The Xbox Series S is apparently becoming a bigger problem for many developers, especially now that current-generation-only games are in the works.
Answering a tweet from Jeff Gerstmann regarding the console by Microsoft holding back games, VFX Artist for Bossa Studios Ian Maclure revealed that the reason why we are hearing this so much lately is that many developers have been trying for the past year to get the Xbox Series S launch requirements dropped, adding that the console has been an albatross around the neck of production in the previous development cycle and developers do not want to repeat the process.
Studios have been through one development cycle where Series S turned out to be an albatross around the neck of production, and now that games are firmly being developed with new consoles in mind, teams do not want to repeat the process. 2/2
— Ian Maclure (@Fearian) October 20, 2022
What Ian Maclure revealed today definitely makes a lot of sense, as more developers are making their displeasure about the Xbox Series S known. A few days back, Rocksteady Senior Character Technical Artist Lee Devonald commented on the console, saying that the entire generation of games will be hamstrung by a potato.
I wish garners understood what 60fps means in terms of all of the things they *lose* to make the game run that fast. Especially taking into account that we have a current gen console that's not much better than a last gen one.
Series S GPU mostly. Multi-platform games always have to optimise for the lowest performer.
The Series S exists, though, and Microsoft won't let you launch on one without the other. An entire generation of games, hamstrung by that potato.
While developers aren't too happy the Xbox Series S, the console seems to have been embraced by the market, providing a budget entry in the current generation, as we highlighted in our review.
If you have a big display from which you want to play a massive library of games, if you have a shelf full of physical Xbox One, 360, and original Xbox titles, if you want to see the cleanest possible image presentation, then you want the Xbox Series X, not the Xbox Series S.
If your entertainment center is more modest, you have a 40" TV at the most or a monitor, and you just want to play the digital library of games you have, in addition to those coming in the future to services like Xbox Game Pass, then the Series S only makes sense. It will still play all of the games you want, and on a smaller screen, you won't even notice the visual differences. If you're looking for a way to play Xbox Game Pass titles are seldom much more, then the Xbox Series S is a perfect choice for you, and at the price point it's at, I predict that we'll see a lot more people entering the Xbox ecosystem this generation with Xbox Series S.
