This is a total fail.. MS shouldn't have changed the specs on the cheaper version, reduce the storage space or remove backwards compatibility if anything. Just not the GPU! They are treating consoles too much like a pc now.
If the difference of Sony's ps5 digital version is only the optical drive, then ps5 will dominate automatically.

most likely 1080p for multiplayer. If it is 1440p then wowsa.

Dynamic 1080p I would guess.

The Series S is definitely already aiming at people with 1080p anyways (or a cheaper companion console)

And when new games are using 1-3 TF of power on GPU compute processes, how well is that going to run on a 4TF machine? What about games that have more objects on screen than a 4TF GPU can handle with any kind of reasonable speed? This essentially means that the game has to be designed to run on this processor, any stronger processor gets graphical upgrades. The other option is making multiple builds of games with significant code implementation changes.

RDNA doesn't improve GPU compute, as those are base level processing algorithms that over the years have already achieved the most efficient form possible, and the three basic commands, add, subtract, multiply, which are by far the most common instructions for GPU compute, won't see speed increases with RDNA.

People need to get past this idea that GPU's are only for graphics, or that RDNA is so efficient that it is like having 50% more processing power available to the programmer.

However, I do agree with CyberCowboy. But if MS mandates Series S compliance, then it's going to hold back games, or the system will just not get as many games.

Quite a huge difference to the current gen PS4/Pro/S/X. They are all basically the same. Incl. mem etc. So, this one is significantly cut down. Not just the GPU. Less memory.

The reason why the Pro does "only" have 8GB (+1) is that devs can basiclly use the same assets and one build. The X probably never uses all 12GB. The S-S now has half (!) the memory (+2GB) than next gen consoles. Sure, you could say advanced lods and streaming will allow high res assets to scale dynamically. But, even if it does, you need to QA this on a device to verify all those assets actually work on a 10GB machine with a 4TF. Sure, MS has great tech to optimize that, but this does not come for free - no matter how MS wants to sell this (to devs). So, either this will extra cost or it simply degrades quality because for studios with smaller budgets you'd focus on the S and scale up to safe that QA pass. Simple. At the end of the day, it won't impact PS5 much, I suppose. There we will have 1 performance target; as long as developers put the effort in to optimize for the big machines. And it will also depend if the S will lead in sales or if it just yet another console. I still believe Sony will price the 5DE competitively and will give this a run for the money. MS wants to push this (on consumers and developers), but the truth is, with a comparable price the 5DE is the much better value proposition for both consumers and developers. When games come out first on PS5 simply because there is no additional work needed to scale, this will have an impact what little Benny will ask daddy to get next. Not to mention, 5DE games will not run any worse then PS5 disk based games or even X-X; and in fact load twice as fast.

@fr0sty13m

+ hardware-accelerated ray tracing, mesh shaders, variable rate shading and Xbox Velocity Architecture on SSD.

@Marq

All those things take up TF resources. They aren't just their own thing which don't take away from the TF rating. Put in all that stuff, and you've pretty much taken away a good chunk of the power available to actually render games. The TF rating of processors includes all the things that allow those features to be used.

@rainslacker

You have it backwards. Those RNDA2 features let you save resources in order to output a better looking image.

Plus it’s new architecture. Last gen teraflops can’t really be compared to next gen teraflops since the tech evolves and improves so much.

Ok, then why was X1X running games at 4K and this will run games at 1440p? And less memory is less memory - "next gen" doesn't fix that. This budget box leaves little to really get excited about.

***Plus it’s new architecture. Last gen teraflops can’t really be compared to next gen teraflops since the tech evolves and improves so much.***

That's not how that works. TFlops are a measurement of said evolution in by designating higher TFlops based on the potential of the new hardware.

But as of now, not many next-gen exclusive games. So the next Call of Duty will run 4K on X1X and 1440K on XSS? It's kinda mushy

CoD will run at 4k on the 1X and the SS because it is a current gen game. When it comes to a 'next gen' CoD then both the PS4/XBO prob wont even be in the equation. That game will likely be 4k/60/120 on the PS5/SX and 1440/60 on the SS.

You won't see every game on XSS at 1440p.

Ram is very harshly gimped in XSS, even worse than X1X and way less for games, almost by a double amount

Well said...if more Sony fans had your attitude N4G would be a better site.

@SPEAKxTHExTRUTH
It goes for XB fans as well. I go in all stories all the time and there are way too many people that are trying to be salespeople for Sony and Microsoft without getting paid (Maybe some are).

@SPEAKxTHExTRUTH: That works both ways.

Maybe you should watch the video then. It answers a lot of questions around S and what developers need to do.

@Neo

Watched the video. It still leaves a lot to the imagination. Lots of PR. Will have to see what happens I guess

These declines are on the back of extra revenue received from releasing games like Forza horizon 5 on PlayStation. So I’m being sarcastic here when I said they should go back to exclusives. Killing off a revenue stream from Ps5 sales will only make things worse