Possible Launch titles for next Xbox / overview of current MS Studios

[Mr Puggsly]

Pemalite said:

Mr Puggsly said:

All games this gen look like they were made for base consoles because they essentially were. The mid gen upgrades just provide increased resolution, maybe tweaks to some other settings. X1X for the most part just shrinks the gap between the visual fidelity of a standard X1 with a higher end gaming PC.

Yeah I get that. The Xbox One X though is more like on par with a mid-range PC in terms of fidelity. (I.E. Radeon RX 580/Geforce 1060.)
But what I personally find frustrating is that many games will try and chase the 4k dream... Rather than settle for something like 1440P and dial up the visual effects.

Mr Puggsly said:

Now its worth considering Halo 5 looks pretty good for a locked 60 fps game, but it never had the most impressive visuals. I mean Star Wars BF2 and Battlefield games look better. So frankly, the problem isn't the game was built for X1, it just wasn't a great looking game to begin with.

Halo 5 has strong art direction, arguably I don't think it is artistically as refined as Halo 4 though.
But you can certainly see where the game comes up short on the visuals even on the Xbox One X... I.E. The campaign mode the rock and shadow details still have extremely short rendering distances.

And in Multiplayer you can see the 10-15fps animations of various textures and Spartans in the distances, which just looks... Off.
That could have been resolved... I wouldn't have been against higher resolution texturing either.

Frostbite though is the 60fps engine to beat this generation, which is why I have high hopes for Slipspace... But what I would love for Microsoft to do going forward is to take a page out of EA... And that is to have one large engine development team constantly working on Slipspace... But open that engines use for all of Microsoft's studios, rather than spending money on licensing say... Unreal Engine, that would then allow for more resources to be spent refining that Engine to get the most out of Xbox.

Mr Puggsly said:

A new Halo game doesn't necessarily have to be built for the X1X first to look better, they just need to make a better looking game. There is a huge visual disparity between Halo 3, Reach and Halo 4 in the same generation.

Interesting you bring up Halo 3, Reach and 4 though.
Whilst there is certainly an overall increase in visuals in each succession... They did so by cutting away expensive rendering techniques and using cheaper ones so that they can bolster image quality elsewhere... Which is smart hardware utilization.

I just want a game that will leverage the Xbox One X to it's fullest, Otherwise I feel the hardware feels wasted... And I think Halo is a good opportunity for that.

Mr Puggsly said:

Its also worth noting X1X games could have better graphics settings at the cost of resolution. Rise of the Tomb Raider for example has an option for improved settings over resolution. They should have offered that on Halo 5 for X1X, even better shadows, draw distance and LOD at the cost of resolution.

Indeed.
I would opt for 1440P over 4k in every instance if visual settings were dialed up... But I have 1440P displays.

Well developers can have it both ways when it comes to chasing 4K and pleasing people who want better graphics/performance. There are good number of games offering these options on X1X and it could become more common. As long as there a native 4K option they can boast 4K.

I get the impression not a significant amount of time went into the Halo 5's X1X patch, it primarily just a resolution upgrade with other settings improved a bit. But still a massive improvement in overall picture quality.

Halo 5 is inconsistent visually, at moments it looks great and other times it looks arguably worse than Halo 4. It makes a lot of compromises like model animation from a distance, aggressive pop in, etc. I blame the engine more than the hardware. The X1X should have been able to address these problem whether its GPU or CPU related.

MS certainly likes working with UE4 and that engine is does make good use of the X1. Gears of War 4 is still one of the best looking games this gen and Gears 5 will certainly raise the bar. The engine at Turn 10 engine also fantastic, a technical marvel this gen. I'm not sure if using a single engine for every game is a good idea, but I think 343 can certainly do better than what Halo 5 has.

Halo 3 had more resource intensive lighting, but it also had lower quality assets and resolution. In Halo MCC its the most dated looking game for a reason even if it has better effects. So its not like Halo Reach and 4 look better simply because they opted for less taxing effects, there is also better optimization, resolution and assets there.

What is really using X1X to its fullest though? Would that be a really great looking game designed to run 1080p and 30 fps on the X1X? Maybe providing more stable performance and higher resolution in X1 game is already pushing the hardware? Either way, Halo Infinite will likely be on X1, X1X and next iteration of Xbox. I would hope it raises the bar on all hardware.

I think most people would opt for 1440p over 4K if they saw a significant improvement in 1440p. We even see people saying they prefer 1080p over 4K if it comes with better performance. I think most people find 1080p perfectly acceptable especially with some post processing effects.