...What's changed this gen though is that we have one of the major players coming in with a cheap console and will see one of the smallest jumps in power in a generation. It's a completely new strategy for that company and if everybody decides that power isn't important but price is we will get an even smaller jump.
Not really. Following your logic, the weakest console holds back
everything else. So, the accurate comparison in your argument is the OG Xbox One, the weakest console of its generation, to the Xbox Series S, the weakest console of its generation. When you factor in that the Xbox Series S is targeting 1440p (1080p in reality, lets be honest), the jump in computational power is
enormous.
As for "power not mattering", the Nintendo DS outsold the Xbox 360 and the PS3 by well over
50%, and we still got a PlayStation 4 and an Xbox One. The Nintendo Switch is selling so quickly Nintendo aren't able to manufacture enough of them, and will still got a PlayStation 5 and an Xbox Series X. This is starting to feel like concern trolling, if I'm being honest.
...Read between the lines --
No thank you, this lets people make baseless assumptions and present them as fact. I'll go on the evidence and logic.
You're asking me to believe that Epic co-founder and CEO Tim Sweeny paid millions upon millions in R&D and funded his development teams' efforts to create, polish, and implement a production-ready SVOGI implementation into Unreal Engine 4, and then
after it was feature complete
he deleted the code from the engine - possibly while screaming "If my friend Phil Spencer can't use this, no one can!" - because the
Xbone couldn't run it. That simply doesn't make sense, given the sheer number of optional features within the engine. Doubly so when when you consider Crytek implemented this feature into their engine two years later, Rockstar implemented a version of the technique in their multi-platform engine - and got it running on the OG Xbone - and SIE Japan Studio implemented it into their engine and have it running on PS4.
... The tech was working, with a demo, pulled because it was computationally expensive for who? The multiplatform mass market that UE4 aims for....
What? A multi-platform engine that doesn't support features that aren't shared by
all platforms isn't a multi-platform engine. That's... not how Unreal Engine works. That's not how multi-platform development as a whole works. Do you understand what you're saying? Unreal Engine targets Mobile devices - why didn't they cut pixel shader implementation when phones couldn't make use of them? Unreal Engine supports VR, but Xbone doesn't - why didn't they cut that feature? Unreal Engine 5 supports advanced IO features written with a focus on the PS5. PC's can't use that feature, why wasn't that cut?
As with a lot of high-profile downgrades, it's much more likely Epic's SVOGI implementation never worked as well as they wanted it to in real scenarios. Reality bites, as they say. Epic said it was too computationally expensive, so they cut it. Remember, it took other developers several more years of development before we'd see this running in real games. Self-evidently, their implementations must be less computationally expensive than Epic's attempt. It's much more likely that Epic's attempt at SVOGI was dropped when they couldn't get it working as required. Crytek got it working two years
after Epic dropped the feature, and implemented it into their multi-platform engine. There isn't a vast conspiracy here, friend.
I just gave you an example of SVOGI and how for example baking lighting can affect gameplay in GTSport...
No, you picked a bad example of a feature that scales wonderfully - its currently running on the Switch - and you highlighted a
first party, single platform game that employed customised pre-baked offline GI lighting in order to work within the performance confines of the first party virtual reality headset that the company employs. I'm not sure what you think you've highlighted? That day-to-night transitions were considered such a nothing "gameplay feature" that it was willfully cut in favour of hitting a 60FPS frame target in VR? If that's the best example you have of "weak consoles limiting gameplay" then you're arguing against yourself, and I can stop posting.
I'm saying often effort is what prevents higher spec machines from getting things that the popular low spec machines cannot do...
You're arguing in circles while providing nothing. "Often"? Such as?
If I had some engine feature like SVOGI that changed my workflow but only supported on some less popular devices I wouldn't bother...
Then you're a terrible developer? I'm not sure what you want me to say - you clearly have a very poor understanding of large scale multi-platform game development. Nothing you've described lines up with the realities. I'm sorry, but unless you have something more meaningful to add, I'm going to stop replying. I provided a list of your voiced concerns and explained in a single sentence how each can be addressed, and you're just replying "SVOGI! SVOGI! SVOGI!" even after I've described numerous multi-platform games that use versions of the technique.
Would love to see this list btw, the ones I know about can be counted on one hand or are PC exclusive
Star Citizen - PC exclusive
Miscreated - PC exclusive
Kingdom Come deliverance - 2018 (PC and X1X got SVOGI)
Crysis remastered - 2020
Where are the several multiplatform games where they put in the effort for half a decade you're talking about?
You missed Hunt: Showdown.
Any game made using CryEngine V has access to SVOGI, and the developer could chose to implement the feature or not. For example, in Crytek's VR games, such as Robinson: The Journey, they themselves chose not to use it because it was too expensive for the required 60FPS frame target for PSVR. However, they implemented on the Switch version of Crysis because 30FPS was achievable at the low resolution of the Switch... which is what Microsoft are planning for the XSS. CryEngine isn't as wide spread as Epic's Unreal Engine, so it's not an exhaustive list - but a
smaller engine by a
smaller team implementing optional SVOGI for multi-platform development only bolsters my statements even more.
I was demonstrating your lack of understanding of multi-platform engine development. Every game that doesn't use SVOGI made on an engine that supports it is a nail in the coffin of your argument that game development only moves as fast as the weakest console. If this were true, we'd be stuck on the Gameboy after it sold more than everything else while only supporting four colours.
If the XSS had a weaker CPU, or lacked of the CPU-saving dedicated processing hardware of the XSX, I'd agree with you.
If the XSS lacked a comparable SSD to the XSX, I'd agree with you.
If the XSS used a modified Xbox One X GPU, I'd agree with you.
But, it doesn't have any of those problems. It uses, effectively, the same CPU as the PS5, the same SSD as the XSX, all the same hardware feature sets, only with a paired back GPU and RAM configuration, reduced in line with a drop in resolution target. In this scenario, with that hardware and that criteria, I'm happy to give Microsoft the benefit of the doubt. Microsoft and Sony made a case for this with the PlayStation 4 Pro and the Xbox One X. The approach worked then, and I see no reason I should pay special concern to the Xbox Series S now.