Remedy Games Dev on Series S: You have to take into account the technical limitations from the beginning of development

Bernoulli

M2 slut
Interesting insight from a Dev, so new games will all have to be made with Series S in mind even if the other consoles are better they can't fully utilize them
And he says they can't scale like on PC




 
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honestly I could give a flying shit about cRPGs on a console. I feel for Larian having to get such a complex set of systems working on a severely limiting machine.

They made Divinity OS 2 work so well on switch all things considered, but playing that kind of game on a hand held felt atrocious
 
And to think, Microsoft consider the Series S their base current gen console with the Series X as their 'pro' model.

At the end of next year they'll have the weakest base model and the weakest pro model.
 
No shit.

Literally what everyone who didn't choke on the marketing said from the beginning.

Developing for lowest mandated spec as the baseline and then scaling up is and always will be the most efficient way to develop software. Doing it any other way is asking for a headache.
 
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Agreed with the dev. You can't just optimize for the PS5 and Series X when everything has been done. It's clear they can't keep up with the Series S so time to drop them both.
 
as foretold by the messiah aeons ago

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Developers feel threatened by success of Series S, am assuming?

They don't want all console makers to follow suit.

No, they were hoping to be free of a number of shackles that last gen hardware placed on them but instead got met with being forced to develop for a system that represents the lowest gen on gen increase in console history.

Higher end hardware = more freedom and in many cases less dev time. The latter is a gift and a curse, because more powerful hardware means developers can get away with murder from an optimisation standpoint, however in theory it should mean that if all else is equal (e.g. The scope of games compared to "last gen") then development cycles can be shorter. But the more powerful hardware in this case gives them a choice - do they go for a quicker dev cycle but retread old ground, or do they go for an equal or longer dev time and really push the boundaries?

The existence of the Series S, especially due to the fact that they are mandated (key word here before someone mentions PC specs) to develop for it if they want to develop for the Series X, takes away that aforementioned choice. It's a system that should never have been tethered to the Series X, especially given the notable hardware differences outside of just theoretical teraflops.
 
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The truth is slowly seeping out on the Series S. More complications with future games will follow and more devs will open up about the headaches optimizing for it. MS handicapped themselves for an entire generation. What a bizarre turn of events.
 
I think the guys from Digital Foundry won't agree with these developers, there is no real proof of being underpowered. They really like the Series S and praising Microsoft's brilliant idea for it, but in the same time they think Sony's PS5 Pro is a stupid idea.
 
The Series S is a fantastic consumer friendly cheap alternative to get your feet wet in currentgen, and it is a PITA to work with and scale down to in terms of software development resources, mainly time.

Two things can be right at the same time.
 
The thing that concerns me about all this is feature parity. Larian highlighted this issue with Baldur's Gate 3. They made the choice to delay the Xbox version of the game due to being required to have split screen coop on XSS. That's the appropriate way to handle that, imo, but they could have scrapped that feature from the game entirely to accommodate XSS. Makes me wonder what other features have been scrapped this gen because of XSS.

And remember, feature parity clauses apply to other consoles, not just between XSX and XSS.

 
No, they were hoping to be free of a number of shackles that last gen hardware placed on them but instead got met with being forced to develop for a system that represents the lowest gen on gen increase in console history.

Higher end hardware = more freedom and in many cases less dev time. The latter is a gift and a curse, because more powerful hardware means developers can get away with murder from an optimisation standpoint, however in theory it should mean that if all else is equal (e.g. The scope of games compared to "last gen") then development cycles can be shorter. But the more powerful hardware in this case gives them a choice - do they go for a quicker dev cycle but retread old ground, or do they go for an equal or longer dev time and really push the boundaries?

The existence of the Series S, especially due to the fact that they are mandated (key word here before someone mentions PC specs) to develop for it if they want to develop for the Series X, takes away that aforementioned choice. It's a system that should never have been tethered to the Series X, especially given the notable hardware differences outside of just theoretical teraflops.

What you are saying may or may not be true.

But, this seems like strategically placed statement. Never have I seen Dev's complain about lower specs before.

They are clearly concerned that Sony, Nintendo might be considering similar options, since hardware being bottleneck, those days are long gone now.

TOTK works on Switch. Starfield is gonna release on Series S. Two of the more ambitious titles. Are they planning to make something even more complex/advanced? Sure, feel free to drop xbox. I would like to see such game that would not be feasible on Series S. Will gladly get a new PC/PS5 whatever developers will deliver it on.
 
What you are saying may or may not be true.

But, this seems like strategically placed statement. Never have I seen Dev's complain about lower specs before.

They are clearly concerned that Sony, Nintendo might be considering similar options, since hardware being bottleneck, those days are long gone now.

TOTK works on Switch. Starfield is gonna release on Series S. Two of the more ambitious titles. Are they planning to make something even more complex/advanced? Sure, feel free to drop xbox. I would like to see such game that would not be feasible on Series S. Will gladly get a new PC/PS5 whatever developers will deliver it on.

Pretty much this. Seems like a dev with an agenda (which is fine) versus decades of how game design works. And it would be more believable if we were seeing all of these amazing ambitious titles not possible on Series S on other platforms but they don't exist 🤷‍♂️
 
What you are saying may or may not be true.

But, this seems like strategically placed statement. Never have I seen Dev's complain about lower specs before.

They are clearly concerned that Sony, Nintendo might be considering similar options, since hardware being bottleneck, those days are long gone now.

TOTK works on Switch. Starfield is gonna release on Series S. Two of the more ambitious titles. Are they planning to make something even more complex/advanced? Sure, feel free to drop xbox. I would like to see such game that would not be feasible on Series S. Will gladly get a new PC/PS5 whatever developers will deliver it on.
I can see another cyberpunk with the series s and starfield. There is no way it runs/looks good. If Bethesda somehow manage it then there really is no excuse for other devs.
 
as foretold by the messiah aeons ago

Jim-Ryan-Comment.jpg
Well it had great results for Xbox. Series S still sells more than X.
Lower resolution or 1-2 game delays won't matter too much if general populace bought the cheaper console to play their favorite third party game.

Series S mostly would be people with already a PS4/5 or price sensitive base. Both aren't affected by delays and lower fidelity too much (somewhat).
 
I can see another cyberpunk with the series s and starfield. There is no way it runs/looks good. If Bethesda somehow manage it then there really is no excuse for other devs.
Lets just wait and see how Starfield runs before we make this leap, and remember, not everyone has the resources Bethesda and CD proj have.

It's not like Larian said never, they had to delay it - the more they wait to get things running well the more it costs the company without a constant cash flow.
 
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2021 Article. But idk. 2022/23 certainly didn't had much reason for people to buy X either for scenario to change.
Well for the first good while an S is all you could find online and in stores. I'd be curious to see how the numbers stack up now but ms is always stingy with that kind of stuff.
 
The thing that concerns me about all this is feature parity. Larian highlighted this issue with Baldur's Gate 3. They made the choice to delay the Xbox version of the game due to being required to have split screen coop on XSS. That's the appropriate way to handle that, imo, but they could have scrapped that feature from the game entirely to accommodate XSS. Makes me wonder what other features have been scrapped this gen because of XSS.

And remember, feature parity clauses apply to other consoles, not just between XSX and XSS.



DOS2 is massive on coop, scrapping is absolute not a option.
 
To think I lived in a time when arcades had unreachable specs for home consoles, yet millions of people didn't mind a few compromises to play the hot arcade game of the day on their living room TV.
 
I've not been for the S and I haven't been against it, as long as it wouldn't hold anything back. Obviously it's more work though. But I genuinely hope it isn't holding anything back. Don't think we've actually had any evidence of that? Thank god.
 
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