Xbox Empire

[shikamaru317]

Barozi said:

Ryuu96 said:

The only thing One X does better than Series S is resolution IIRC. Series S should have far better framerate, loading speeds, refresh rate, effects, lighting, textures, etc. One X may have a higher number of TF but it's old architecture while Series S is RDNA 2 which comes with a ton of features that One X isn't capable of. RDNA 2 wouldn't have been able to exist for One X back in 2018 so it would have still used older tech.

Series S likely no matter what would have ended up more powerful than One X overall because it can actually take advantage of new tech released in 2020 whilst One X is held back by older tech. If it wasn't for the stock shortage, then I think support for last gen wouldn't last until 2025 and the issue remains of marketing.

Xbox One X would have still been seen as a last gen console and likely dropped the moment Xbox One is dropped, by both consumers and developers, nobody really wants to go when launching a next gen console "you can buy our last gen hardware" and by launching the budget console and high-end console at the same time, they can both take advantage of newer technologies better.

It still remains to be seen if Series S will hold back current gen, but so far multiple developers and Digital Foundry have said it's fine for now, developers have always optimised for multiple platforms from low to high end, they just have to put a little extra work in. At least the thousands of indie developers who support Switch shouldn't mind supporting Series S and the rest (major publishers) easily have the capability to do so as well.

They'll be no holding back if they put the effort in and specifically optimise for both, some won't, Xbox Game Studios/Bethesda Game Studios will.

Idk why some people claim such a thing. It's ridiculous.

The Switch is somewhere between WiiU and Xbox One in power and yet gets ports of pretty much every game out there. Yeah the results are often times pretty bad and they're obviously not even on the level of Xbox One but they exist. Therefore, I don't see how Series S could hold anything back. Every game will be playable on it, even if it's sub 720p with sub 30 FPS (which I don't think will ever happen).

The difference between Switch and Xbox One X is IMO far bigger than the difference between Series S and Series X.

You have to realize though that the Switch rarely gets what you would consider to be a typical, scaled port. Few was the developer who even attempted to scale the same game from Switch all the way up to high-end PC. On the AAA level, scaled Switch ports are practically non-existent, almost all of them have been late ports due to a need to create new, lower than PC low quality assets for Switch. Almost all Switch ports of AAA games have been handled by porting studios rather than by the original developer, and they often take 3 quarters of a year or more to develop due to how long it takes to create lower than PC low quality textures, models, and other assets. The few AAA devs who have attempted to scale the same game from Switch all the way to high end PC, ended up holding back the more powerful consoles and PC as a result. Scaled Switch ports are more common on the AA and Single A/indie level, but no AAA dev in their right mind even tries to scale a game so that it can run on everything from the less than 300 glflop in handheld mode Switch all the way up to 30+ tflop monster PC GPU's. 

Series S won't have the same issues of scaling as Switch for sure, it will take longer into the generation for devs to begin to feel like it is holding them back, but I do think we will reach the point where scaling doesn't work properly anymore and devs will start to feel like making customized Series S ports with lower than PC low assets is a necessity. We have already reached a point where the highest end PC GPU's have 10x more flops than Series S and we are only 2 years into the generation, towards the latter half of this generation we will be seeing mid-range GPU's with more than 10x the flops of Series S, and high end with more than 20x the flops of Series S. Especially since this gen is shaping up to be 1-2 years longer than any previous console generation, Series S will be an issue for some devs later on, mark my words on that. The final 2-3 years of this generation are going to be pretty rough for Series S I suspect, devs will be annoyed by the fact that they are still mandated by Xbox to support it, and we will see lots of ports with framerate issues and sub-720p resolutions. 

Last edited by shikamaru317 - on 27 November 2022