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GTA VI On Xbox Series S: "I'm Not Really Worried," Take-Two Boss Says

Little Chicken

Little Chicken

Member
During Take-Two's latest earnings call, Zelnick was asked about the Series S being, by design, a lower-spec console compared to Series X and PS5. GTA VI is expected to be a boundary-pushing game technically speaking, prompting concerns by some that it won't be a great experience on the console.

"Look, we support the platforms where the consumers are for as long as they're there, and we find a way to support platforms despite different levels of tech. Our labels are really good at that. I'm not really worried," Zelnick said.

The executive went on to say, "If one platform diminishes in value, there's always another one. So we're seeing great growth in PC right now, for example."
Click to expand...

https://www.gamespot.com/articles/g...ally-worried-take-two-boss-says/1100-6527625/

8aad2f61-6.gif
 
Jigsaah

Jigsaah

Gold Member
Can somebody explain to me how devs can develop for an almost endless number of combinations of tech on the PC platform but somehow it's a struggle to develop for 2 SKU's in the console space?

It has never made sense to me, but apparently Larian had an issue, as well as the Sun Wu-kong folks.
 
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O

onQ123

Member
What he is saying is that he isn't worried about it because they will just port it to any & every device & it's going to sale , if it doesn't run great on Series S that's not much of a problem because it will still be on Xbox Series X & PS5 then PC , Xbox Next , PS6 , Xbox Next Next & PS7
 
JimboJones

JimboJones

Member
Jigsaah said:
Can somebody explain to me how devs can develop for an almost endless number of combinations of tech on the PC platform but somehow it's a struggle to develop for 2 SKU's in the console space?

It has never made sense to me, but apparently Larian had an issue, as well as the Sun Wu-kong folks.
Click to expand...

For Larian it came down to the the Splitscreen and Microsofts policy of having parity with features in both versions.
The single player stuff was probably all ready to go, they just couldn't get the Splitscreen working well on series S.
Not familiar with the Sun Wu-kong development so can't say what the issue was there.
 
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coffinbirth

coffinbirth

Member
Well, considering the initial leaks were running on PS4 Devkits and GTX 1080 cards, I'm guessing it's all very scalable, which tracks with GTA V. That went 3 generations wide, and I'm guessing VI is meant to last just as long. Based on later leaked footage, the abundance of RTX 2060 and RX 5600 testing of all systems leads one to believe that might be the performance target.
It wouldn't at all surprise me if they were trying to get it Deck verified as well before all this BattlEye bullshit went down.
 
E

Esparadrapo

Member
Jigsaah said:
Can somebody explain to me how devs can develop for an almost endless number of combinations of tech on the PC platform but somehow it's a struggle to develop for 2 SKU's in the console space?

It has never made sense to me, but apparently Larian had an issue, as well as the Sun Wu-kong folks.
Click to expand...

www.ign.com

Remedy Opens Up About Challenges Developing Alan Wake 2 for Xbox Series S - IGN

In a recent episode of IGN’s Next-Gen Console Watch, below, Remedy’s communications director Thomas Puha talked openly about the challenges the studio faces getting Alan Wake 2 running well on the Xbox Series S.
www.ign.com www.ign.com

“Series S, the CPU is pretty much the same as on Series X,” Puha said. “But the GPU is an issue. It really is. And then, having less memory is a pretty big problem. And we often get, ‘okay, you make PC games, surely you know how to scale.’ Well, memory is not a problem on PC. It really isn’t. And that’s one of the struggles when you talk about resolution and framerate. It’s just not enough to drop the resolution heavily. That’s what we’re doing on the S and we’re really, really working hard to make sure the visual quality still holds up.

“People accept that on a weaker PC the visuals are not going to be as good and your framerate’s not going to be as good. There’s a massive difference on Series S and Series X GPU. And sure, people can mention this game did this so well and all that, and every game is different, and every developer is different. But you can’t have the best of both worlds. You gotta choose where you’re gonna focus.

“The Series S is $250 and X and PS5 are $500-600. Obviously there’s a massive difference between the power you are getting, right? It’s a lot easier to scale on the PC because of memory, and it’s not like there’s one super PC and one weaker PC. There are like 300 PC configurations in-between, and trust me that’s a massive struggle, but we’ve shipped a lot of PC games so we’re a bit better about that.

“We’ve really worked hard on getting S to run at a solid 30 and tried to maintain a good visual quality. But if you want to see the game at its best in full next-gen glory, it’s going to be on the machines that have the hardware grunt to enable that.”
Click to expand...
 
DanielG165

DanielG165

Member
Esparadrapo said:
www.ign.com

Remedy Opens Up About Challenges Developing Alan Wake 2 for Xbox Series S - IGN

In a recent episode of IGN’s Next-Gen Console Watch, below, Remedy’s communications director Thomas Puha talked openly about the challenges the studio faces getting Alan Wake 2 running well on the Xbox Series S.
www.ign.com www.ign.com
Click to expand...
Remedy did their thing though, which I respect quite a bit. They took the challenge and dug in to figure out a way to make the end result happen. The Series S version of Alan Wake 2 being as good as it is apparently, despite the game being one of the most demanding games on the market, is impressive.

If Rockstar managed to hit native 4K in RDR2 on the One X, then I’m confident that they’ll make the Series S build of GTA 6 solid.
 
adamsapple

adamsapple

Or is it just one of Phil's balls in my throat?
sendit said:
Good state lol. Thanks for the laugh. I have zero doubt this will release on the Series S. However, we have a different bar to what constitutes a “good state”.
Click to expand...

You sound like you've seen the game running on Series S.

How is it?
 
Hugare

Hugare

Gold Member
If they decide that the S cant handle the game, then I doubt that Microsoft will say "well, so you can't release the game on the X" lol

I want the S version to crash and burn just to see the mental gymnastics that Microsoft will do to justify it being released only on the X when no other game could
 
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Heisenberg007

Heisenberg007

Gold Journalism
Jigsaah said:
Can somebody explain to me how devs can develop for an almost endless number of combinations of tech on the PC platform but somehow it's a struggle to develop for 2 SKU's in the console space?

It has never made sense to me, but apparently Larian had an issue, as well as the Sun Wu-kong folks.
Click to expand...
It's simple, actually. On PCs, there is no obligation to run on a lower-end PC.

Suppose a dev is trying to make its game work on 3 PC GPUs: 3060, 3070, 3080ti.

They get it to work it at 1080p 60 FPS on a 3080ti, 1080p30 on a 3070, and can't even get 720p30 (+ other game-design stuff) to work on a 3060. They'll just drop the 3060 and will put 3070 as a minimum GPU required.

They don't have that option with the Series S.

If the 3060 is the Series S in this case, 3070 the Series X, and 3080ti the PS5 Pro, they can't skip the 3060 because of Microsoft's policy. Otherwise, they will also have to drop the game on the Series X (3070) which was working fine.

P.S. This is of course a very simple example. There are other factors like memory bandwidth (and CPU) as well with the Series S.
 
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T

Three

Gold Member
Jigsaah said:
Can somebody explain to me how devs can develop for an almost endless number of combinations of tech on the PC platform but somehow it's a struggle to develop for 2 SKU's in the console space?

It has never made sense to me, but apparently Larian had an issue, as well as the Sun Wu-kong folks.
Click to expand...
They set min spec themselves on PC and if they want a specific spec they aren't told you can't release it unless it also releases on something it's having difficulty running on (due to RAM usually)
 
Jigsaah

Jigsaah

Gold Member
Heisenberg007 said:
It's simple, actually. On PCs, there is no obligation to run on a lower-end PC.

Suppose a dev is trying to make its game work on 3 PC GPUs: 3060, 3070, 3080ti.

They get it to work it at 1080p 60 FPS on a 3080ti, 1080p30 on a 3070, and can't even get 720p30 (+ other game-design stuff) to work on a 3060. They'll just drop the 3060 and will put 3070 as a minimum GPU required.

They don't have that option with the Series S.

If the 3060 is the Series S in this case, 3070 the Series X, and 3080ti the PS5 Pro, they can't skip the 3060 because of Microsoft's policy. Otherwise, they will also have to drop the game on the Series X (3070) which was working fine.

P.S. This is of course a very simple example. There are other factors like memory bandwidth (and CPU) as well with the Series S.
Click to expand...
Ohhhhh ok. I see now. They have more agency in considering what the minimum spec is on PC, where they are mandated to release on both XSX and S....where S may or may not be powerful enough for what they'd like to do with their specific game. The Remedy explanation was also very helpful.
 
E

Esparadrapo

Member
DanielG165 said:
Remedy did their thing though, which I respect quite a bit. They took the challenge and dug in to figure out a way to make the end result happen. The Series S version of Alan Wake 2 being as good as it is apparently, despite the game being one of the most demanding games on the market, is impressive.

If Rockstar managed to hit native 4K in RDR2 on the One X, then I’m confident that they’ll make the Series S build of GTA 6 solid.
Click to expand...
But you do realize that taking on challenges costs time and money, right? If the return isn't there it's obvious that you are going to have a BG3 or monkee situation.
 
Antwix

Antwix

Member
Considering this will likely be the highest selling piece of media ever, I don't doubt that MS has been offering their engineers to assist R* if needed.
 
DeepEnigma

DeepEnigma

Gold Member
onQ123 said:
What he is saying is that he isn't worried about it because they will just port it to any & every device & it's going to sale , if it doesn't run great on Series S that's not much of a problem because it will still be on Xbox Series X & PS5 then PC , Xbox Next , PS6 , Xbox Next Next & PS7
Click to expand...
Exactly. The game series could have it's own console, TBH, and people will buy it.
arthurmorgan.gif
 
kevboard

kevboard

Member
Jigsaah said:
Can somebody explain to me how devs can develop for an almost endless number of combinations of tech on the PC platform but somehow it's a struggle to develop for 2 SKU's in the console space?

It has never made sense to me, but apparently Larian had an issue, as well as the Sun Wu-kong folks.
Click to expand...

modern devs suck?
it's actually that simple.

especially if a dev team uses UE5 you should immediately be worried. UE5 has become to AA and AAA Devs what Unity was for Indy devs a few years ago.
an engine that is used to take shortcuts by abusing their easy to use tools that give you fast and easy results, but runs like absolute ass if not properly optimised. it's also bloated as fuck by default, and no dev actually modifies it to remove bloat they don't use.

Shadows of the Damned, a PS360 game, has issues locking to 60fps on PS5.
and surprise surprise, it's a UE5 update of a UE3 game.

Lollipop Chainsaw. a disaster on a technical level... UE5...

Silent Hill 2. can't hold 30 or 60fps, has massive stutters on PC... animations play back unevenly... UE5...

Jedi Survivor. horrible PC port, dozens of patches needed to get it running at an acceptable state, looks like shit on console... animations play back unevenly... UE4...
 
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