Remedy Dev Reckons There's 'Nothing Surprising' About Baldur's Gate 3 Xbox Series S Debacle

The series s is holding the series x back the machine is getting more and more pointless moving forward especially with a lot of games being released now at 30 fps on the series s

I already commented on the Microsoft's strategy to prioritize casual gamers with Series S plus Game Pass on the previous BG3 delay article..

But I would like to add one more consideration: Microsoft biggest competitor Sony decided to go the other way round and made the cheaper console as powerful as the more full-featured console. And now even decided to introduce even more powerful PS5 Pro (dev kits for PS5 Pro are already being available to developers)...

If Microsoft does not react and will stubbornly insist on "Series S as the first class citizen", the gap between technical quality of titles for PS and Xbox will continue to widen and Microsoft risks losing hardcore gamers regardless how many trillions of dollars it will pump into acqusitions of renownded studios!

Always liked Remedy. One of the better devs out there. Anyone calling Larian lazy doesn’t have the slightest clue about game development. The series S has lead to one of the biggest games this year not being available on Xbox. That’s the reality of the situation.

@Dan1283 it is hardly pointless. It is a much cheaper way to get the public into the Xbox ecosystem. Yes, it is likely going to face hardware limitations, but it is hardly a massive problem at the moment. Seems many people are overreacting.

He's right, but he's really still condemning Larian for not taking platforms into account from the start.

It's really the same problem on PC and always has been. They build a game, make a game that plays great on whatever overpriced top shelf PCs they have sitting on their dev environment are to make it top class, and then end up with a game that runs like a slideshow on machines actual players have. It's amazing how backward the whole industry runs. Imagine if the latest Clash of Clans only ran on iPhone14 Plus and was a steaming pile on everything else? You just don't see this in mobile.

@Moonglow "Its because of its massive size gaming generates so much money, its the biggest form of entertainment today."

Not this kind of gaming. That "gaming" that makes it bigger than film and music is majority mobile "gaming".

Seems silly to develop a brand new game, knowing you will be bringing it to console to then not develop said game in a way that it can be scalable easily to account for the Xbox Series S

Remedy are always moaning about something now days still trying to justify Alan wake 2 being digital only

Thomas Puha is a PlayStation fanboy.
He's twitter account is full of PS content.

Funny how everyone seems to agree when a developer says Series S is hardware is hard to develop, but when other devs says it is not a problem at all people don't talk about.

These are pointless complaints from people who don't know what optimization means.

Some of the devs on that list of Series S complainers have games released on Switch, so I don't buy it any talks of 'hardware limitations' with the Series S.

By the way, Baldurs Gate 3 is playable on the weaker than Series S Steam Deck, and developer are trying to get it upgraded to Verified by Valve.

Optimize the damn game.

@Lightning720 I mean if people are ok playing games at 30fps then that's fair enough I know I can't anymore at all the series s is holding the x back and it's only going get worse In the future

Said it from the beginning. Two differently powered consoles was a just mistake. Hopefully Microsoft discontinues the S soon. Or replaces it with an S that has the same specs as the X, sans disc drive.

In fairness, @ZuneTattooGuy, the two biggest audiences for this game are on the PC and the PlayStation. Xbox lags considerably behind their numbers. On top of that, the X is capable of running the game as is, and the S is capable of running all but one very small element of the game. That's the same element that Microsoft dropped in their flagship Xbox title Halo Infinite (albeit, that Halo actually had a simplified version of what Baldur's Gate 3 has).

It's clear that Larian are having considerable problems getting split-screen co-op to work, and it is entirely unfair to expect them to withhold the game from everyone on the PC and the PlayStation whilst they sort the problem out. Time is money. People expect a return on the considerable financial investment that is costs to make a game like BG3. It's only right that Larian are allowed to recoup their costs now whilst they are able to do so. At least they are attempting to resolve the issues, rather than simply say we're not going to see it on the Xbox, which would appear to be the alternative...

I've said for years on here that the Series S is an absolute detriment to Xbox and developers state the same in diplomatic fashion almost on weekly basis.

But The Series S fanboys defend that console like it's the Second Coming. And the bottom line is, don't be cheap. Spend little bit more and get the Series X.

I absolutely despise multiple console releases and Mid-gen upgrades. Just use that time, money, research, to put out BEST possible console, THEN concentrate ALL on making the next gen console amazing as possible.

@InterceptorAlpha the S is the larger install base so it's not going anywhere. I'm not techy so can't actually say if it's holding things back or if it's just more work but I do wonder if they will have the 2 sku approach again next gen. We will have to see if first party can actually start utilizing all the features talked about at launch and show that the S can handle current gen games. I believe it's hard for them to send support teams since they haven't utilized it internally yet from what we've seen.

But it's here to stay for this gen and adding more SKUs won't make things better as the base Series S will still exist in the market.

If it's just split screen co op that is holding up the Series S version then the obvious solution in my opinion would be to not have split screen on xbox at launch. Why delay for a feature a very small percentage will use?

One guy's scenario. Had a Switch since launch. Wanted a next gen consol after being away from PS for 10 years. Couldn't get PS5. So bought S. First xbox ever with idea PS5 would come later. Purchased PS5. BUT introduced to xbox and love game pass. If there was no 'cheap' alternative would never have got sucked into Xbox environment. But didn't stop purchase of PS5.

While I'm certainly not all doom & gloom regarding the Series S, I do think Microsoft needs to rethink "feature parity at launch" requirements between Series X and Series S - especially if it's a feature that a small subset of an already small subset of overall install base will actually use (nothing against Baldur's Gate, but such a hardcore RPG is probably pretty niche in the console space).

@Somebody They also stated that they are a fairly small developer so don't have the resources to work on multiple platforms all at once. If I was guessing I would say that when they came across the co-op issue they diverted most of their focus on getting the PC and PS5 versions released and then they can place more focus on the Xbox version after they release. I saw a quote somewhere that said they had a small team still working on the Xbox version.

@lechugajr essentially the same as me. Had Nintendo consoles but decided to get a Series S as it was cheaper. Also just for a PS5 but will happily continue to use Series S due to game pass etc.

The vast majority of developers have been able to make Series S work, yet because a handful cant, some here think the Series S should be scrapped which is a massive overreaction and completely underestimates the power that being a cheaper option has in getting people into the Xbox ecosystem.

@Dan1283 it might get worse, might not. The vast majority of developers have been able to port to Series S successfully. People are focusing way too much on the handful who haven't.

And a lot of people couldn't care less about FPS, myself included.

I have no problem with the Series S. I think it was a good move overall, especially when paired with Game Pass. That said, the parity at launch needs to go away. Get rid of it and allow games to come out on the X even if the S version needs more time or release both versions and update the S version with additional features later. I mean honestly, how many games from here till the end of the generation are we even talking about here in regards to games getting delayed due to more work being required on the S version? A small handful tops?

Again, have no problem with the S and with what MS was trying to do with it. It’s the parity at release that is the real issue here. Nothing wrong with releasing a few extra demanding games during the entire generation that don’t have parity right off the bat.

To the people saying no feature parity to the series X -

That’s by most estimates putting 2 fingers up to over half (by most educated guesses/data) of the Xbox install base.

The S is fine, Larian haven’t called the S bad, just they are struggling to get it to run how they want it to on split screen.

It’s not like Bethesda or turn 10 delayed major releases to try get it right…. It’s just Larian have told people where they are struggling. That is all.

@Kevw2006 from the sounds of it, they now have Microsoft developers helping them do their work.

@Somebody The MS developers were stated to be assisting when the problem was first reported. It sounds like even with their assistance they still haven't been able to fully resolve the problem as yet.

To date we’ve seen games release day 1on series s at 30fps and 60fps on series x. We’re also only now starting to move away from ps4 support for 3rd party (trust the series s isn’t holding crossgen games back).
So I think the question is, going forward, how stringent is MS on parity… I don’t for a second think series x version of starfield is limited to 30fps because of the series s etc…but, as devs finally focus on current gen from the ground up the game between them will have to either widen…or skip Xbox altogether (3rd party).

I do think a split screen game is an outlier though.

Unfortunately MS have more series s customers than series x ones… so dropping the s is not going to be an option for 3rd party.

End of the day, they’re charging £70 for these games…do the work, or don’t ask for the money 🤷🏻

@PsBoxSwitchOwner

Yeah, I don’t have an issue with it. We’re talking about a few extra demanding games tops over the entire generation that wouldn’t release with identical features at launch if MS were to allow it. The Series S users would be just fine in the end.

It will be interesting to see what Microsoft does in the next geneation, presumably starting 2036 (Edit: 2026). Microsoft cut back the CPU speed with Series S and we've seen with the GeForce RTX 4060 Ti that cutting back RAM introduces similar complaints when it's presented as an economical option specifically, so what will they do with the future of the Series S line? Their best bet is probably not to cut back the CPU speed as much — the processor in the Series S is 33% as fast as the processor in the Series X — but if they don't cut it back enough it won't be attractive as an economical alternative.

Edit: I've heard the developers are having a difficult time implementing split-screen, local co-op for Baldur's Gate 3 on the Series S, and while I don't have the numbers to back it up I'd bet local gameplay is more common on the Series S than the Series X as families are more likely to need a cost-saving option, so take that for what it's worth.

@Bleachedsmiles

Starfield being 30fps is because of the game design. It was either have a much more static world that one can’t really interact with and be 60fps or have a much more dynamic world where you can interact with a ton of stuff and have it be 30fps. It was a design choice and has nothing to do with the Series S at all.

It's the distant future. Consoles are now a box in the corner of the room that you subscribe to the Nintendo Network, Playstation Network or Microsoft Network.
It would be at that point that there would be no more arguments about which console or what console is better. But the problem?
The industry wouldn't want to develop for such a climate.

Communications director? So he's not even a developer? So why the hell does what he say on this even matter?

MS just presumed in simplified terms that lower resolution would equal lower GPU pressure and the CPU is just as powerful as the Series X.

They messed up with the RAM big time.

MS badly misculated the dependency developers (Esp AA Devs) place on RAM. 12GB would have really helped the increasing number of devs who are looking to place more RAM resource direct onto the RAM rather than server side.

There is a lot to be said for Money, staffing and talent. You will always get good results from places like MS, EA and Ubisoft because they can afford it. AA and indie studios can't afford to to do that sadly so the Series S product in these cases will suffer.

Its not 'just' optimise at the end - you need to 'plan' and maybe develop your game differently.

For example, last gen had 'weak' CPU's so they may have used the GPU to do things that could be allocated to CPU, the way the game streams etc - then when it comes to a Series S which has a 'Strong' CPU but weak GPU, they can't very easily change the way the game was 'built' to utilise these multi-threaded decent CPU's in Current hardware. The PS5/Series X get away with having 'decent' GPU's but the Series S can't.

If they put all the Physics, AI etc on the GPU, then its going to be 'difficult' to optimise for Series S. Those don't scale with resolution so its not as if you can just scale down amount of Physics/AI etc as that fundamentally changes the game.

That's what he is saying - the Series S is limited on GPU - not CPU. Its designed to scale with 'Graphics' - 1/3rd that of the Series X with virtually the same CPU - meaning that it should 'deliver' about 1/3rd of the Quality (1440p is nearer halfso other compromises are needed). Therefore its up to 'Developers' to utilise the hardware in the 'most appropriate' way - which they should have 'planned' for, planned for 'limited' GPU resources and utilised more CPU resources...

@ValentineMeikin :

"Consoles are now a box in the corner of the room that you subscribe to the Nintendo Network, Playstation Network or Microsoft Network... The industry wouldn't want to develop for such a climate."

If you're talking about streaming/cloud gaming then I'd argue the industry would prefer that "climate". It eliminates software piracy, eliminates most forms of online cheating, gives the industry absolute control over mods, reduces the initial barrier to entry for consumers while increasing/stabilizing long-term profits, and increases the number of platforms the service can be provided on.

@101Force It will be interesting to see what Microsoft does in the next geneation, presumably starting 2036.

You mean 2026 right?

@Markatron84 : lol Yes, that's what I meant. I hope we don't have until 2036!

@themightyant

You can't just leave all optimisation on lower powered systems to the last minute, assuming you will be able to get it to work on blind faith alone. They laid their own bed.

About a decade and a change ago I worked on an indie game, nothing big, very minor stuff, but the game was entirely developed and play-tested on a computer. Once the game was complete, naively we thought "OK now we just export this to mobile and ship it on iOS!!!" The idea was that we were going to wait until the last minute necessary to pay for Apple's dev program, and the Unity pro needed at the time to export to mobile.

Well, we did this and the game ran like at 4 frames per second on an iPhone 3Gs that was already a couple years old but still in wide enough usage to ignore. We had to spend 3 more months entirely re-implementing big chunks of the game systems to account for many unforeseen limitations. 3 more months might not sound like much, but this was a very small project, and it took about 4 months to develop. That nearly doubled development time. The issue was not that the target was weak, the issue was that we didn't take the target platforms into account from the get go.

Baldurs Gate 3 is an early access game, that has been developed "in the open" for quite a while. I doubt the split screen was even a thing during all of that development, then they decided to port it to console and throw split screen in there. That's not a trivial thing, in many aspects it can double memory and CPU requirements. Unlikely to be the same thing, but I still would not be shocked if they didn't bump into similar things my tiny team bumped into when we tossed a PC game at an iPhone 3Gs.

@BAMozzy Baldur's Gate is first and foremost a PC game, it's been in early access on PC since October 2020 and the PS5 version was only announced earlier this year. It's likely that it was developed for PC and is then subsequently being ported over for console. When they started development PC is probably all they had in mind and consoles were an afterthought.
It should also be noted that it hasn't even been formally announced for Xbox as yet, only just that there was no exclusivity clause preventing it and it was something they were looking into.

@eduscxbox

By the way, Baldurs Gate 3 is playable on the weaker than Series S Steam Deck, and developer are trying to get it upgraded to Verified by Valve.

The Steam Deck version does not support split-screen.

@Kevw2006 the weird part is that they bumped up the release date of pc and ps5 by a month from the original Aug 31 date so it's hard to assume they needed to realign developers to ensure those versions are ready. I would think they could have removed the split screen anyway.

@101Force I assumed that's what you meant but then I thought, "better check". 🤣

"The games come together literally in the last weeks and only then you start knowing what you might be shipping or not"

Uhhh I think this is the problem we are all getting at, and one of the core complaints from virtually ALL gamers. We keep getting games released that aren't optimized and can't run properly. This is totally unacceptable and show gross mismanagement from the dev team. I don't care who they work for, if they don't plan for optimization better, this problem won't go away. If we as gamers keep turning a blind eye and accepting excuses, it won't stop.

@GamingFan4Lyf

While I'm certainly not all doom & gloom regarding the Series S, I do think Microsoft needs to rethink "feature parity at launch" requirements between Series X and Series S

They already allow for some variation in feature parity. The Series S is not required to have the same performance modes as the Series X, for instance, nor things like same level of detail in worlds. I could see them extending the list to things like "split screen" specifically at some point, but even then there is no telling if the publisher would be willing to do that. Some might still be stubborn, like all the publishers that insist on forcing 1440p games at 30fps on the Series S and refuse to sacrifice visual fidelity to offer 60fps.

What I find entertaining is that it's being held back by a feature that only a tiny percentage of gamers will use.

I would even be willing to bet half of the ones that say they want split screen co-op will actually use it.

I'm all for playing a game alongside someone, but those are casual experiences at best, not large 100+ hour CRPGs.

@Somebody The PS5 version was delayed by a week for further optimisation as they are aiming for 60fps. I have my doubts that it's even going to run particularly well on it if that is the case

Call me a cynic if you like, @Somebody, but there is a huge game coming out on the 6th of September on the Xbox that is not coming to the PlayStation. I would not be at all surprised if the moving of the release of BG3 on the PlayStation was so as they could say they had a huge release coming to their platform that was not coming to the Xbox on the same day.

Basically, Sony asked for BG3 to come to their platform on the 6th of September to soften the blow of their consumers not getting Starfield. I'm sure Larian jumped at this too because that will give them a month to sort out issues on PC before having to do the same on the PlayStation. However, I would not be at all surprised if this was at Sony's request...

@Moonglow The average PC isn't doing 4 player split screen. Which the S has to be able to do because of the parity clause. PC is also much easier because the built for the specific, generally higher end due to contracts, and they if ore the inferior hardware.

They can't do that with Xbox due to the parity clause. That's one of the reasons every platform this generation take priority over Xbox.

Not only does Xbox have a smaller user base, but they have a fragmented one which makes developers shy away.

This Is history repeating itself with the Xbox One and the One X.

The number of people that can't wrap their head around this is baffling.

You are absolutely right, @Kevw2006. Baldur's Gate was primarily a PC game and even the originals were only recently ported to modern consoles. BG3 started out primarily as a PC game, and then more recently as a console game too. The exact same is true of Larian's more recent games; Divinity Original Sin 1 & 2. Both games originally came out on the PC and then around a year or so later, they came to consoles. Just so happens I played both DoS1&2 on PC when they first came out on PC, before then playing them both again on the Xbox sometime later. That BG3 is coming to PC and console so soon after is unusual by Larian's standards...

One dev can't do it, another one can. I'm so tired of this argument. PC has different power levels and they have a valid work around in place that accommodates this. These are sacrifices of course and I'm all for those sacrifices being necessary, even if that means skipping the S with certain features or even games entirely. S owners would protest of course but thats the ensentive to get a more powerful machine. But the back and fourth between devs calling out the S or praising it is stupid. One of the hottest game systems to date is running off mobile hardware and is one of the console market leaders. They seem to have no problems optimizing for their system. The console space is ludicrous in its entirety.

@InterceptorAlpha There's no way that is happening. There have to be 10+ million Series S consoles out there. Build the game appropriately from the ground up.

The problem of these developpers is in the beginning of developpement, they don't care about the series s and they try to fit the game on a less powerfull machine instead of developping the game with the S in mind and then upgrade the game for the x more powerfull GPU. Some devs understand that and they don't cry on social media about the existence of the series s.

How about you simply disable local split-screen on Series S at launch?

What percentage of players do the devs anticipate using local coop? Upwards of 1%? It is like they are trying to force a D&D tabletop-like experience into a videogame. The Sales momentum lost by not launching all platforms together is not worth it.

I can see MS/Xbox upholding a parity clause if they believe a remedy can be reached before Sept. launch. If not, what the hell is the point of holding back the Series X edition (either, really) if the local coop mode could be disabled?

@theduckofdeath That isn't how game development works unless it is an exclusive. You built for the install base. PC and Playstation both greatly out weight Xbox in this regard.

You don't cater to the lowest rung on the totem pole at risk of alienating your larger audience.

Xbox is always behind and introducing a fragmented ecosystem just lent to them being even further behind despite having some of the best hardware in the Series X.

"Nobody really wants to think of that when you start making your game, when everything is possible"

That is a wild statement to say. Everything is not possible, even on a series x/ps5 or a 4090. No wonder games perform so badly if that is the attitude towards game development.

Its like nobody learned anything from Cyberpunk at all

@RIghteousNixon erm yes. I never said it was…

And to what do I owe that comment, @Backagen

@Kevw2006 Whilst I am NOT disagreeing with you - that still doesn't change the fact that they may not have built the game specifically for multi-threaded CPU's and developed the game with GPU's handling the AI, Physics etc - because PC's have 'strong' GPU's.

It may not be 'just because' last gen Hardware had weak CPU's for example but because that's how they 'built' games in the past, the way their engine works or whatever 'reasons'.

It certainly wasn't built with Direct Storage, Sampler Feedback Streaming (both of which would significantly 'help') etc - things MS 'built' into their Series S/X hardware because they hadn't specifically 'built' the game to utilise those features - probably built the way they were 'used' to making games, built on the template/engine of previous games designed for single thread CPU's and much more GPU performance...

This will be a complaint until and unless Nintendo's next system is a success. If it is successful, expect third-party devs to complain more about that system than Series S. In a weird way, MS shouldn't mind a Nintendo system doing well because it'll take the lightning rod status away from their device. Lol

I said right at the beginning that the Series S was a ridiculously stupid move from MS. It's like they thought, "yes, we want your all singing, all dancing, bells and whistles attached games on our next gen 'worlds most powerful console'... Oh, and those games will have to work on what is basically a mid gen console too".
While game development isn't easy, it's easier to work on a game for two kind of equal consoles in ps5 and xbox series X. But when it comes to series X, devs are having to develop based on the much less powerful series S. It is without a doubt holding back the series X, infact, as we move in to a new era of gaming, where games are bigger, better and more detailed than ever, the series S might turn out to be the rectangle shaped nail in the xbox coffin. Develop a game for ps5? Here's the specs... Develop a game for xbox series X?.... Here's the specs.... Oh, and here's the lesser specs the game has to run on too.
Microsoft has done a huge amount right this generation, but their usual 'once a generation' blunder has been a huge one this time. Series S will go down in history as Series X's anchor.... Or Iceberg.

@InterceptorAlpha My largest gripe with the Series S is that another 2 GB of RAM would have helped.

You have to consider the time that Series S|X were being developed. MS could not be certain of RAM availability & price. The same for chips for the SSD.

Xbox is relegated to a position of always having to produce the console with the most compute potential. Head-to-head launches means competition for components, foundries, and other resources. Larger APU chip size leads to lower chip yields. Less chips per wafer, more defects per chip. MS could never produce as many APUs as Sony could for PS5. Hence, there would never be as many Series X consoles as PS5s on the market.

The solution was the Series S. The console is popular and while I would have liked slightly higher specs, it is capable. Ideally, there would be one SKU. Developers need to work around it. MS can help them with that. BG3 seems like a triage situation — either get local coop working for launch or disable it on Series S.

@Fiendish-Beaver conspiracy theorist. Sony paid for Baldur’s Gate to be late coming to Xbox. They invented this story because it gets Playstation exclusivity an also gives them bragging rights that Playstation can handle a game Xbox struggles with! There’s not a cat in hells chance that happened. From wat i’ve read the Series S is struggling with split screen, it’s 4 player split screen apparently. That’s 4 screens showing different areas, different fights, it’ll take a lot.

To be fair the Series S has been more of a success than doom. Microsoft said 40% of all new users to the eco system have done so with the console. It's helped in developing countries where cost is a big deal & even helped Microsoft in Japan. So I'd say the console has probably helped Microsoft get more games in the long run than it has lost due to its lower spec & feature parity rules.

Nobody really wants to think of that when you start making your game, when everything is possible

Ok, so in that case we should expect AW2 to be 4K 60fps with RT, right? I'm almost certain Remedy would beg to differ with Puha's choice of words..

I'm sure Microsoft's Xbox tech team will help them get over the finish line.

I have to admit, I feel like the Series S wasn’t a misstep…because it’s a commercial success, but it feels like Microsoft should have made a SX digital, maybe something aiming for 1440p/60FPS output so the the GPU could be a slightly smaller cheaper vision. And I know, that’s what the SS is…but it seems like devs mostly hate and some say it out loud and others don’t.

Now I have a Series X at home on my nice TV/sound system and I have a Series S at my partners house. I actually don’t mine playing on it and they only have a 1080p TV anyways. I feel like it’s a high value machine for the price point.

But I do have a question, what’s the PC equivalent GPU to the SS GPU?
Cause done devs target low end PC GPUs anyways? I’m struggling to understand what the difference is. Considering the CPU in the SX and SS are the same…shouldn’t it only be a difference in resolution and fidelity?

That was a lot, thanks to anyone that takes the time to answer my question 🤓

Surely it can't be as much of a misery to develop for than the Xbox One... That still gets supported somehow.

@Moonglow I use splitscreen every week on both of my Series Xs. So your argument is falling on deaf ears.

You also seem to fail to understand how PC first development works. Playstation had a uniform platform to hit all their audience with a single release. For Xbox they have to do two separate ones with feature parity which holds it all back.

The PC version does support split screen. You just have to have a good enough PC to use it. Which isn't an issue due to no parity clauses making them support it for every hardware configuration like Microsoft requires with the Series S. I

f Microsoft dropped the parity clause that would result in every platform the game is on, except the S, having splitscreen. Also not a good look for Microsoft.

The issue is with Microsoft, in their infinite wisdom, releasing two SKUs that perform differently. Someone Sony was smart enough NOT to do.

They won't miss out on any Gamepass or cloud gaming deal because Microsoft has shown over an over they will bend over backward to get something on the platform.

@InheritNegative This game is not releasing on the One. So kind of a moot point. This was a PC first game. Playstation happened to have a universe SKU they could drop on. Xbox did not. Simple as that.

@Ssoltek as a huge Xbox Controller fan. I am not a fanboy of console. I do however have favorite controllers. I am getting worried about Xbox’s hardware choices and Sony looks to come in with the PS5 Pro and make sure all games run a smooth 4K 60. I am a power hungry gamer. I have the high end audio and visuals, i have the money to spend on a PS5 Pro thankfully and so i am worried about where MS is with its hardware choices. Not to mention PS5 is blazing hot in sales, so Dev’s are for sure going to optimize their first and best. Not only is that easier but it’s the console that will net you the most in returns. PS is hard to beat even if you are onto your game. The Series S is just no way a console that will lure back the hardcore gamer from their PS4’s. I am getting concerned with how this looks to play out.

I love my Series S but there's a reason i'm upgrading in the coming months to a SX.

@HonestHick I have a feeling MS are planning an upgrade despite what they say. If a PS5 Pro can do 4K60fps with maybe even more RT 60fps modes as well then MS will have to counter it. I mean it wouldn't look good if GTA6 is 4K60fps on PS5 Pro while SX is stuck at 1440p60fps or 4K30fps. Either way no matter what my wallet will be crying 😅

@DennisReynolds well you make a good point on both. Wallet and frame rate haha. I seen a video yesterday saying MS might skip to the next generation xbox SX2 in 2026 instead of waiting until the rumored 2028. I mean that worked well for them during the 360, but that just seems so long ago and PS4 and PS5 have built up such strong marketshare with casuals and hardcore. Not sure if that would mean as much. MS needs some truly awesome games that lure people back in and they may or may not have some of those. I would like to think Starfield will net them a good month or two in sales, but they need more Series X’s on shelves.

@InterceptorAlpha @theduckofdeath From what I’ve seen, they can’t just remove split screen from the S because MS require parity.

@FatalBubbles You're exactly correct.

The parity clause means all functions and features, graphics not withstanding, must be the same.

So coop on one, coop on all. Split screen on one. Splitscreen on all

They would see a lot different game releases if they didn't effectively require everything behind held back on behalf of the Series S.

It is a non premium, budget, platform, and needs to be allowed to be treated as such.

@FatalBubbles Yes. I am saying MS should examine the situation and lift it. Make an exception if means the game can have a simultaneous multi-platform release (on console). This is like Tekken Bowl holding up a Tekken release for six months.

Could be that Xbox thinks a solution can be reached soon. I will pick it up on Steam, regardless.

@theduckofdeath but most estimates have the series S as selling 50% or so of the total Xbox sales. (Obv MS do not disclose this) so how do MS start to drop parity features (that they promise) without potentially alienating a huge % of their install base? It’s too much of a tricky thing to juggle.

Larian and MS will sort it. It’s not like the game isn’t working at all on a series S. it’s just one part is taking time. Larian could have just delayed it with no explanations, but they chose to tell us.

@InterceptorAlpha

Microsoft should have employed Sony's approach to this by releasing the Series X with a disc drive and one without the disc drive.

That way there is parity and since Microsoft can afford to take the hit on hardware knowing they will make their money back on Game Pass, sell the Series X Disc at $499 and the disc less version at $249 instead of $399.

This pushes people to go digital and thus locking them into the Game Pass ecosystem and possibly gets gamers from Nintendo / Sony to try out 4 generations of Xbox for $250. Those that still want their discs, can get the $499 as it is now.

This game is a PC title that's been in development for some time.
To maximise returns and because this gens consoles are powerful, they have looked in the last year to bring it to current gen consoles. That's easy enough for PS5 and no doubt Series X, but problematic for Series S, so Microsoft's parity clause prevents it from releasing on their platform.
There no lazy planning or dev work here. Series S was not even an idea when this game was being conceived and in initial planning. The larger machines can handle the port with no issues, but series S will need some work, and they are better off concentrating on the larger platforms than delaying launch for the smallest platform.
I have no doubt they will find a way to make it work on Series S at some stage, but right now they have a massive worldwide launch to contend with so Xbox misses out because of the parity clause. No shady deals, no lazy Devs or poor planning, that's simply the reality of this title and the ease of porting it to a machine with limited RAM.

Talk of dropping the series S is ridiculous and certainly wont happen. It may limit some games on the Xbox (I've always believed it would), but it also represent a fantastic way to bring people to the Game pass ecosystem, and if that costs MS some titles that wont release, that's a cost worth bearing for their overall business.

I have to say the game looks incredible to an old D&D player like me, and myself and my wife will no doubt spend many happy hours trawling through menus I really hope it come to Xbox sooner rather than latter, but assuming Starfield is as good as we want it to be, few xbox users would have the time to play it anyway, they will already be in RPG heaven..

@InterceptorAlpha That’s what I’m saying…lol. That’s why this whole thing is happening. Was just trying to add some Claire to the situation but apparently failed.

Suggested solution - How about two player split screen on XSS and four player split screen on the XSX?

Games on the S are allowed to have lower resolution, lower graphic settings and textures, and even half the frame rate, why not half the split screen players? It then still offers split screen play.

This is if it is 4 player on XSX, I have seen comments that it is only 2 player.

Either way, as we have seen with Switch games, you can chop and chop and make a just about acceptable game. If it's 1440p 60fps on XSX then make it 720p (or even a Switch style 540p!) and 30fps. Use dynamic resolution and reconstruction. Cut the textures right back. Disable shadow or lighting features. Remove animations. Maybe make the viewable play area in a smaller window. Perhaps restrict the distance the two players can roam from each other (biggest difference right there, huge memory saver especially). Lower AA, motion blur, AO. So many cuts made all round to try.
All of the above would make a huge difference to CPU, GPU and memory requirements. No reason this game can't ship, Microsofts team will help them ship the game, I don't doubt this at all.

@PsBoxSwitchOwner Sure. I'm not saying delay the Series S version only. (Right now, all XBox versions are facing a delay.) Disable the local coop feature on Series S until it is properly implemented. Online multiplayer remains intact. Wouldn't you want more screen real estate for an RPG, anyway?

I could be wrong, but is local split-screen coop in high demand in an RPG (turn-based, non-action) on a console? How many people would even know about the feature if it wasn't called out by Larian as a pain point? Do a significant number of potential customers have another person, in-house, looking to play a 200-hour RPG with them?

Launch parity for parity's sake seems wrong. The impact of a delay (supposing it does not get sorted out by Sept.) will be greater than missing/delayed low-tier feature.

I didn't say anything of the sort, @Backagen. You are reading far more into what I said, than what I actually said.

First off, Larian have openly said that the reason the game is not coming to the Xbox now is because the Series S cannot play the game properly in split-screen (and it will apparently only have two player split-screen, not four). They have said the game runs fine on the Series X. So there is no conspiracy involving Larian and Sony to prevent the game from coming to the Xbox, and I never ever, at any point, suggested there was.

What I did say is I would not be surprised if Sony requested that Larian delay BG3s release on the PlayStation to the 6th of September. That has nothing at all to do with the Xbox, and again, I never said any such thing. You seriously need to re-read that which I wrote.

Larian have openly said that the game runs fine on both the Series X and the PS5. The game is already not coming to the Xbox this year (assuming that it ever actually does), and that has been known for months, as has the S being the reason why it's not.

The key part though is that the game runs absolutely fine on the PlayStation. With that in mind, there is no reason not to have released it on the PlayStation at the same time as it was released on the PC. However, from Sony's perspective, with Starfield releasing on the 6th of September, delaying BG3 by one month, means that the PlayStation has a game that serves as an alternative to Starfield, and would therefore lessen the impact on their consumers, and maybe entice people to keep playing on the PlayStation rather than wandering over to the Green side and playing Starfield instead. It makes perfectly good sense from Sony's point of view, and enables Larian a month to sort out any issues on the PC that BG3 might have, before then being able to concentrate entirely on the PlayStation's BG3 release rather than having to divide Larian's attention between the two platforms.

It is nothing to do with conspiracies, and I fail to see where you derive that from. I was merely expressing an opinion that I had actually given some thought to. It was my opinion, not taken from anywhere or anyone else. Not a conspiracy theory, but more a considered thought process. I haven't said it's fact. I haven't said I'm right. However, that does not mean I am wrong, and, to me at least, it makes sense. Hence, I would not be surprised...

@theduckofdeath You need to talk to Microsoft. They're the ones requiring feature parity at the detriment of games releasing on their platforms.

As for the demand. Clearly there enough for Larian to want it. Or other games like Solasta, which friends and I have put hundreds of hours in.

Baldurs Gate is essentially a digital D&D. And D&D is what? A turn based coop game.

So if people are willing to stare at a sheets of paper and painted figures for hundred of hours, it would serve that they'd also like to digitally where they get to experience all of their actions and the world, animated.

I don't know about the timeframe, @HonestHick, but I agree with you. I think that Microsoft, having seen the issues raised by the S, will not bring out a 'Pro' version of the current Xboxes, but will instead move directly to the next generation. For that reason, I do think the era of the Series X/S will be a shorter one than usual. The reason I cannot see them bringing out a 'Pro' version is because they will still expect to see every game running with parity, and the S will still exist in the wilds, and be making this aim very difficult as the generation continues.

I think the next Xbox will follow the same route that the PlayStation has taken this generation, and have essentially the same console just one with a disc-drive, and one sans a disc-drive. I do not think they will make the same mistake two generations running. They might even go further, and copy Sony's detachable disc-drive too. It would make sense, though I'm sure Sony would be less than impressed if they did...

@Fiendish-Beaver fair do’s, i apologise. Seen a few on here an Facebook pages say Series S handles it fine but Sony paid for them to delay it on Xbox an claim Series S is struggling. I didn’t know it was being delayed a month on Playstation.

@Fiendish-Beaver yeah i agree with that. I think the strategy of the S was and still is a way for on the fence Xbox buyers to jump in at a low cost. We all think that was the intent. But i must say I think the better strategy is the Sony one with an all digital. Fragmentation of development has never been a good thing for the industry. Thats what PC gaming is for, 100’s of different builds. Console should be a base console and later in the gen a overclocked pro. I worry buddy, i really worry what a 4K 60 GTA6 on PS5 Pro will do the overall marketshare of the Series consoles. Cause now i have to put my money where my mouth is and that is i am a console gamer looking for the most power i can get for visual and performance related to the gear i invested in my game/Media room. I got a little over $6,000 in video and audio in there and i want the best possible gaming experience there is. 2 years of the PRO versions running better than the X is going to drive me nuts. The only thing is i just don’t love the Dual sense layout, it tends to hurt my hand and thumb. Xbox controllers i could game on for hours on end and be fine. When Diablo 4 came out i put 50 hours in in a short amount of actual days. Never had a cramp. 40 mins of playing the last of Us on PS5 and i felt like i shut my wrist in a truck door. So i am in a pickle aren’t i. HAHA

“The games come together literally in the last weeks and only then you start knowing what you might be shipping or not.

Because you’re shipping the game before it’s ready and already plan to just fix it in patches after the game is out!

@Mighty90 I mean they have games now on PS5 and Series X running 4K/60. Some are 4K 30 and those should have more than enough power in the pro to achieve 60fps.. You are looking at going from 36 compute units to 60. The CPU will more than likely just be overclocked at around 30%. I see very little reason why the Pro won’t have some games at 4K/60. The reason some PC’s don’t have it has more to do with optimization than horsepower. I don’t see the PS5 Pro being that great at raytracing but we will have to wait and see, that is very taxing on any rig.

All good, @Backagen. Thank you...

Xbox Series S is an excellent console for those who don't care about the graphics, i.e. the most important thing is to enjoy the game

@Kevw2006

I don't think Baldur's Gate III will be as popular on PS5

@theduckofdeath

Capcom asked Nintendo in 2017 to increase the RAM on the Nintendo Switch to a minimum of 4GB of RAM so that the console could run Capcom games like Monster Hunter Rise without problems. Developers can easily ask Microsoft to increase the RAM for the Xbox Series S.

https://gamerant.com/nintendo-switch-capcom-ram/

release the game patch in split screen later

the people who hate the series S are the ones that dont have one its a great console

Said it before and I will say it again. The Series S is holding nothing back. That‘s as if someone said the minimal specs for PC games are holding everything back. It was also stated by other developers that the Series S is not a problem. What’s happening is the following: Some devs/companies don’t want the extra work, effort, and money associated with optimizing for weaker hardware. They want to get rid of it, thus they claim what isn’t true. Simple business warfare.

So at the end it's not something that can't be done becasuse of hardware limitasions series s has but it's something that takes more time money and effort from the developers side to achive, that's why they complain.

@trev666 it has its place. It’s not the console that’s the problem it’s the Xbox policy that an X version can’t be released without an S.

Baldurs Gate 3 is now the most preordered game on PS5 after its PC launch. It’s doing insane numbers and Xbox is missing out, sales have been lost. They can’t be happy with the situation.