I don't think it'll cause too many issues once the generation proper begins and we stop seeing these cross-gen games. The beauty of optimization is that you can always just lower resolution. If the devs can't pull off at least 720p upscaled to 1080p with AMD's FSR on these current gen only games, there is always sub 720p resolutions which can be upscaled to 1080p with FSR. FSR is going to be a game changer for the AMD powered consoles for sure. 

You also have to remember Switch 2 is going to be coming soon, likely in a year, and it's specs are certain to be even lower than Series S. If a dev is already going to be porting a game to Switch 2, there is no reason why they wouldn't port to Xbox Series S. Besides, MS requires an S port and they're not going to drop that requirement when more than half of their Series sales so far this gen are S models, and few is the dev that will drop both S and X over the S requirement, when they already have to make their game work on the even weaker Switch 2.

I am sure you think you have made a good point here.

All you have done is display the same lack of foresight that MS did when they thought making the series S was a great idea.

They should have done what sony did, make an XSX without disk drive,hell even have it come with half the storage space too if that let them get to a $399 and under price point.

We're already seeing games not have an option for 4k 60fps and the cross-gen period isn't even over yet so a game as huge and demanding as GTA 6 is gonna be will only run at 60fps on the PS5 and Series X at a resolution much lower than 4k. Because of that I highly doubt it'll run on the Series S at 1080p 60fps. Due to how anaemic it's gonna be a few years from now late gen there are gonna be cases of games that ran as badly on the Series S as games like Control and Cyberpunk did on the last gen consoles or at least close to that if Microsoft never stops mandating support for it.

The Series S was a $300 base next gen console that just took the place of the last gen One X, when the true next gen consoles were $500. The Series S was always going to be a lesser experience, and a far lesser experience as the gen went on.

The point of the Series S is for those who want the cheapest hardware possible who can live with what you might call a hybrid gen experience. They're getting last gen performance for the entirety of this gen due to present gen architecture.

MS offers a higher tier more expensive X model for those who want the full next gen experience. It's up to the consumer to choose what's best for them, and they even have the choice to spend more and upgrade at any time if they like.

If MS were that concerned, they'd discontinue the Series S, drop Series X to $400 and force everyone to buy an X from now on while devs continue to poorly optimize for those still using their S. This could be an option, especially against a $400 PS5 Slim (holiday 2023).

The hardcore crowd may not agree, but to the casuals, the Series S is good enough for many of them. As long as the games aren't a broken mess, they'll be content with their cheap XB and cheap Game Pass.

Seemed like only yesterday that ppl were praising MS for Series S...

Anyhow my brother got one a few months back. As long as he can play games I think it'll be fine.

You actually prove my point: the Switch doesn't get every 3rd party games cause some devs/editors don't want to put the extra effort in it.

So I wonder for how long the same devs will support the Series S

The Series S will exist to the end of the gen. However games will get a massive downgrade to eben run on the hardware and some Devs might opt out developing for it all together. Especially if they van get Sony money, marketing and expertise for dropping it.

That's the general point I think, as long as people can play their games it will be fine. Forums may misrepresent gamers, as in my experience most non-forum gamers are far less into graphical differences. Sure, if you show it to them side by side, but in general they are OK as long as their games run. MS is in trouble if devs decide to stop supporting the Series because of the S. I just don't see it yet, even Baldur's Gate which brought it on, Larian is working to fix it.

Funny enough, one of the games used as an example in the OP is also announced for Switch (Hogwarts). I think for the time being the Series S is fine. The technical issues will not matter for most of the gamers, and for the ones sensitive to power, they can get a PS5 or Series X, or more likely a beefy PC. I don't see devs abandon the Series S just yet. Down the line in a few years... maybe. But then will Switch 2 offer a pool with Series S to get multiplats. We will see how that pans out.

The CPUs were weak last gen. It's the reason for the lack of 60fps games. That said, the last couple years, multiplatform games on base Xbox One were struggling. It was almost meme. "I wonder how this will run on the old Xbox One VCR." The gap in graphical power between base Xbox One/S was generational. The One X had over 4.5 times the GPU power of the base model. By comparison the Series X had double the GPU power of the One X.

When it comes to the Series S, memory more than GPU power is the biggest problem. Not only is the memory pool of the One X larger 12GB to 10GB. The One X has a unified pool of RAM. All the RAM in the One X has 326GB/s bandwidth. The Series S has a split memory pool. Something frowned upon by developers to begin with. In the Series S, 8GB of RAM runs 224GB/S and other 2GB of RAM has only 56GB/s of bandwidth. That's slower than the DDR3 in the base Xbox One (68GB/s) that developers were complaining about that last gen. The slow memory pool of the Series X (6GB at 336GB/s) is 50% faster than the "fast" memory pool of the Series S. The biggest complaint I see from developers is having to go from the 13.5 to 14GB of memory available in the PS5 an Series X to the 8GB of much slower RAM in the Series S. The Series S has half the memory bandwidth of the PS5.

As for developer optimization, it's always an issue. Most publishers are content with the bare minimum. It's why having multiple performance targets for a single platform is a problem. It leads to two scenarios. Games being built around the weaker platform and the stronger platform not being leveraged to it's capability. Or the weaker platform getting substandard versions of the games on the stronger one. The former was the case with the Xbox One. The latter is becoming the case with the Xbox Series. Developers that are allowed to go the extra mile are the exception not the rule. Giving them two significantly different performance targets for your platform compounds matters. It's bad enough most games require a day one patch to "optimize" game performance.