Phil Spencer Says Xbox Series X Games Aren't Being Held Back By Xbox One

[DonFerrari]

goopy20 said:

Pemalite said:

Can still be downgraded.
It's running on the same game engine as the first game... And is a game engine that would even function fine on an Xbox 360... Swapping in higher quality assets doesn't negate the possibility of downgrading those assets later, it actually happens often in game development.

PC games constantly improve every year.

If the Xbox One and Playstation 4 stayed on the market for another 10 years, the console ports will still get more and more enhancements as PC technology continues to progress.

Case in point: Tessellation during 7th gen. Ray Tracing this gen.

Storage speeds are not as much of a hindrance on PC as the PC is also a memory rich environment... A mid-range PC has 3x the total Ram as a Playstation 4 and 50% more than a Playstation 5, more data can be loaded into System and GPU memory in one load rather than streamed in iteratively.

Not really. PC isn't console. PC games generally always look superior to console versions.

Just because those settings aren't exposed in a games User-Interface doesn't mean that developers have hidden those settings behind lock and key, most game engines and games have documentation that provides the appropriate guidance on adjusting settings outside of the games internal user interface. (Some games even have an "app" outside of the game for you to do just this.)

Parity isn't a thing.

Battlefield on Xbox 360/Playstation 3 was severely paired back in map sizes and player counts and graphics. Massively in the graphics department.
Minecraft on Xbox 360/Playstation 3 had limited map sizes and blocks, definitely not parity.

Battlefield 5, Call of Duty: Modern Warefare, Control,  Mechwarrior 5: Mercenaries, Metro Exodus, Shadow of the Tomb Raider, Wolfenstein Young Blood, Doom Eternal, Dying Light 2, Watch Dogs: Legions and allot more... Have this thing called "Hardware Ray Tracing". - The Xbox One and Playstation 4 variants do not, definitely not parity.

Pretty much every PC game since forever can exceed the 3840x2160 limit of the Xbox One X and Playstation 4 Pro. - 7680x1440 or maybe 11,520x2160 tickle your fancy? Again. Not parity.

60fps? Try 240fps. Not parity.

HBAO instead of SSAO? 16x AF rather than 4x? Super Sampling instead of FXAA? No parity there either.

We were in the same position years ago when people complained about how much "computing power" is essentially wasted in pursuit of 1080P.
During the 7th gen people would praise games like Uncharted and Halo 4's visual makeup... But resolution wasn't apparently important then, suddenly 1080P became super important during the 8th gen and anything less was utter garbage.

Resolution is just a piece of the rendering puzzle, 4k is far from a craze, it's an actual standard.

The PC cannot be compared to consoles in this regard, PC displays are generally smaller with higher pixel densities than a television, so 2160P isn't as important.

Hardware has a resolution "efficiency curve".

Cutting back games to 720P on the Xbox Series X would not bring you much additional rendering headroom over say... 1080P, because the bottleneck in the GPU pipeline isn't fillrate.

Eventually 2160P will be in that same situation, 1440P is barely a performance hit over 1080P on a modern and decent GPU.

Microsoft, Sony and Nintendo just simply need to deliver the hardware and the appropriate software stacks... Leave the rest (including resolution) up to the developers.

Of course a high-end pc will always look better than consoles. But you have to admit that there's a big difference between modern pc ports, that were designed around the limitations of consoles, and the AAA pc exclusives we saw in the past and were completely impossible to run on consoles at all. Back in those days being part of the pc master race actually meant something. You had games like BF, Crysis, Half Life 2 etc. that looked 2 generations ahead of anything on consoles, and we were happy if we could run Crysis at all, never mind at 120fps.

We will see with Lockhart and Series X but I find it hard to believe that the games will look any different on both consoles. Instead it'll probably just be like Xbox One S and Xbox One X. They play the exact same games, but the Xone X is the niche version for those who absolutely demand 4k and 60fps. If Lockhart will be half or a 3rd of the price, I'm sure MS knows which one will sell more as we can already see how 4 out of 5 consoles currently sold are the cheaper base models. This is why I feel developers will completely optimize overall visuals and resolution for Lockhart, and Series X will be kinda forced to "waste" those extra Tflops and RAM on just boosting resolution/ framerate and sprinkle in some extra effects.

Imo that's also why the ps5 exclusives will stand out by a mile as they are not constrained by any platform. We will likely see a TLOU3 or GOW2 completely optimized for ps5 while targeting the exact same resolution and framerate as Lockhart. Those would easily be able to push the visuals way beyond what's technically possible on Lockhart. Maybe we won't see those games right at launch, but I wouldn't exactly count out HZW, though. GG are pretty damn good at raising the visual bar and HZW is the perfect ip to flex those next gen muscles.

Lockhart won't be 1/3 of Series X price, not even 1/2.

From the rumour almost everything is the same between both. It have 1/3 of the GPU power and a little less RAM and CPU power that would keep similar performance to Series X on the intended resolution. Probably some saving on cooling as well and perhaps it will be full digital.

The GPU isn't so expensive that cutting its power in 66% would make the price drop the same.

The only way for Lockhart to be half the price is if MS sell Series X for profit (let's say 599) and subside Lockhart discless (for 299).