One of Remedy Entertainment's devs chimes in on the Xbox Series S, explaining why the low-spec console is a problem for the developers.
Skewed and Reviewed have posted an interview with Author Mike Diver about his pending book on Aliens video games.
Xbox boss Asha Sharma has discussed how component shortages will impact the company's plans for Project Helix.
When does this end? Its killing everyone. Consoles and PC. And for what? AI? The benefits of AI are completely outweighed by the negatives. And the government should have never allowed one company to buy up all the RAM.
This kind of proves this is an after thought product, most products like this are in r&d 5 years before they start mass producing. So they typically have the cost of components and things worked out long before assembly starts.
This is an assumption still, but I wouldn’t be surprised if project helix is similar to Scalebound,perfect dark and sod3. They had an idea but no actual execution other than concept stage. Being impacted by the ram shortage likely would also put this device 3-4 years out.
I’m not even sure MS has that endurance with Xbox yet
I mean.... what?
We're at a point that Samsung wont even provide their own phone department ram because they can sell it at higher prices to 3rd parties (AI). Its more profitable to sell the ram than make their own devices with it.
You think because R&D starts 5 years ago the 3rd party component manufacturers will honour that price? They'll sell it to whomever is paying the most today, not some gentlemens agreement they made years ago. AI farms will buy more volume at higher prices than any console manufacturer will. It'll be the same for Playstation.
Helix is going to be stupidly expensive
Instead of leaning into smarter upscaling techniques they're brute forcing hardware that will cost them dearly and it remains to be seen if it's genuinely going to provide a meaningful differential
I know in the oc.doace people like to brag about not using frame gen or dlss to get to high on a game but for the majority of players they happily use those technologies without a second thought
That's going to be ps6 vs Helix
While this does seem to be the case, I am encouraged by the statement from Microsoft about wanting to provide affordable options. If this means a Series S style Helix, at least there will be something affordable being offered.
It's called systematic inflationary. Yes we get it Microsoft, keep raising in the name ofall kinds of stuffs
Honestly if there was thing I learned from this generation is that new consoles arnt day one anymore.
I can wait 1-3 years.
Another important lesson from this generation: while Nintendo showed us that prices don't necessarily need to ever drop, we've now learned that waiting 1-3 years does carry some risk that prices increase. This generation is just bizarre in all the wrong ways.
The factors are largely external. Covid and Russia-Ukraine war causing inflation led to the first price increase in 2022.
Then we get Trump's tariffs increasing hardware prices, AI boom causing a RAM crisis, war on Iran causing a worldwide fuel crisis which impacts the cost of everything.
Gaming doesn't exist in a vacuum. The last few years have been a shitshow and lot of it was definitely avoidable.
TNS - NCSoft CEO admitted that AI is rapidly becoming a core part of game development, but he added that it cannot replace what makes games fun.
To be fair, there are also human made games that release and lack any fun at all either.
Guild Wars 2 been playing for 14yrs, 1st beta. This is just one company I support, Arenanet and NCSoft, even though I torrent, there are a few PC companies I will buy from. "PlayStation’s Horizon MMO spin-off, Horizon Steel Frontiers." I feel this will be good, NCSoft is a good developer/publisher.
It’s a tool. Use it elevate things and get it done faster. I’m sorry but not every game made by humans is good. If this can help things, then I fully embrace it.
Not a very meaty response. Very generic answer, doesn't really explain the whys, only says it's a problem from the outset.
Xbox series S was a problem from conception imo but we needed a more cohesive response than this.
more and more developers
This guy isn't even a developer, he's just in PR.
How do PC developers do things? Do they start from the bottom and work up or from the top and work down? somewhere along the way they have a minimum and maximum they aspire to. In the PC side there are way more combinations to deal with and yet the games still manage to be scalable throughout. Last gen should have prepared them for what was to come. Having a base model and premium to work towards. This gen looks to be no different, esp if the rumor of a 5 pro is to be believed. that adds another variable to have to work with.