Will Series X/PS5 games be "held back" by Series S?

I remember the 360 launch and how some were concerned about the model without a HDD limiting what developers could design games around. Luckily, they just left customers without the drive in the dust, and hey, you could always just buy it later, you can't buy bigger ram for your Series S.

I get that the gameplan is to sell consoles like iPhones, slim models down the line will be more powerful like New 3DS was.

But I'm wondering, could the size and scope of games, their levels and the number of characters on screen, etc. be held back by the Series S having less RAM? Its one thing to have lower resolution, framerate, textures, like Real Racing on iPhone SE vs iPad Pro or whatever. But I'm thinking what if they have to limit just how complex PS5/XSX multiplatform games can be -for instance- to allow "crossplay" between X & S players? Like, can't have a multiplayer map with like a bridge that collapses mid game for some players not others and so on.

More likely you'll see games on Series S simply have muddier textures or more aggressive LODs if RAM budget is an issue. If the the Series S was missing the SSD, that would be a major limiting factor on game design, but being able to scale down for the lesser amount of RAM should be possible by compromising visual features and textures on Series S.

Yeah I was very bummed to also find out that the S isn't just a weaker GPU and less storage but all less RAM that runs slower but unless the S outsells both X and both PS5 SKUs by some insane 2 to 1 margin then no I highly doubt something like you're suggesting will happen.

It's more likely that the S will age even faster because there will be a larger user base using the stronger machines.

So will this see developers aiming at the Series S as opposed to the Series X if based on price they sell a bunch more Series S' than Series X's?

This is a really complex question that doesn’t necessarily have a straight answer, aside from we really don’t know fully at this point. The reason it’s so complex is that it’s not a technological question, but more of a economic question. By that I mean should the Series S really take off and have more market share than either the Series X or PS5, then the problem takes care of itself. Developers target the S as the “baseline” platform and games run well on it. On the flip side, the Series S does ok, or not great, and doesn’t become the de facto standard platform, in which case things get muddier.

The first complicating question is the pace of PC min spec requirements. The reason publishers don’t just set the min spec to the latest set of graphics cards and SSDs is that most PC games have builds that Digital Foundry would call outdated. I’m talking platter hard drives and five year old graphics cards. If that sort of min spec remains in the upcoming years, the Series S has nothing to worry about because games will he developed for lower spec hardware anyway. A similar thing could happen if the PS4 and X1 install bases remain strong going forward.

But that’s not the whole story. Games are highly scalable nowadays, just look at Doom running on Switch. So perhaps the economic argument becomes moot with games running as good as the hardware allows. So ultimately, who knows!

We will have to see on this. It's tough right now to know and know also how much resolution is really the major factor how MS is painting it in the upgrade process.

I will say last gen they were not really held back by the low end so much as its gone on in that many games ran like shit on my base PS4, and I'm not really a performance snob at all. Control it really ruins the whole game because it slows done to a crawl every time you use your physics powers... which is like the whole game.

In addition, scaling is nothing new to games remotely because its been on PC for a long time. A lot of games also are running on Switch and last gen stuff and people aren't going as wild about that.

Yeah, as someone who played Control on a base Xbox One, I'd say Remedy seemed fairly fine with the idea of targeting a higher end machine and just pushing out a poorly optimized version to the lower end one. I imagine it'll vary by developer.

Eventually, but for the time being the biggest limitation is current-gen. Horizon Forbidden West, Miles Morales, and Sackboy also being on PS4 means the baseline for the next few years will the standard PS4 (and the standard XB1 for MS). I wouldn't be surprise if God of War Ragnarok (2021 supposedly) will also be cross-gen. Games designed for slow mechanical hard drives aren't going away any time soon.

Yeah, Doom on Switch is the best argument in favor, Control on VCR Xbox One/PS4 Fat the best argument against.

We'll have to see if the economics bear this out, but I really expect that most power users, gaming-as-primary-hobby people will just buy the Series X, and the series S will be for people either very much on a budget or people that only buy a game or two a year anyway. I expect a prestige single player thing like Control would just target the Series X and expect budget-conscious/casual gamers on a Series S to simply not buy their game in the first place so maybe it runs worse there. Stuff with broad multiplayer appeal better work on the Series S (sports games, Call of Duty, Borderlands, etc.), but I bet a lot of other developers can safely assume that the segment of the market that is likely to play their game probably bought the better Xbox.

But it's definitely a wait-and-see. A lot of developers will want to know whether the Series S or X sells more in the first 3-9 months of consoles being out.

I think it's a valid concern. High res assets, high fidelity physics, and expansive game engines are expensive to develop for - if the S outsells the X by a large margin, then developers building exclusively for console will have a very strong economic reason to just be 'good enough' for the X.

The one saving grace here is that Microsoft will also have all Xbox exclusives also available on PC (so far) -- which means game makers need to account for that market as well. What I don't know is whether the average PC will have more power than the Xbox Series S in a year, and whether that'll draw the minimum spec up or down.

Damnit Microsoft, you're doing pretty well this console generation, you're telling me you couldn't have thought of better names?

I suppose the first sign of how things are going is if Microsoft decides to start announcing console sales again.

These day I don't think PC is held bakc by consoles and consoles are not held back by the "lowest common denominator". The game engines are just taht much more complex they corm with variable textures, they have in-engine that keepsthe games running, and this past generation has had consoles within consoles game that allow players to choose "performance" or "high graphics modes".

So, no, I think the console of consoles being held back by teh lowest common denominators is outdated thinking that no longer represents how software and hardware work anymore.

I will even so so bold as to say, do not assume you actually know how Xbox Series X and PS5 will look in comparison. If you pre-ordered the Series X because that is teh 'so-called' more powerful one...uh, are we REALLY sure? Is the metric upon which games & systems are judged solely resolution and fps still anymore?

This year I really feel for the Giant Bomb team because I DO NOT think these consoles are are as easy to judge three months out. I actually don't think "what is better" will be evident with EVIDENCE until two dozen new game appear on each that can be compared by Digital Foundry. And, the biggest differences will be quality of life things like sound design, boot time, and ease of use day-to-day.

But I thought the Series S was a game pass console for the thousands of Xbox/360/One games in the back catalogue?

It's a stopgap console until they release another one. Series SX or something.

The primary difference is the GPU. If developers are actually aiming for a native 4K target on the Series X, the S should have no problem running those same games at lower resolution with the appropriate textures.

For comparing the One X vs Series S I mean only the S is a next gen system that will continue to receive new games over the next five years, although Fifa and Call of Duty will still come to Xbox One for a few more years, those are gonna be dumbed down versions of the next gen features, and I doubt the One X gets extra effort from developers after this year to make it better than the One S version.

That's not to say if you have an X1X that it isn't good enough to stick with for another year or two, it's not like there's killer apps coming to Series or PS5 any time soon.

It's just that the One X almost becomes like the 32X to Series S' Saturn. It has exclusive premium enhanced versions of a handful of games, that arguably are still worse than the 1440p 120 or even raytraced enhancements those same old games will get on the series S.

Resolution is the least important thing in UHD. So having the One X functioning like a space heater to pump out old games at 20-30 fps in 4k isn't a big deal as the faster loading times, etc. on the new system.

And in this analogy the Series X is like the (Neptune?) Combining the 32X and Saturn into one if you must have both.

I'm pretty much curious as well. I guess we'll just have to see it turned out in a couple of months.