| Kyuu said: Thinking about it again... I don't know if mandating Series S will necessariy be a serious issue. No matter how demanding/heavy a game is, the Series S should be able to run it at extremely low settings/res/fps. Developers can simply release games at a near-broken state on the S just to meet Microsoft's requirements. Would still anger some fans but the blame would fall on 3rd parties and their "poor optimization". |
Yes mostly, There will be some extreme cases, but such extreme cases will also affect Series X and PS5 way out of their standard zone. I use a lot of Immortals of Aveum as an example because it's very recent and one of the most extreme cases, if not the most extreme, which creates a great tangible example of what we could expect of series S in such a scenario and probably what's closest right now to your "near-broken state". When you require Series X and PS5 to internally render at 720P there isn't much leeway left to create an acceptable console experience altogether. yet the S, despite being way down in resolution and preset, and it shows, still manages great draw distance, stable fps, and delivers the full experience of the game so the most "near-broken state" up to date is still not that bad.
The "Anger" that will come out of such a title is pretty likely not to be reserved for a Series S owner, being a Series X owner I question the design choice Ascendant Studios made that produced an experience requiring Series X/PS5 to render as low as 720P way lower than my expectation for a 9th gen title. So when people point fingers and say Look at the poor Series S performance with Title X, the reality is it's probably a poor experience across the board anyway. The Series S experience delivery will always be tied to the one its most powerful siblings can achieve. Have a game that delivers on the expectation of a Series X/PS5 owner, it will deliver on the expectation of a Series S owner, deliver a game subpar to X/ps5 owner, it will also be sub-par to Series S owner expectation.
At the end of the day, it's up to the devs to design their games the way they want and I want them to have the leeway they desire, but it's also their responsibility to remain within reason. If devs go berserk trying to create the next visual benchmark at the expanse of the overall game experience on all but the very high-end PC rigs while the vast majority of their customer will be bound to a substandard resolution and presets then what's the point of even targeting such demanding graphics even in the first place?
Last edited by EpicRandy - on 29 August 2023
