Yep, it simply suits their strategy so they will go all in on this nonsense. Plenty of people will buy it too, just look at this thread.
Phil Spencer: "the diversity of hardware choice in PC has not held back the highest fidelity PC games on the market"
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Yep, it simply suits their strategy so they will go all in on this nonsense. Plenty of people will buy it too, just look at this thread.
yup. Ensuring your game works on several platforms is a lot harder than just designing for one environment. Also testing costs drop significantly.
Absolutely. It's total console warrior bs. By the time developers get a handle on these new systems Microsoft will already have dropped support for this gens consoles anyway. If both consoles were doing this instead of just one this wouldn't even be a topic of discussion.
Like I said, we're going to look back on this 'discussion' in a few years and see it for the farce it actually is.
There aren't multiple skus. That's the entire point of smart delivery. There is one game and it can be installed on any version of the hardware.
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Disingenuous? And yet the most impressive showcase for PS5 to date is the UE5 demo, which, as per Epic, can scale down and run on current hardware.
I just want to say that the turnaround in opinion on Star Citizen once it's SSD requirement could be used in the Console Wars is truly a sight to behold.
I have never seen so much positive sentiment for that game as when it can be used as a cudgel by fans of a particular brand, not even by people who spent thousands of dollars on it.
I have never seen so much positive sentiment for that game as when it can be used as a cudgel by fans of a particular brand, not even by people who spent thousands of dollars on it.
99% of the next gen only games will use the SSD for faster loading. Not everyone wants to be jumping through portals all the time, or swinging at 70mph.
Proof is in the pudding as you said, we'll know more in 13 days.
I think it kind of has held it back. I mean, how many games do you see that really push the hardware available on PC? You get exceptions, obviously. The Crysis of the world. But generally there is a clear impression that the lowest common denominator is preventing developers truly pushing available hardware. Its making the nicest version of a game, obviously, but I'd argue the differences aren't as high as they SHOULD be! They may have better AA solutions or better AO solutions or higher res or or frame rate. But when you're rocking the best CPU and GPU and SSD combo you really should be getting something that looks a generation ahead of the competition. And frankly...you're not.
Nobody has ever said that it wouldn't require sacrifices, but people (not you specifically) spin this into narratives that makes these game play like literal garbage, which has always been and will continue to be hyperbole. People want to play these games and to most of them it doesn't matter if the loading times are slower, the FPS take a hit, the resolution is worse and etc.
Game development is always parameterised by the devices that are on the market.
Does the high end not get pushed harder or in new ways, when it becomes the low end? It's a bit misleading to conflate scalability to higher end hardware with that different kind of usage. High end hardware can always be used, but it's used differently as the state of the art evolves.
People get very sensitive about the 'held back' terminology, but game dev is always 'held back' or limited by the technology at the disposal of the target market. PC is no different.To argue otherwise is to say that game development and scope has evolved beyond technical considerations in any context, which is simply not true.
Does the high end not get pushed harder or in new ways, when it becomes the low end? It's a bit misleading to conflate scalability to higher end hardware with that different kind of usage. High end hardware can always be used, but it's used differently as the state of the art evolves.
People get very sensitive about the 'held back' terminology, but game dev is always 'held back' or limited by the technology at the disposal of the target market. PC is no different.To argue otherwise is to say that game development and scope has evolved beyond technical considerations in any context, which is simply not true.
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People saying that Lockhart will hold back series X are just wrong, because it has the same CPU and SSD. But Phil Spencer is talking about XB1 here. Most people disagree with his comments because a game that fully want to utilise the game design options afforded by the SSD would be limited if they had to support XB1. We have The Medium devs saying that their game was not possible on last gen, and we have Mark Cerny saying that Spider-Man was held back by the HDD. We also have R&C Rift Apart shoecasing gameplay scenarios unseen on PS4. That is an argument that cannot be chalked up to just fanboy warring, it's echoed by people working on games and on hardware architectures.
They aren't supporting Xbox One indefinitely, it's no big deal. Some games won't scale down sooner rather than later and shock, PS5 is similar and isn't exactly flying out the gate making his point even more. Xbox One is getting sent out to pasture, they are moving on but not dropping it dead in support which is a good thing.
Yep, just look at all these stunningly new and unique gameplay experiences that definitely can't be done on any existing hardware such as.. errrr..
''Raw'' graphics I agree, you can make TLOU2 run on a GTX 630 if you make enough effort to make the game look ugly. But game design is not scalable, in theory there is no way to develop a game for SSDs and simply put this game to run on an HDD and wait for everything to be the same, I know it's an example that everyone is tired of hearing, but Star Citizen runs ridiculously poorly on HDDs (and a good HDD)
Phil, talk only for your department. I'm sure Crytek, CD Project and many other have their own experiences made....
Less about console hardware and more about the fact that developers can see Steam hardware surveys and know that requiring top notch hardware to run cuts out a massive portion of the purchasing market.
I mean, Star Citizen is PC only and is often cited for its strong recommendation to use an SSD. And even that recommendation is a SATA SSD.
The major bottleneck people cite when coming up with that 'meme' is the HDD. This is also a bottleneck shared by the vast majority of PC gamers on Steam, so even a game developed exclusively for PC would face that issue.
Have they said that the UE5 demo can run on PS4/XB1? I haven't read that anywhere yet. I remember something about it being able to run on a standard SSD as opposed to an NVMe one, but that would still be a big step up from what's in gen 8 consoles.
I'll leave it to the developers and system creators as to whether something is being held back or not by hardware choice. So far no one has raised red flags that I've seen, and the only concern vocally is from enthusiast websites that think they know everything to do with game design and creation.
Microsoft isn't dictating you make a game for Xbox One/X so there isn't a problem.
You can argue his point as every new game releases saying can't be done which may be true or not but the main thing is devs can target what they want.
Thank you.
I don't really have more to say on this subject.
Once again...minimum requirements, Phil. Minimum requirements..
You can even do recommended requirements of you want. Same thing.
Of course it's console warrior crap, look at the difference in thread numbers on certain topics, there is a large population here that are just disingenuous plus it's a phil Spencer thread so we know how that goes.
end of the day we are getting great games
Crystal clear strategy, Phil... just very unexciting one.
Push for resolution, framerate, cartoony art style and more multiplayer trend chasing... while less or no visits to Satya's office to explain ballooning studio budgets.
What highest fidelity games on PC market? Scam Citizen lol? PC users are naturally playing Xbox One limited games for an entire generation already. All you are getting in multiplatform on PC is small stuff... like draw distance, pushing more pixels, more complex shader computations with diminishing returns and a framerate boost.
Lockhart is another less obvious limitation which unfortunately will hold up for an entire next gen.
Push for resolution, framerate, cartoony art style and more multiplayer trend chasing... while less or no visits to Satya's office to explain ballooning studio budgets.
What highest fidelity games on PC market? Scam Citizen lol? PC users are naturally playing Xbox One limited games for an entire generation already. All you are getting in multiplatform on PC is small stuff... like draw distance, pushing more pixels, more complex shader computations with diminishing returns and a framerate boost.
Bullshit
So, in other words... Obsidian are saying that they are limited in the scope of the stuff they are making by Xbox One already.
Lockhart is another less obvious limitation which unfortunately will hold up for an entire next gen.
Isn't PC specs "minimum" a thing?
even Nintendo eventually embraced HD.
I know they have been making huge efforts into offering the most pro-consumer proposition on the market. But, at what point are you hurting the consumers who spend 400+ on your machine, and see its exclusives not maximize the potential of their creators just to accommodate a "play anywhere" mantra.
even Nintendo eventually embraced HD.
I know they have been making huge efforts into offering the most pro-consumer proposition on the market. But, at what point are you hurting the consumers who spend 400+ on your machine, and see its exclusives not maximize the potential of their creators just to accommodate a "play anywhere" mantra.
It is but you'd be surprised how well you can still get a game to play even when you are under them. I may have previously taken the min specs more as a "suggestion"...
Bingo.
Notice their emphasis is on fidelity and frame rates. Has been for a while talking about next gen.
It's gonna be interesting around here once next gen starts for them.
I think we should keep in mind through all this that MS aren't mandating that all games are compatible with XB1. They have said that they themselves will have games releasing for the XB1 potentially through to the endnof 2021, but I would presume they too like the rest Of the industry would be dropping the XB1 after that. Devs are already making exclusives for next gen, so in the end this cross-gen talk will not be a generation-long topic by any stretch of the imagination.
We all know why Spencer is making these statements, because of the yet unannounced Lockhart model.
Reality is different, it's obvious that if you have a more powerful card you'll be able to turn on more bells and whistles but game design is constantly bound by the weakest hardware. Hence why on PC there are minimum requirements that constantly go up and traditionally when new consoles arrive these minimum requirements get a significant jump.
Even if you have a 2080TI today you're still playing games conceived by design to run on XB1 and PS4, 7 years old hardware.
Spencer has not a point relatively to game design not being held back by the least powerful target hardware, he's just trying to sell their own strategy and approach at next gen, which is his work.
Just like in a previous interview he stated that we're now getting diminishing returns in graphics so it's more about immersion and 60fps.
He's trying to sell what he knows they're gonna offer.
Reality is different, it's obvious that if you have a more powerful card you'll be able to turn on more bells and whistles but game design is constantly bound by the weakest hardware. Hence why on PC there are minimum requirements that constantly go up and traditionally when new consoles arrive these minimum requirements get a significant jump.
Even if you have a 2080TI today you're still playing games conceived by design to run on XB1 and PS4, 7 years old hardware.
Spencer has not a point relatively to game design not being held back by the least powerful target hardware, he's just trying to sell their own strategy and approach at next gen, which is his work.
Just like in a previous interview he stated that we're now getting diminishing returns in graphics so it's more about immersion and 60fps.
He's trying to sell what he knows they're gonna offer.
Imo MS should ditch Xbox one as soon as possible.
No development, no console , no promo. Nothing.
Series X is BC so people won't have to worry about their library. People with XB1 can still play their games and have Game pass. But all newer games should be made for only next gen.
No development, no console , no promo. Nothing.
Series X is BC so people won't have to worry about their library. People with XB1 can still play their games and have Game pass. But all newer games should be made for only next gen.
This will work under normal circumstances for traditional games. No ones saying it can't be scaled down however the problem occurs when the creativity of developers is hampered when they want to design a game that specifically takes advantage of next gen features. Not everything is framte rate and reso all the time.
How can a developer for example scale back a game which fundamentally relies on its hardware set. I couldnt imagine they wanted or invisaged a 7-10 second load screen for Rift Apart if it was on PS4.
How can a developer for example scale back a game which fundamentally relies on its hardware set. I couldnt imagine they wanted or invisaged a 7-10 second load screen for Rift Apart if it was on PS4.
While absolutely true, can you imagine if games in general did require all of your 32GBs of RAM? Or 128GB? The line has to be drawn somewhere if they want games to sell well so it makes sense to draw it where a good amount of people can reasonably run the games on their hardware. I can't think of any PC game that required the absolute best hardware for its time, including the two you mention - Crysis 1 had settings and could run on lower end hardware and not everyone is playing Star Citizen with the best.
Developing games with compatibility for legacy devices has pretty much always held back PC games. As others have said, in this thread, Crysis 1 and Star Citizen have been the only games in the past 15 years that said "fuck it, hardware will just have to catch up".
Speaking of bullshit. Lockhart won't be holding anything back. In fact if the rumored specs are true it probably has more overhead than the Series X.
I do think most are overreacting, after all they even said in the article that support for xgs studios for x1 would only be mandated for the first year. After I assume that most of xgs would decide depending on their games. I knew when reading most people who have been arguing against this would still dislike the idea. I think it's a perspective thing imo, even though most of the games shown off at sonys show probably were possible to do on PS4, although in people's mind they probably believe that all those games were possible thanks to the tech in ps5. There are examples of next gen games that could only be done with the new tech, like rachet and clank, but so far it's very limited.
The thing is that most games take at least three years to make, how many games could possibly have SSD's as a requirement for the game to run when they wouldn't have known about it for a large amount of the games development when they were probably targeting current gen. It's only going to be really in a year or two were we will get mists games that can be developed with SSD's and over next generation improvements in mind. I don't see it being that huge an issue for the first year or so of a consoles life unless a dev really overshot when they were developing a game.This will work under normal circumstances for traditional games. No ones saying it can't be scaled down however the problem occurs when the creativity of developers is hampered when they want to design a game that specifically takes advantage of next gen features. Not everything is framte rate and reso all the time.
How can a developer for example scale back a game which fundamentally relies on its hardware set. I couldnt imagine they wanted or invisaged a 7-10 second load screen for Rift Apart if it was on PS4.
Are people even reading the article? He literally says that developers draw a line on the hardware they are targetting. Here's an example: MS is targetting the XB1 as their "line" for Infinite. Bloober is targetting XSX as their line for the Medium. It's pretty simple. He's not being disingenuous, he literally says that developers choose what hardware to target. A game like Infinite isn't going to need to be designed with a SSD in mind. Maybe the next Halo will have a scene where Master Chief is making multiple slipstream jumps in a row (I doubt it).
This.
Some new ideas that are only possible on next gen systems will for sure have to be scrapped for every system, because the XBox One S would struggle hard or not be able at all to handle it.
I mean these days idk how much of an effect Lockhart will have on the scale of games.
If we had a Lockhart during say the 360 era, I think we'd have seen an effect on the overall scale of games.
It's no secret that consoles are the baseline for AAA games so if the devs focus on a worse console I'm sure it would affect the scale of games somewhat. With that being said I think we're kinda at a sort of temporary peak for game scale so I don't think Lockhart will make much of a difference.
If we had a Lockhart during say the 360 era, I think we'd have seen an effect on the overall scale of games.
It's no secret that consoles are the baseline for AAA games so if the devs focus on a worse console I'm sure it would affect the scale of games somewhat. With that being said I think we're kinda at a sort of temporary peak for game scale so I don't think Lockhart will make much of a difference.
I believe this is true ultimately the best way to shut down a narrative, is show people. I mean from the chatter about infinite, I doubt anyone watching the demo is going to think, "this is awful, it would have been so much better if it was only series x".
They absolutely could, it would just require publishers to massively increase their budgets to allow for basically a port to take full advantage of all the hardware feaures, either scaling up their team or outsourcing the port. And with how MS seems to be pushing for free next-gen versions, it is definitely going to be exceedingly rare for a pub to spend that amount of money with almost zero chance of return
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