Larian has delayed the release of Baldur’s Gate 3, currently on pace to possibly be 2023’s Game of the Year, until they can figure out how to make split-screen work on Series S.
Larian has delayed the release of Baldur’s Gate 3, currently on pace to possibly be 2023’s Game of the Year, until they can figure out how to make split-screen work on Series S.
Microsoft wouldn’t have nearly the install base without the Series S, and developers can either target that platform or not, just like the Switch, because people bought it for its own strengths. If they want to scale their games up to a spec such that it runs on PlayStation but not Xbox, they’re welcome to, but they lose access to a large pool of customers, like those who can stomach paying $300 for a console but not $500. There are plenty of other next gen open world games that work on Xbox.
Also, your analysis on how it should perform isn’t really based in reality. We can go to interviews where the Swen Vincke calls out the way their game does split-screen specifically. And besides, at this point, Xbox engineers are involved, and BG3 will run on Xbox, though likely just next year.
It has no strengths, and the install base is shit.
The switch only gets away with being a last gen console because it’s a handheld. The Series S has all the performance benefits of a last gen console with the install base of one that released 5 minutes ago.
There is no “the way they do split screen”. BG3 while running split screen is not a game that should make a current gen console struggle in any way. It makes the S struggle because it’s not a current gen worth of hardware.
$300, access to Game Pass, and playing nearly every new game that comes out for far cheaper are its strengths.
This is just a strange argument to make in the face of interviews and contradictory evidence of other modern games running on the Series S.
Its not the CPU that is the issue anyway. Its the memory both size and bandwidth. Microsoft addressed the size somewhat by making some more RAM available but that doesn’t address the bandwidth. The issue is developers are hitting limits in shifting assets around as compared to the X. Its why you see significant texture differences and skipped RT in titles.
I don’t have a crystal ball for how it will play out in the second half of the generation but you would have to think it is more likely to become a bigger issue than not. Its also imho another reason why there won’t be a Pro series console. More likely they sunset the generation faster instead and just go with a whole new generation that trumps the PS5 pro. Because at least they know that the existence of a PS5 pro extends out the Sony generation enough to give them a window to do this. Or, and this would be a massive shame, this is the last Xbox hardware generation. I don’t think its likely but maybe enough generations of trailing marketshare means the bean counters give up on that aspect of it.