Digital Foundry - Dirt 5

[DonFerrari]

shikamaru317 said:

Manlytears said:

With all due respect...
indeed, Series S situation is shameful for microsoft. Results shown so far prove that the "model S" is a disappointment, the difference between an S and a PS5DE is absolutely monstrous, with a difference of just $ 100 in price.
My conclusion? Series S is a product designed to catch unsuspecting consumers who only look at the price, anyone with an understanding should opt for a PS5DE / PS5 / XSX.

Disagree with this personally. The games where the S performance has been "shameful" so far are mainly the same games where Series X is struggling to keep up with PS5, clearly there is an optimization issue going on somewhere for the entire Xbox Series platform. Yakuza 7 is 1440p 30 fps on S compared to 4K 30 fps on X, exactly the performance difference between the two consoles that MS promoted, and the Dragon Engine in Yakuza is one of the most demanding engines. Series S is pulling off I believe 900p-1080p with ray tracing on Watch Dogs, not bad at all considering how demanding ray tracing is. Gears Tactics is 1440p 60 fps on Series S, and Series S is 1440p dynamic 60 fps on the updated Gears 5 with higher PC graphics settings than the last gen version. CoD is 1440p 60 fps on Series S. The main games where S has struggled are AC Valhalla and Dirt 5, the same two games where Series X is also struggling. 

Yes, Digital PS5 is significantly more powerful than S for $100 more, but you can tell that Sony is taking a huge loss at that price, there is a reason why there seems to be anywhere from 4x-8x as many PS5 disc drive units available this Holiday depending on the country and retailer, Sony is clearly trying to minimize their losses from the $400 price point on the digital model until they can get manufacturing costs down. MS is likely selling at a loss on Series S as well, though it is likely a smaller loss than Sony is selling Digital PS5 at, which is why Series S | X stock ratio so far as shown far more Series S units available than digital PS5 units, around 2-3 X units to every 1 S unit in most countries, compared to as many as 8 disc drive PS5's for every 1 digital PS5. 

So on the engine that is very heavy (Yakuza) Xbox doesn't show the same issues are in the ones that we have been able to do comparisons?

The very idea of their tools that is to make it easy to devs to develop for multiple platforms, is exactly what also makes it less efficient to hit that sweet spot in one machine. The sooner we cope with that the sooner we will accept that there is no magic to make at same time very low and efficient code and also one size fit all.