Multiple Devs Claims Xbox Series S is Holding Back Next-Gen Games
A new debate is ignited around the Xbox Series S performance. More specifically, the console has been blamed for limiting the performance of various games. Interestingly, the claims are not new; devs have been complaining about the Series S for months now.
The Gotham Knights controversy has just added fuel to the fire and the statement ‘Series S is holding back next-gen games’ is everywhere now. If we go a little back in time, just around the beginning of this year, when a highly anticipated game, Dying Light 2 Stay Human, was released in February.
While it was performing great on Xbox Series X and PlayStation 5, the Xbox Series S had difficulty handling the game with frequent frame drops below 30 FPS. It should be noted that Dying Light 2 was well-received and critically acclaimed; only Series S was lacking behind.
Fast forward a few months from this incident; in May, a well-known gaming Industry Podcast channel, Digital Foundry, in their podcast, pointed out the issues the Xbox Series X was causing to the devs.
https://twitter.com/TWTHEREDDRAGON/status/1524055820194963456?s=20&t=TtFiudJtJbkraMxCCoNH2g
They stated that multiple developers have reported that the memory constraints in the Series S are the reason for limiting the performance of next-gen games and becoming a ‘pain at times.’
Today, Jeff Gerstmann, a well-known journalist, called the argument “Series S is holding back next-gen games” as broken.
The whole “Series S is holding back next-gen games” argument seems really broken to me. Most of these games also come to PC and already have to cover a wide variety of configs. Like go look at the Steam Hardware Survey sometime. Lots of older stuff with significant percentages.
— Jeff Gerstmann (@jeffgerstmann) October 20, 2022
Ian Maclure, VFX Artist for Bossa Studios, replayed to Gerstmann and revealed how Xbox Series S is a hindrance in the development cycle and devs have been trying for a year now to drop the Series S launch requirements:
It might sound broken, but the reason you are hearing it a lot right now is because MANY developers have been sitting in meetings for the past year desperately trying to get Series S launch requirements dropped.
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.”
-Ian
A Little Back Story
Warner Bros. Montreal revealed that the Gotham Knights would be capped at 30 FPS on consoles due to its interactive co-op mode and highly detailed open world. This decision was not well-received by the fans, and they criticized WB.
After that, Lee Devonald, Senior Character Technical Artist from Rocksteady (the studio behind Batman Arkham), supported the decision by WB Montreal and explained how the Xbox Series S is responsible for the lack of optimization in Gotham Knights.
https://twitter.com/TWTHEREDDRAGON/status/1581279788873883649?s=20&t=eQAubKQlWzXJGmgzAkzqng
He also called the GPU of the Series S a ‘potato.’ The fans were in rage at this point and heavily criticized Lee, as a result he deleted his Twitter account. This was the pivot point that fueled the conservation “Series S is holding back next-gen games.” What are your thoughts about all this? Let us know in the comment section below.
