Suicide Squad Dev Criticizes Xbox Series S

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VenomUK628d ago

Failed GaaS dev criticises deficient specification games console - it’s like a hinny criticising a mule.

Eonjay628d ago (Edited 628d ago )

I mean there is a long line of developers that stretches out back and around the corner saying the same thing as this guy. Are you saying they are all failed devs?

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Rude-ro628d ago

Well… per fan history.,
Halo infinite was a far bigger disappointment than said game and it was meant to be a gaas game, but it too failed and they pulled anymore support for it.

So 🤷🏻‍♀️

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OlderGamer17628d ago

And here comes the damagecontrol 😁

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OptimusDK628d ago

There is no disguising that the S is more difficult to optimize for - but so is 50 pct. of PC's not to mention the Nintendo Switch. I think the existance of the S actually pushes the developers to improve the game that it even some times improves the game for the X and PS5. We have seen that before.

But if you are a developer i guess you would awoid this as much as possible to do the bare minimum that is needed to get the game running OK. I think we all win just not lazy developers.

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neutralgamer1992627d ago

It’s not about the failed devs or anything. Series S is holding back this generation anyone who disagrees is living in denial. MS really screwed itself by making that console when they could have simply made series S100 less than series X and call it a day

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darthv72627d ago (Edited 627d ago )

@jay... where are they? I haven't seen them speaking up in solidarity with this dev. In fact I don't recall seeing anyone speaking out on the S in a while. It's as if THIS dev is just trying to pin blame on something else instead of admitting to their own shortcomings.

Devs who spoke out before must have figured it out as they haven't said much since. I want to see this list of devs around the corner and what they did then compared to what they do now. If they still believe in what they said... so be it.

The S does have its limitations but many other devs make it work. It's no different than other things with even more limitations like a switch or steam deck. If the S wasn't a "console" and instead a portable, this wouldn't be an issue. And that may be what this whole experiment is about. To see how well a low spec xbox could do in comparison to a full featured one.

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Eonjay627d ago

@darthv72

Reading through the thread, its clear that he doesn't need any help defending himself or proving his point. He gives several examples, including how the S model holds back the X and PS5. Is is clearly very confident in his ability and it shows.

There are several issues here but regarding the Steam Deck comparison, you are talking about a machine that can take low settings and can use much lower base resolutions due to the screen size. That wont work on the Xbox Series S. People wont accept that. (Well to be honest some do with 360 native resolutions but in general this isn't seen as acceptable). Another issue is that people seem to think that the a 4K frame buffer is taking up 6 gigs of memory on the X and PS5. That is not even realistic. The Series S simply has less memory so this limits all console and PC variants.

Do to its restrictions the Series S also require extra optimization which is money. It simply cost more to port a game to it. Lower results, more expensive than the X to develop for.

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GamerRN628d ago

How come none of them criticize low end PCs?

1Victor627d ago (Edited 627d ago )

@gamer: “How come none of them criticize low end PCs?”
Because any true gamer knows that ALL PC GAMES HAVE A MINIMUM REQUIREMENT THAT MUST BE MET REGARDLESS OF LOW OR HIGHER END PC.oh and upgrade too
.
@jam: “you know microsoft isn't just xbox right?
You know PC run don’t need windows to run 🤦🏿

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CobraKai627d ago

Like 1Victor said, the user has to meet the minimum requirements. With the S, the developer has to meet the minimum requirements.

Still, how is it that a weaker PS4 has a better looking Arkham Knight? The developer needs to take some accountability.

GamerRN627d ago

But most PC minimum requirements are lower than the S

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jambola628d ago

you know microsoft isn't just xbox right?

S2Killinit628d ago (Edited 628d ago )

@OtterX
They did it thinking they could bolster theor sales numbers by acting like the 2 consoles were really one console, while at the same time flanking the PS5 from both sides by offering a cheaper price point. But, it looks like it backfired on them.

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1Victor627d ago

@otter: “May as well call Microsoft the "Suicide Squad" bc they seriously committed industry suicide by introducing the Series S.”
I disagree the SS is a stroke of genius a weak cheaper console targeting the masses that in no way paired with mandatory parity in no shape or form have hindered game development on other consoles OR SO SAID XBOX FANBOYS.

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ABizzel1627d ago

The Series S was a good idea in theory, the issue with the console was the execution.

I get them wanting to have a console launch at $299, because generally speaking when the PS360 / PS4XBO dropped to those prices that’s when they became mass market sellers so having a console launch Day 1 at that price in theory should have been a success….

However, the issue with the Series S is all the cutbacks that needed to happen in order to get as much parity with the Series X hardware as possible while sticking too hard to that $299 price point. In the end they should have just went with $349 and $549 which would have helped them get a much needed boost in performance for the Series S possibly allowing 12GB of faster GDDR6 or 16GB to match Series X instead of this 10GB split, and better cooling for a GPU clock speed that matches the Series X at minimum (+15% power), or ideally used a cutback 6600m with the Series X clock speed which would have gave it 6TFLOPS, which is a 50% performance boost, and exactly 1/2 the performance of the Series X instead of ~1/3~.

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anast628d ago

HA!

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Software_Lover628d ago

I said it when it was released/announced, the Series S should have never been made.

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-Foxtrot628d ago

The sad thing is how do we know 100% that there's not certain features a studio could do for a multiplatform game but because the Series S wouldn't be able to handle it they decide to cut it entirely for all platforms...that then impacts the PS5 / PC which is unfair.

It's a hypothetical scenario, pure speculation and nothing more but it makes you think, we'd never know. It could be easier to just not do it rather than mess around with the Series S to try for parity as the extra features would make that task harder.

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Vits628d ago

If developers really cared about quality and features, they would start development on PC, the most powerful and flexible platform, which isn’t subject to any known parity clauses. They could then scale down for the weaker PS5, Series X, and even more for the Series S.

But they don’t do that. Instead, they usually start with a mid-tier platform like the PS5, which has its own set of exclusive development tools that aren’t directly compatible with the Xbox or PC ecosystems. They then deliver poor ports to PC and complain about the Series S.

It’s incredibly hypocritical.

jznrpg628d ago (Edited 628d ago )

I was a PC gamer for many years and there were tons of issues with compatibility and bugs. I know people act like PC is perfect but I know from experience that is not the case. Every platform has it pros and cons but the Series S was a Xbox One X in disguise and should not have existed at all.

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Markdn628d ago (Edited 628d ago )

Console. Gamers want the best for there platform, the dont care about pc's,I've said this before. Stop beating the pc drums, 98 of Console. Gamers won't even look at a PC. And remember pc is scalable series s is not. Try running any game. On a £200 PC. then come back and talk limitation. All developers have targets for builds, it's not console specific or. Pc for that matter. Series S was a dead horse at start and should have been nothing more than a streaming hybrid box.

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NotoriousWhiz628d ago

Honesty, I can see PC extending its reach. Any game that isn't AAA seems to be selling best on PC these days. And while we don't have sales of Black Myth for PS5, we do know that it sold far more on PC than on PS5.

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XBManiac627d ago

That's not true. PC is not "a platform", but a wide range of hardware and developers need to set a the lowest barrier in order to be able to sell enough units of their product. That is why almost all games have minimum requirements, which are actually the requirements that the development team has taken as a basis. Anything beyond that requires extra effort in testing, development time, etc. that not all companies can afford... and some big companies prefer not to invest in it at all.

So, Xbox Series S is a similar situation. Games are developed for Xbox Series S... and then for Series X. But, if developed for PC or PS5 at the beginning, the work invested tends to be too much for some teams and they opt for not doing the extra needed for Xbox. So, all that we get on Xbox Series X is thanks to the platform superior hardware over Series S, not because developers work hard to get a better experience. It is a "free" improvement for most of devs.

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thorstein628d ago

It's happened before. It certainly makes logical sense. I remember hearing that XBSS is about 75% of XBS ownership.

Developing a console game means a dev would have to have 1 version for XB and PS. They're aiming for sales so that tracks.

A PS5/XBSX can play the lower end version. But the higher end version cuts out 3/4 of the Xbox market.

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raWfodog628d ago

Yep, I posed that same scenario here over a year ago. It’d be interesting to see how much content was left on the drawing board due to the XSS shortcomings.

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OWCY628d ago

dont think it was the series s that made you added mrs freese over the normal mr freeze or make a poor game.

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Knightofelemia628d ago

Still should have followed the same path Sony took with the PS5. Same machine same specs only difference one has a disc drive the other doesn't. And now the all digital Series X is now just finally showing up late to the party. The Series S is criticize by everybody. Games have to be nerfed down just to run on the whatever the f*ck Microsoft was smoking machine.

Software_Lover627d ago (Edited 627d ago )

They were trying to save/make money on some of the wafers that didn't make the cut (quality control) for the Series X.

Edit:
It's the same process GPU manufacturers use with their lineups. The best Die gets used in the top of the line GPU's then those that don't make the cut get processed as different GPU's. 4090 to 4080 to 4070 etc.

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purple101628d ago (Edited 628d ago )

nonono, its runs exactly the same, but with a lower resolution, - wel, thats what the marketing said so thats what I was sold on, - oh - games being dropped & not even hitting 30fps sometimes - who do I speak to about a refund..?🧐

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Gamingsince1981628d ago

I remember the excuses , the xbox fanboys said, its just a few sliders for graphics, the games will be exactly the same......didn't turn out like that at all.

jwillj2k4628d ago (Edited 628d ago )

or the other one

“The xbox dev tools arent even finished yet still being optimized” 🤣

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OlderGamer17628d ago

And dont forget...developers have only to scale down...and the tools are coming

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Reaper22_628d ago

Fake news.

OlderGamer17628d ago

More damagecontrole, dude the S sucks, wake up and smell the coffee

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Chevalier627d ago

They can't smell coffee if their nose is stuck brown nosing

P_Bomb628d ago

I bought a Series S before buying my Series X. Still have it. I’m sorry, lol! 😇

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TheEroica628d ago

Makes crappy game no one wants.... Blames console performance.

Some people may fall for a line like that, but not I.

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stonecold3628d ago

and most of bot on twitter blaming ps5 holding this generation back even saying that series s is more advanced spec then ps5 . and even going to lower saying series s is more powerful then ps5 .

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Eonjay628d ago

Twitter is a hell hole of epic scale. Its a competition to see who can reject reality the hardest.

purple101628d ago

Can I suggest searching for ‘fluffy cats’ you’ll soon see the algorithm change for you

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DivineHand125628d ago (Edited 628d ago )

Even though things didn't turn out well for Rocksteady's game because of Warner Brother's greed, I will not dismiss his input even though it would be better if he told us what specifically about the series S gave him difficulties in the optimization area.

Back in the Xbox 360 and PS3 days, developers were very vocal about what made the PS3 difficult to develop for while today, we mostly hear vague statements. I believe it is only Larian Studios that told us that the series S made it difficult for them to add split screen. After that Microsoft was able to work with them to bring the game to the console within a few months.

I think Phil is bad at gambling. Back in 2021, Part of the Xbox Series X shortage was caused by units being allocated for xCloud streaming. At this time, Sony waited until the shortage issue was over before they created PS5 servers for streaming with PS Plus Premium.

https://www.theverge.com/20...

This made it so that the series S was widely available while the X was difficult to find. It was so bad that they didn't even have any series X consoles for the Halo Infinite championships in that same year. They had everyone play on Xbox Series X Dev kits.

https://www.vg247.com/micro...

By prioritizing game pass services, it may have led to the negative consequences we are seeing today.

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Einhander1972628d ago

"Back in the Xbox 360 and PS3 days, developers were very vocal about what made the PS3 difficult to develop for while today, we mostly hear vague statements. I believe it is only Larian Studios that told us that the series S made it difficult for them to add split screen."

Many developers have said that the Series S has caused development issues, many specifically pointing out the limitations of the memory.

"I believe it is only Larian Studios that told us that the series S made it difficult for them to add split screen. After that Microsoft was able to work with them to bring the game to the console within a few months."

I don't know how much Microsoft actually influenced anything, Larians devs posted repeatedly on twitter about the progress and I can't remember them specifically saying that Microsoft had actually helped with anything. But that aside, the series s version biggest change is that fact that it doesn't offer split screen after Microsoft relented on its own parity policy.

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DivineHand125628d ago

"Many developers have said that the Series S has caused development issues, many specifically pointing out the limitations of the memory."

Source?

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Einhander1972628d ago

You are in an article from a dev criticizing the series s that isn't Larian.

I'll just cut and paste what I had to point out to another user who couldn't accept that the Series S was a developmental nightmare a month or so ago.

Remedy Entertainment: The developers behind Control and Alan Wake expressed concerns about the Series S's limited RAM hindering game performance and development

Larian Studios: Creators of Baldur's Gate 3, they acknowledged the Series S holding back the potential of the game on Xbox

Rocksteady Studios: A senior artist from Rocksteady chimed in, calling the Series S "not much better than a last-gen" console

The Coalition: Developers behind the Gears of War franchise. While not directly criticizing the Series S, they've acknowledged the development challenges of targeting multiple hardware specs

Ubisoft: Though not a specific developer, Ubisoft has hinted at the Series S's impact on development. They've mentioned the need for "clever optimization" to achieve their desired visuals across Xbox platforms

Multiple anonymous developers: Several developers have anonymously expressed concerns about the Series S's limitations on forums and interviews. These concerns often center around limitations in RAM, storage, and overall processing power compared to the Series X

Saber Interactive: Developers behind the reboot of Saints Row. They've mentioned needing to be "resourceful" to ensure the game runs well on the Series S, hinting at the limitations it presents

Nightdive Studios: Creators of acclaimed remakes like System Shock Enhanced. They've expressed concerns about the Series S's impact on texture resolution and visual fidelity, especially for games with high-resolution assets.

Mid-sized and Indie Developers: While not specific names, reports suggest that many smaller studios struggle with the additional optimization tasks required for the Series S. This can strain resources and potentially limit the features or graphical quality achievable on the platform

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DivineHand125628d ago

@Einhander1972

Thanks for the reply though I had work to do because you didn't place any links to your sources.

From what I read apart from Larian, only Remedy and Nightdive is saying something specific.

I was able to find an interview in had with Remedy and it is very specific, for example here is a snippet I read.

"Series S, the CPU is pretty much the same as on Series X,” Puha said. “But the GPU is an issue. It really is. And then, having less memory is a pretty big problem. And we often get, ‘okay, you make PC games, surely you know how to scale.’ Well, memory is not a problem on PC. It really isn’t. And that’s one of the struggles when you talk about resolution and framerate. It’s just not enough to drop the resolution heavily. That’s what we’re doing on the S and we’re really, really working hard to make sure the visual quality still holds up."

https://www.ign.com/article...

That is the type of insight we need in order to get a better understanding about the main issue that is preventing them from making their game. Or at least what I want to see instead of vague statements and here say. My opinion is that if the issue isn't clearly stated, Xbox will make the same mistake again next generation if they choose to release a console.

I could not find any articles for Nightdive about the subject. Maybe I need a better search engine. I also understand the ambitious games like Alan wake 2 and why those devs would see a bottle neck but I don't see why indie devs who make games for PS4 and Xbox one would complain about the short comings of the series s.

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Sciurus_vulgaris628d ago

It’s kind of ironic that it was PC version of suicide squad that had the most technical issues.

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Ristul628d ago

I don't find that strange to be honest, PC has the most variations of setups. Consoles should be easy in comparison.

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Sciurus_vulgaris627d ago

That’s the irony here, developing for PS5, series X and S is much easier than developing for PC. The performance of Suicide Squad shows that it was the PC version the needed more optimization. Yet the dev complains about the series S that had good performance on their title.

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YourMommySpoils628d ago

As much as I'd criticize Xbox, I wouldn't blame Xbox for this disaster of an going trend.

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Psychonaut85628d ago

He’s not wrong. But trying to optimize for the Series S was the very least of Suicide Squad’s problems.

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Profchaos628d ago

I think despite the console selling well it's clearly a Trainwreck and directly correlates with so many issues with the Xbox series consoles regarding games coming late to the platform or being skipped over entirely.

Microsoft wants to end this generation early over continuing to support it while Sony is going to offer a mid gen refresh and Nintendo is only just entering it.

Ending the generation early is probably two fold they want a jump on next gen to get there early despite the competition not even thinking of it.

They also want to end it directly because the series s is holding back development of games with many third parties struggling to optimise their games for it or skipping it entirely or failing to optimise the series x version and providing the X users with s code (Hogwarts legacy)

It's clear the s was a move just to entice people to get to the generation cheaply but this is the cost of that move.

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Gamingsince1981628d ago

The console is selling well ??

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Profchaos628d ago (Edited 628d ago )

overall the console is not selling well that was a bad word choice I meant the series s is selling far more units than the series X has. So my mistake there I was taking within the Xbox ecosystem

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Gamingsince1981622d ago

A bit late with my reply but I changed my disagree to agree after you replied to explain what you meant.

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Demetrius628d ago

That's another reason why we haven't had even better looking games, series s causes strain on devs smh. Microsoft don't even give af, I say most devs should skip out on the series s and just work on the x/ps5

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BlaqMagiq1628d ago

Not surprised. It's a shitty console to develop for. Always has been. Which is why Baldur's Gate 3 was stripped back.

RhinoGamer88628d ago

Phil and team should have sunset the S model. Shameful management.

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XiNatsuDragnel628d ago

When studios are saying what most have been saying you know series s was a mistake

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dveio628d ago (Edited 628d ago )

I really don't get it.

Why can Microsoft's policies put force on third parties business decisions?

I mean, of course I get it partially at some point: it's their consoles! Like "If you want to release it on Xbox, make it run on both!"

But why can't third parties reply: "Well, it's our game, our vision for a game, our business, our financials. If you want our game running on Xbox, we won't downgrade our technological vision & goals for it."

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shadowT628d ago

Velocity Architecture

OlderGamer17628d ago

Lets face it MS made a wrong decission and it bites them in the ass, and no PR fluff cant change that...

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CrimsonWing69628d ago (Edited 628d ago )

I think they should criticize their choice from going from an Arkham game to this and all the social decisions they decided to ramp up on before anything else.

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ocelot07627d ago

3rd party devs should follow what Black Myth and Boldersgate 3 devs did. If you must release on Xbox and there crappy parity rule then. Delay it on Xbox. Work on the pc and ps5 version get I released. Then work on the Xbox version. Or just cancel it what ever is best for the Devs.

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Gabrielmpf627d ago

If you want to blame the Series S for holding back the game industry, you should also blame the devs still developing for PS4/Xbox One after 4 years into this generation. There's plenty of blame to throw around...

DarkkMinion627d ago

This is the definition of lazyness on a whole different level. Meanwhile many developers on the PC side try as hard as possible to optimize games to run on weaker hardware like a steam deck and you never see them complaining.