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mutantsushi on 22 November 2020
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DonFerrari said:
shikamaru317 said:

Even if it is a bug, just enabling the higher graphics settings on Series X might not be enough to catch Series X up to PS5, enabling those higher graphics settings could potentially lower the framerate on the 120 fps mode to below the framerate on the PS5 120 fps mode, which would take extra optimization time to fix. We'll have to wait and see the test of the patch. 

If it is a bug then it should just be a matter of correcting it, if it brings performance to erratic sub 120fps than it is pretty clear it wasn't a bug.

I would say it sounds like the settings are not optimized to fully utilize XSX, perhaps recycling ones from other version. Which isn't technically a bug as it's just those settings working as they are supposed to, even if everybody would prefer different settings that fully utiliize XSX. But I think it's fair to say many people don't always speak intending the precise sense of words they use, and so there probably isn't much point in interrogating "bug" vs "not a bug", if "this is bad and something that can be changed in an update" is fine.

I do think this whole thing underlines what I think is significant weakness of Series as platform, which isn't about a weakness in XSX hardware or XSS hardware individually, but the fact the platform is split like this from Day 1... And it seems unavoidable that devs under time/budget pressure will choose to optimize for "least common denominator" using combined bottleneck of both SKU's in order to trivially scale between both SKUs, because that is easier than optimizing 2 different versions with 2 different bottlenecks, even though it imposes constraint that doesn't exist for given SKU.

How this play out involves alot more stuff though. If MS really is in acquisition binge mode, would that mean they aren't in money hatting 3rd party exclusivity mode? (I would assume any 1st/2nd party exclusives would do adequate optimization) Then there is MS Game Pass. If that is extremely successful, it stands to reason 3rd party sales on Xbox would decline, since the audience is saturated with other games to play... Which would make double optimization work for 2x XboxSKUs even less enticing for 3rd party devs, pushing them further to "least common denominator" approach.. While Sony isn't undercutting conventional game sales with Game Pass and have larger market with unified performance target not divided by SKU, for cheaper development with more payoff.