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When Microsoft first announced the Xbox Series S, the idea of a mid-tier, affordable, next-gen console sounded good to gamers, but could it also be slowing down the development of next-gen games? Some developers believe that is the case.
According to a VGC report, a game developer claims “many” studios want Microsoft to drop the requirement that games they work on have to launch on the Xbox Series S.
VFX artist Ian Maclure said the quiet part out loud In response to a post from Jeff Gerstmann, formerly of Giant Bomb. Gerstman said in a tweet, “Series S is holding back next-gen games’ argument seems really broken to me.”
Maclure, a part of the Xbox Series X|S title I Am Fish development team, didn’t bite his tongue in response to Gerstman dismissing those claims about the Xbox Series S.
“It might sound broken, but the reason you are hearing it a lot right now is because MANY [sic] developers have been sitting in meetings for the past year desperately trying to get Series S launch requirements dropped,” Maclure wrote in a tweet from his now-private account.
“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,” he added.
Is Gotham Knights A Victim of The Xbox Series S?
This discussion about the Xbox Series S comes on the heels of Gotham Knights, the latest big video game release, locked at 30fps, commonly found on last-gen console games.
Lee Devonald, a senior character technical artist at WB Games Montréal, called the Xbox Series S a “potato” in a now-deleted tweet, adding it is holding back an “entire generation of games.”
Per CBR:
Devonald wrote that developers are facing difficulties in fully utilizing the powerful new hardware of the Xbox Series X because Microsoft continues to push for release on the weaker Series S console. He added that because multi-platform games have to “optimize for the lowest performers,” fans would continue to see lower frame rates and less intensive graphics if developers had to include consoles like the Series S in their release plans. Since publishing the tweets, Devonald’s Twitter account seems to have been deleted.
This Xbox Series S situation is an interesting problem. Also, many gamers still don’t have an Xbox Series X or PS5 console due to supply chain issues.
Besides being more affordable, the Xbox Series S has been easier to find.
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Photo: SOPA Images / Getty
