https://www.playstationlifestyle.net/2009/12/18/ps3-reduces-os-footprint-by-more-than-half/
 
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skit_data said:
The last time the "developers problem aren't consumers problems" approach was tried from a company was the Cell on the PS3 and yeah.. it's not a good approach when it comes to designing hardware...
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I'd argue the last time it was tried it was called "Nintendo Switch". I thought it would fail. And yet, it was so damn successful that developers worked through the problems to get their games on the platform anyway.
 
Corndog said:
It also had less usable ram. OS footprint was much larger at launch though it gradually came down. Cell still was a handicap for games. It only had one main core.

https://www.playstationlifestyle.net/2009/12/18/ps3-reduces-os-footprint-by-more-than-half/
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"The Cell CPU has one 3.2Ghz PPE (Power Processor Element) with two threads and eight 3.2Ghz SPE (Synergistic Processing Elements). The PPE is a general purpose CPU, while the eight SPE are geared towards processing data in parallel"

CELL BE - PS3 Developer wiki

Playstation Development Wiki - PS5, PS4, PS3, PS2, PS1, PSP, Vita Information
www.psdevwiki.com www.psdevwiki.com

The SPE's act like cores so 8 each running @3.2GHZ with 6 or 7 enabled.

The Cell was a monster for its time.
 
tonyhh said:
I don't believe a single word of this lol. And I'll explain why

  1. Studios don't sit around and chit-chat with each other, they are in competition, not friends and are normally tight-lipped about any internal processes. Why would he know "what a large number" of studios are asking for? Studios don't have weekly meetings with each other to "catch up" lmao. ????
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This is completely wrong and inaccurate, and it shows that you've never worked in game development. Game developers absolutely have many contacts throughout the entire industry and many game development studios are located close to each other to create a hub. Furthermore, game developers have a tendency to switch jobs to different studios often. If you look over the credits of a game developed about a decade or so, most of the staff working on it probably isn't working for that studio
tonyhh said:
  1. Why would said studio simply not publish on the platform rather than try to convince a fucking mega-corporation from removing an entire SKU? M$ is never the leading platform anyway...?? This makes literally no sense.
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....You mean just straight up ignore a large part of potential audience that currently makes up 40 ~ 50% of the entire current gen user base? That makes no sense? What? You okay, friend?
tonyhh said:
  1. Dev-kits were given out, THAT is when changes are to be suggested. Not 2 years after the launch of a console.
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Who says that wasn't happening?
tonyhh said:
  1. All games are still cross-gen, what is he talking about? Besides, the Series S is powerful enough to target 1080/60. That's not a huge ask.
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Not all games are cross - gen, in fact this discussion was started due to reports of a current gen only game.
tonyhh said:
  1. PCs are often what bottleneck development, not consoles. 1060s are still usually targeted as the minimum is still common place.
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Yeah they are. For Cross gen games. For current gen only games, not so much.
 
S0ULZB0URNE said:
"The Cell CPU has one 3.2Ghz PPE (Power Processor Element) with two threads and eight 3.2Ghz SPE (Synergistic Processing Elements). The PPE is a general purpose CPU, while the eight SPE are geared towards processing data in parallel"
[/URL][/URL]

The SPE's act like cores so 8 each running @3.2GHZ with 6 or 7 enabled.

The Cell was a monster for its time.
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Those SPEs aren't full cores and are limited though. They aren't good at typical cpu tasks. So if you have a cpu heavy game it made things difficult. The only thing monstrous about cell was the difficulty in figuring out how to program it.

Could it provide a lot of raw power? Sure. But the better design would of been to just use a traditional cpu and better gpu.

Edit:
Did it make multiplat a difficult? Yes it did. But once the problem was solved it became more minor. The same will happen with series s.
 
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lh032 said:
this spells trouble for Microsoft 1st party exclusive games.
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It's like the console is not launched yet, my god we have enough games to sample that it's not the case... One of their most demanding PC simulation (Fight simulator) is running very well on this small machine.
 
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Corndog said:
Those SPEs aren't full cores and are limited though. They aren't good at typical cpu tasks. So if you have a cpu heavy game it made things difficult. The only thing monstrous about cell was the difficulty in figuring out how to program it.

Could it provide a lot of raw power? Sure. But the better design would of been to just use a traditional cpu and better gpu.

Edit:
Did it make multiplat a difficult? Yes it did. But once the problem was solved it became more minor. The same will happen with series s.
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They do act like cores.
They are great at cpu heavy tasks when utilized correctly.
The problem architecture was ahead of its time and alien to most devs.

If I'm not mistaken 3rd party devs(unlike some 1st party devs) only used 3 of the SPE'S to match the 3 cores of the XCPU/Xenon in most cases which resulted in 360 having better versions of 3rd party games.

The xss situation isn't as bad and only has the split ram issue in common.
 
onesvenus said:
Exactly. That's why I said that RIGHT NOW, while PC is the min baseline, there's no reason to say XSS is limiting anything. It will in the future, but saying it does right now is an stretch imo.
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Who is saying it's limiting games right now?

The folks complaining are developers like the one quoted in the OP who are working directly on the next wave of current-gen exclusive games.

It kinda feels like you're an old man shouting at the clouds.
 
If Bossa Studios are working on a game more demanding than Cyberpunk and Flight Sim, which work just fine on the Series S, then let's hear about this graphical powerhouse they got cooking.
 
I am not a fan of the Series S, I think it holds the Xbox back. This is the one similarity I wish they followed PlayStation where the Series S would be exactly the Series X but without the disc drive (digital only and $100 cheaper).
 
It's really too bad we didn't get a discless Xbox series x instead. I think ram size and speed will be an issue in the future for the series s.
 
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