shikamaru317 said:
And that is also part of why I find this whole thing strange. The new Xbox Game Core dev tools were designed to make Xbox development easier, the entirety of Series S | X and the Game Core dev tools were designed to make Xbox development more PC like, so that developers could easily port their PC version (which is the version that most developers make first) onto S and X, choose the PC resolution and graphical settings which make the most sense for each console, and then optimize to hit those settings with a good framerate at the desired resolution. With Series S and X being more PC like than ever before, optimizing for them should not be difficult, and yet both Series S and X are preforming below expectations on launch games. That tells me the answer for the poor performance is one of 3 things personally: 1. The late tools/dev kit rumors are true, and devs just didn't have time to used to Xbox Series ahead of launch. This theory makes the most sense to me and has been backed up by some indie devs I believe I read. These consoles were coming in hot during a pandemic afterall, and we've had rumors all year that MS was behind schedule during development. I mean just look at how many of their 1st and 3rd party launch window exclusives have been delayed out of the launch window, Halo, CrossFireX, 12 Minutes, The Medium, The Ascent, The Artful Escape, that reeks to me of dev kits and tools coming out late. 2. PS5, despite having on paper lower specs except for the SSD speed and pixel fill rate, is easier to develop for in spite of Microsoft's effort to make porting from PC to Series S | X easier. Possible I'd say, but not as likely as the delayed tools/devkits. 3. 3rd party devs are just being lazy and don't want to optimize for both S and X, and are just porting over some lower PC settings instead of optimizing to hit higher settings on each console. If it was just Ubisoft's launch games having issues, I'd say this was the culprit, as they are well known to be lazy optimizers, but Dirt 5, which MS had marketing on, is also behind, and PS5 also has an advantage in one of DMC 5's performance modes. I don't think this is the issue personally. |
Probably a mix of 2 of them tbh.
With xbox games you need to optimise for:
1) fat Xbox One
2) Xbox One S(lim)
3) Xbox One X
4) Xbox series S
5) xbox Series X
---6) xcloud? the streaming thingy?
---7) Windows Store PC?
while on PS side, its just PS4 + Pro & PS5 (3 devices).
Also:
Sony and mark cerny kept talking about ease of developement, and removeing bottlenecks.
it might not all just lay in the tools/dev kits, but the hardware choices and customisations taken when designing the 2 consoles.
You mentioned this in 2), and the "i dont think this is as likely", tbh I do.
I think the toolkit is getting more blame than it probably deserves (time will tell, if a year or two, down the line things still run worse on XSX.. that will be the proof in the pudden).
reguarding nr 3)
Its not a matter of devs being lazy.
You can rule that out.
If it happends once? maybe, but not when its a patern thats developed (6 games outta 7, favor PS5 (so far outta the compairsons we ve seen)).
1 dev can be lazy about porting to a system, but they cant all be.
Also 2 of these, where by studios with Xbox Marketing.
They wouldnt do a sloppy/lazy job, when their getting paid marketing rights to show off their new game (in its best possible light).
It doesnt make any sense to think so.
Essay Pro