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So.. what happened here? The publishing director at Larian said that they "must launch with feature parity" and that they would be unable to remove the splitscreen for series S. Then Phil Spencer says "No, that's not a thing. You can totally do it." But only after a big delay has already caused some media buzz around one of, if not the, biggest game launches of the year. And now they can remove the splitscreen from series s.
So was it a misunderstanding on Larian's part? Or did they themselves not want to launch without feature parity? I don't see a world where they wanted to delay launching the product so late behind the other platforms.
Or is Phil Spencer being disingenuous by claiming a requirement to the devs, but then walking it back in public spaces?
It really sounds like the latter. If it were a misunderstanding, Xbox would have clarified the situation back when the story started getting traction.
I thought feature parity was always the expectation for the Series series. This is both interesting and once again making me regret getting the SS. I wish they had just made a digital SX like Playstation did the PS5.
I mean the only reason to get the SS is and was the much cheaper price, being digital only was part of it but not the only thing or main thing as at the end is less powerful.
A digital version like the PS5 would have been much more expensive, like removing the disc reader it's not like much saving. So at the end I doubt a lot of people that got the SS would have got it if this model was a thing tbh.
I think it's for the best of everyone to have this decision made. Larian can get a boost of sales, series S owner that didn't need split screen can play, and MS set precedent that feature parity is negotiable.
Completely agreed, especially on the last point. There was a risk of the S holding future current-gen games back if they had to run on parity with the X, and now devs know there’s wiggle room. This is very good news.
Phil Spencer, be disingenuous? Well, I never!
Honestly good. As much as I like the compatibility with older generations we're starting to hit the limit, where if we keep forcing devs to support old hardware it's going to hold the new generation back
Just a quick correction: Series S is current-gen. You might be thinking of the One S, which is understandable because Microsoft has a monkey coming up with their product names.
Yup, did mess those two up, thanks for the correction. They really do have the most confusing names. Maybe they were going for a samsung-esque naming convention? But even they did 1, 1S, 2, 2S
I think you’re giving them too much credit 😂
Your original point remains valid though. MS needs to allow devs to adjust games more for the XSX/XSS difference
You're not wrong, but the other fact is the current gen Series S is less capable than the last gen Xbox One X, with less RAM and much slower RAM.
To the point where the Series S can't run backwards compatible titles with Xbox One X enhancements.
So xbox went back on their policy. Good. It was a stupid policy anyway. Why should the Series S hold back gaming?
Yeah how dare consumers expect feature parity with games on a device that Microsoft said require feature parity so the same product gets the same features regardless of which one you buy.
That's...bad for some reason.
It was a stupid hardware split and a stupid statement to make. Sticking to the ridiculous stupidity wasn't possible. You cannot demand feature parity without CPU parity.
The entire console positioning by Xbox is an absolute clusterfuck. Their naming is a shitshow; recycling the naming for a second generation is a bigger shitshow. Making two consoles with different GPU performance for different graphics targets would be fine, but the CPU difference and memory architecture differences are a fucking disaster.
That's awesome news. As an XSX owner I was worried about the news that the XSS could hold back games because of the feature parity requirement.
That's great news! I have an Xbox and a PC, so now I can coop with my wife, she's been dying to play it
this post was submitted on 24 Aug 2023
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