Larian’s RPG may have set a tricky precedent for future chats with Microsoft
Releasing what is essentially two different consoles at the same time was such a bad idea. I can’t imagine that anyone in the engineering team thought it was a good idea. It seems like the kind of decision that is made in a board meeting that gets handed to the engineers with the caveat, “you don’t have to agree with the idea; just make it work!”
Thing is, it could’ve been ok if they’d put more RAM in it. It’s got less RAM than the One, which is what’s going to hurt it long term.
Ultimately the game still had to release on Series S and Microsoft can simply say “no.” I think this is just bar talk speculation taken too far frankly. I’d be surprised if this radically changed their position.
Thing is, it didn’t ultimately have to release on series S. Larian could very well have decided it was too much work to get it to work, and Microsoft didn’t want Xbox left out of such a big release. I think as the generation goes on, you’re going to see a lot more devs and studios deciding or not worth all the extra cost to try to get a have running on S for an Xbox release, or games will get nerfed from the early development stage, unless Microsoft lighten up on their parity requirements.
Yeah but not everyone is going to be in Larian’s position, and those with that kind of clout also stand to lose out a lot of revenue they clearly wanted in the first place.
So they’ll most likely decide to completely remove features from the Xbox releases rather than try to get them to work on S, which will lead to worse gaming options on the Xbox. Which Sony will absolutely love.
The strength of consoles as a development target is that there is only a single hardware configuration you need to support.
Microsoft squandering that advantage in order to hit a lower price point was a gift to Sony that will keep on giving.
They could have cheaped on the soc, reduced some minor detail rendering.
Screwing with ram size is moronic.
RAM feels like it’s the one thing they really shouldn’t have skimped out on, because that’s the one that’s going to affect longevity the most.
While also being one of the least expensive components, if the trend for consoles follows the price patterns for pc parts.
Which isn’t to say that Sony hasn’t been actively trying to ruin their reputation all by themselves over the last 1-2 years. This whole console generation has mostly been about both companies getting just a little too comfortable and screwing over their customers in the process.
Oh trust, I’m complete aware of how badly Sony has been effing it up, so much that I’ve gone from being a strictly PS console gamer to a PC gamer.
🤷♂️
All other game developers in the history of games have understood the concept of making the lowest-powered device you’re launching on the baseline for development. We’ve dealt with crippled titles on more powerful consoles for ages, I’m sure Larian’ll figure it out for their next game.
Why should they compromise because Microsoft demanded feature parity between their two consoles? They even had Microsoft engineers try and couldn’t get it to work with splitscreen on the S. If Microsoft wanted the S treated the same as the X they should have included more RAM. Games shouldn’t be held back because Microsoft released a console that’s between generations.
Cyberpunk 2077 was a far bigger mess on Xbox-S.
Not the first time a game fell flat on an underpowered console.
It’s a boat anchor, it’s time for Microsoft to cut it loose and release a digital only Series X.
11/2020 to 11/2023, not a bad run, figure it’s 1/2 way through this generation. Time for it to go.
