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Baldur’s Gate 3 Delay Shows The Xbox Series S Still A Headache For Developers
(www.kotaku.com.au)
this post was submitted on 03 Aug 2023
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The Series S specs exceed all the listed minimum specs on the BG3 Steam page for PC. How is the Series S holding anything back when they apparently support their game on shittier PCs?
The problem is that they have couch coop play. They struggle making it work with Series S. From what I understand, they cannot just make a separate version without coop just for Series S. All game features in Series X must also be available on Series S. I guess that’s a limitation imposed by Microsoft.
With PC you don’t have that limitation. If your computer can’t do couch coop then too bad for you. Minimum specs probably doesn’t account for coop.
I’m not sure why they don’t remove couch coop completely from the Xbox versions. Probably because they think it’s removing too much of their vision of the game.
So because 5 people on the face of the planet don’t want to use the internet like modern humans the rest of us have to suffer? When was the last time anyone actually used couch coop? It was Halo 2 for me.
I have an X not an S, but my wife and I will absolutely be using couch co-op when this comes out.
A lot of people would love to have more split screen co-op (or Vs) games.
Its stupid that if I have a friend round I cant play a multiplayer game with them.
Me, with a mate a week ago on Resident Evil 5.
I constantly use it. I play with my partner, not with randos on the internet, not with friends. We live in the same house. We already bought 2 copies on PC to support the devs, but being forced to do so would be a shitty move. Also, when we have friends over, we do not expect them to bring their own PCs and shit if we want to game. Couch coop is where it's at.
It may be due to Microsoft demanding certain minimum configurations: at the very least minimum resolution and minimum frame rate. On PC you can always go down to 240p and/or live with 10fps in very high density scenes. Microsoft can (and will) just say "no" if they try that on the Xbox S
I understand that but surely the articles should be “developers lie about minimum specs on PC” surely. I believe the concept of a lower priced and accessible console should be encouraged. If that means developers have to try a little harder to support people who buy a cheaper console then so be it.
I guess that's debatable, depends on how you define what "it runs" means. PC gamers with dated hardware may be fine with playing on 1080p, while on the Xbox Microsoft might veto if it doesn't run on 1440p and 30fps. Of course weaker hardware won't run everything faster hardware can, you can't just sprinkle infinite magic optimization dust on a game, there are simply limits what's possible with weaker hardware, and once you've reached them you can't just shout "enhance" like in CSI Miami.
So MS enforcing a level of quality is a good thing then. The alternative is 12 fps at 720p.
Not in my opinion: if you read the article, it clearly says that Microsoft enforcing a level of quality for dated hardware leads to devs abolishing features that the hardware series S hardware won't be able to support. They also can't decide to not support the S unless they abandon the Xbox series X as well. It leads to lower quality games for everyone, not just series S owners.
Probably because MS wants feature parity for both consoles where every feature runs at acceptable frame rates. Like the minimum PC spec most likely runs split screen like dog shit. But MS will not accept that for the Series S. While PC gamers with weak hardware accept that the game will not always run optimal
My PC is above minimum specs and BG3 ran really poorly even on low. Maybe they got a similar issue with the s.
Yeah that’s the problem, they obviously lie about minimum specs on PC but that is OK for some reason. Xbox enforcing a quality experience for its users is somehow “holding the industry back”.
But the Series S doesn't run the PC game. Just like PC's don't run the Series S version of the game. I'm confused. If it was so easy, why isn't every game available on every platform on day one?
Mate the Xbox is a PC with better support and static specs. And yes Most games are available on every platform on day one.
If it's so straight forward, then what are the devs complaining about?
Microsoft requires they meet a specific standard on both the S and X, which is making it harder for them to do. They don't build to every specific PC variant. But they have to build to both the X and S.
They’re complaining that their job is hard. People do that all day, every day, whether it’s a legitimate complaint or not.
They came up with those minimum specs somehow didn’t they? Either that built to those minimum specs, or……? And those specs are less powerful than the Series S. So here we are again!
"Because Xbox mandates that any games launched on its current-gen systems run smoothly on both Series X and Series S" - from the article
So no, they don't get to just pick the minimum specs they support like on the PC version. They have to build a game that runs similarly on S and X, or not launch on either. Hence, the S is always going to limit what devs will be able/willing to do on the current gen consoles. More so than if they could just focus on the X and PS5.