By using this site, you agree to our Privacy Policy and our Terms of Use. Close
EricHiggin on 03 April 2020
Edit Thread
Azzanation said:
EricHiggin said:

True next gen games will certainly be something to behold, whenever they arrive, but that's part of my point. It's going to be much harder for MS to achieve that compared to PS, assuming PS will have true PS5 exclusives right off the bat. That doesn't mean MS can't do the extra transitional work to make it happen sooner, it'll just be more of a headache. It's one thing if all you have to do is focus on PS5, and another if you have to worry about XB1 and XB1X/Lockhart for your XBSX game.

Focusing on BC and FC for the first couple of years makes sense for MS in terms of holding onto their user base more easily. That could be somewhat detrimental however, if the XBSX games don't seem as next gen as they should compared to PS5 exclusives early on. Some will buy a next gen console simply because it's time or the newest coolest thing, but many won't unless there's something worthy to play on it that they can't get on their existing console. If it takes MS two years to launch these true next gen level games, SNY will have that time to themselves, and will gain console sales because of that, unless their early exclusives are garbage or don't exist.

It wont be a hassle to optimise games for multiple systems next gen, same with the Series X, XB1 and Lockheart. MS can port Horizon 4 to PC in less than a week using DX12 so I will assume the same will go for next gen games. Also as it seems neither console is hard to develop for plus developers prefer to have there games on more systems as it increases the chance of more sales etc.

Back in the days when we had consoles with alienated architectures, that was when porting and optimising games for other platforms was a bitch.. these days Xbox and PS are PCs and with improvements to APIs like Direct X and with Backwards compatibility being a focus point before launch only has made it many times easier.

I was tying this to your game engine point. If MS gave one of their studios an unlimited budget to make a brand new engine, specifically to make games the best they could possibly be, to show off what XBSX can really do, would that studio build the engine with the rest of the MS hardware ecosystem in mind, or specifically for the XBSX? The less hardware you have to worry about, the better optimized it can be since all the time and money will go towards the benefit of that specific hardware.

If MS is making XBSX cross gen games for two years, and SNY is making some PS5 exclusives, what those SIE studios should be able to accomplish should be considerably more than what MS studios can early on. Assuming those engines are being upgraded or created with only PS5 in mind going forward. The amount of work for MS studio's to be able to create or upgrade their engines so they can be truly next gen ready, without terribly hindering last gen or adding a boat load of extra work, would take a considerable upfront effort. That's not to say it's impossible, but it's hard to believe that if games are being ported this quickly, that the engines are truly allowing for true next gen features. 

Now after the two year cross gen period, I would anticipate that MS first party games truly start looking next gen as they won't have to worry about last gen going forward, like some of the SIE studio's were able to at launch. Maybe MS will surprise everyone though. We'll see.