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Digital Foundry: Developers Having Difficult Time Scaling games back to PS4/Xbox One specs

DeaDPo0L84

Member
Sure, the 3000 series is around the corner, so even the 3060 will likely be as good or better, but the vast majority of PC players will still have systems well below next gen console specs for years to come.

Are you trying to say the 3060 will be as good or better than the new consoles? Cause if so lol. Any new 3000 series card will be easily better than the new consoles, as they should be.
 

Shmunter

Member
Five hundred million dollars. That’s the elephant in the room that has put 343i and several Microsoft executive’s future in doubt, and that’s why they’re all currently lying and kicking the can down the road.

Halo Infinite is never going to look or play like a next gen game - unless it goes into a whole new development cycle, jettisons Xbox One support, and has every-single-part of it reworked or remade to take advantage of the Series X. They all know it looks and plays like horse shit, but the reaction has set off an absolute firestorm of panic, with poor graphics barely scratching the surface of trouble.

You can tell from the few tiny little skirmishes they used as their big reveal, with a Warthog traversing an empty, silent landscape, horrific pop-in that they couldn’t even be bothered to record a new video to hide by looking somewhere other than directly at the mountains, and that laughable purple monkey *thing* having multiple close ups, those were THE BEST parts they could show.
That means we can safely assume that the game is not only unfinished, but that any more impressive moments literally don’t exist. Add to this the weapons being wildly uninspiring, the grappling hook mechanic exciting pretty much nobody, and you can understand why questions are being raised over whether 343i can be trusted to finish this. The 10 year plan for Halo is in tatters, and there’s now less chance of this game coming out than there is of a press release early next year saying “Technical obstacles could not be overcome”, and something something something welcome back Bungie, see you in 2023. $500,000,000 is a mind blowing amount of money, but Microsoft would sooner write that off than let 343i fuck both Halo and the Series X forever. Anyway, hi Gaf, this is my first post after lurking for fucking years.
Well it’s safe to say that about the visuals, but it’s not right to attribute that to gameplay.

But the project is clearly in a dark place, so it could be rotten to the core. Not even a single setpeice shown.

And someone high up signed off on those ridiculous official screenshots, wow - that’s a problem.
 
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Spokker

Member
Here's the problem. Leaving Xbox One and PS4 behind means releasing a state of the art new console during a pandemic and a horrible economy and having no backup plan.

If the new consoles don't take off because families are struggling, then they can rely on last-gen to cushion their fall.


Enhanced unemployment is dead and gone, and Congress has left until September. We are in for a world of hurt.
 
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Armorian

Banned
Are you trying to say the 3060 will be as good or better than the new consoles? Cause if so lol. Any new 3000 series card will be easily better than the new consoles, as they should be.

3060 has a chance to be ~2080, so any card below it will be worse than XSX at least.

Yeah, just like everyone said porting to last gen consoles means just putting down a few settings and lowering the resolution, I'm calling bollocks on this until we see actual proof of XSX games that are demonstrably superior graphically and feature wise to PS5 exclusives, while also working perfectly on XSS.

So far NG games seems to target ~4K resolution, so porting to 3x weaker GPU should be easy, just use resolution slider and you're done (same arch, CPU, IO etc.), only concern is RAM amount but we don't have any solid info on that. BUT once devlopers realize 4K is a waste of resources and they need more "bling" in graphics to lure people to NG consoles they will drop resolutions (and use some reconstruction techniques) and keeping 1080p target on XSS will be harder (no one says they can't drop to 900p).
 
the only way the Halo delay is acceptable to me personally is if it means they are dropping the xb1 version

at this point, why not just add an xcloud app to the xbox store itself? let xb1 users stream xsx games rather than forcing devs to gimp games

This is what I was saying months ago when Lockhart talk was picking up: xcloud makes building native XBO versions of games redundant. It might even make Series S a bit redundant, since I think a lot of casuals wouldn't care much between playing 1080p natively on a cheap next-gen budget console, or streaming 1080p on their mobile phone.

Hopefully higher-ups at MS and the Xbox division are taking this into consideration; they have the two biggest tools they need right there: xCloud/Gamepass and Series X. Along with strong 1st party and 3rd party support (obviously), that's all they need for next-gen. XBO cross-gen and Series S are unnecessary at this point, and have obviously only clouded the messaging.

Why would it have to be a separate development studio instead of just making an internal team dedicated to it? There is literally no difference. This is why i complain so much about these ideas the media latch onto that don't make sense.

Everyone is assuming that because the port down is being handled in house, it means its a port up and the older hardware is holding thing back.

In any case it's just needlessly complicating the development process and spending resources where they are probably not best suited. Just picture for a moment, the money MS put towards building a native XBO version of Halo Infinite, could be put towards funding one of their other 1st-party games.

Goodness knows they deserve it, since seemingly many of their 1st-party teams have had to provide resources to 343i to help them fix the game up (taking away resources from their own current projects, btw).
 
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TGO

Hype Train conductor. Works harder than it steams.
There will be cross-gen games on the PS5/PS4. They'll be plenty or third-party games that will launch for PS5 and also have a PS4 version, there aren't many developers that will turn their back on the PS4 install base in the early days of a new gen.
Those game will be cross-gen games that are designed for PS4 with enhanced versions released on PS5 Which will no problems will occur.
This is something different and a bit obvious.
Nobody in there right mind would make a Next-Gen title and then try and squeeze it onto current gen.
It's not gonna happen on PS5 unless a developer is stupid enough to waste time doing it and Sony has said no to it too.
Whereas MS actually want this to be the case the next two years.
So that's why in practice, this is only about Xbox
 

LordOfChaos

Member
200.gif


Cross gen necessitates a smaller scope for next gen, no way around it

Too late to drop Halo Infinite now that they've already promised it for the One, but they could just pull a Destiny and drop it on a future expansion.
 
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Shmunter

Member
Here's the problem. Leaving Xbox One and PS4 behind means releasing a state of the art new console during a pandemic and a horrible economy and having no backup plan.

If the new consoles don't take off because families are struggling, then they can rely on last-gen to cushion their fall.


Enhanced unemployment is dead and gone, and Congress has left until September. We are in for a world of hurt.
But, the irony is that home entertainment equipment and games are through the roof....why? Because people aren’t spending money elsewhere and they are stuck at home. If I were them, I’d release the shit NOW.
 

IntentionalPun

Ask me about my wife's perfect butthole
But, the irony is that home entertainment equipment and games are through the roof....why? Because people aren’t spending money elsewhere and they are stuck at home. If I were them, I’d release the shit NOW.
They are through the roof because our government was printing $600 checks for low income workers who aren't that great with their money so they spent it on things like gaming instead of saving.

We just got rid of that.. plus are going to see millions getting evicted from their homes.

But yeah a console launch would have done well during all of that... not for good reasons though, but because people are not good with money lol
 
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Spokker

Member
But, the irony is that home entertainment equipment and games are through the roof....why? Because people aren’t spending money elsewhere and they are stuck at home. If I were them, I’d release the shit NOW.
They bought Animal Crossing at the start of the pandemic, not a $500 to $600 console when unemployment runs out.

My anecdote doesn't mean much but I think a lot of people are in the same position. I was planning to get Xbox Series X or PS5, but furloughs are coming which may put those plans on hold.
 
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Shmunter

Member
They are through the roof because our government was printing $600 checks for low income workers who aren't that great with their money so they spent it on things like gaming instead of saving.

We just got rid of that.. plus are going to see millions getting evicted from their homes.
I don’t buy it. Office supplies also up, people working at home. Pent up money with nothing to spend it on. To a degree also what you say, but not as significant - perfect storm for in home spending, not going out, holidays, coffee, drinks...the list goes on.
 

Shmunter

Member
They bought Animal Crossing at the start of the pandemic, not a $500 to $600 console when unemployment runs out.

My anecdote doesn't mean much but I think a lot of people are in the same position. I was planning to get Xbox Series X or PS5, but furloughs are coming which may put those plans on hold.
What’s the unemployment rate, 10%? That’s a lot of fuckers on the other side of the fence with money and nothing to spend it on. It outweighs it.
 
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IntentionalPun

Ask me about my wife's perfect butthole
I don’t buy it. Office supplies also up, people working at home. Pent up money with nothing to spend it on. To a degree also what you say, but not as significant - perfect storm for in home spending, not going out, holidays, coffee, drinks...the list goes on.
We literally gave a significant raise to our lowest income workers who were fired, and you don't buy my theory? Many millions of people fit that description.

Yes, part of it is also gainfully employed people spending their money.. but gaming is hugely popular with lower income people.. young people with the kind of jobs that were eliminated by quarantine, etc.
 

Shmunter

Member
We literally gave a significant raise to our lowest income workers who were fired, and you don't buy my theory? Many millions of people fit that description.

Yes, part of it is also gainfully employed people spending their money.. but gaming is hugely popular with lower income people.. young people with the kind of jobs that were eliminated by quarantine, etc.
Gaming is popular with everybody. Poor people? common.
 

Hendrick's

If only my penis was as big as my GamerScore!
If you get an inferior game because if last gen systems that affects the consumers of the next gen versions. Therefore anti-consumer and Halo Infinite is an example of that. It is similar to a parity clause for example.
No, it really isn't.
 

vkbest

Member
With the economical crisis because coronavirus, and the higher price from new consoles, I think some AAA (Capcom) developers who switched months ago their games from current to next gen going to have serious problem with final sales vs expected sales.

Anyway DF says that, but on August 2013 the most games Announced was for next gen (PS4/one), 2020 the most announced games are for current gen.
 

IntentionalPun

Ask me about my wife's perfect butthole
Gaming is popular with everybody. Poor people? common.

Have you not seen the stats for the lack of wealth among younger folks these days?

Are you denying that gaming is particularly popular with younger people?

I'm not talking destitute poor people.
 
Are you trying to say the 3060 will be as good or better than the new consoles? Cause if so lol. Any new 3000 series card will be easily better than the new consoles, as they should be.

Yep, have you seen the latest rumours of how these new cards might be priced? It's fucking eye-watering. 3070 might cost $500+ alone.

Even at $700 a next-gen console would be much better value.
 

Shmunter

Member
Have you not seen the stats for the lack of wealth among younger folks these days?

Are you denying that gaming is particularly popular with younger people?

I'm not talking destitute poor people.
Sure, but again, avg age of a gamer now is 35. An age where most are settled down with a career and family. These people have disposable income sufficient to sustain a reasonably price hobby like console gaming.
 

IntentionalPun

Ask me about my wife's perfect butthole
Sure, but again, avg age of a gamer now is 35. An age where most are settled down with a career and family. These people have disposable income sufficient to sustain a reasonably price hobby like console gaming.
Those same stats report ~46% of gamers are women, because they include anyone and everyone who ever plays a game.. including shit on Facebook, Candy Crush, etc. That is not representative of console gamers.

I'm not a stat denier, but there are no good statistics on the average demographics of people who buy console games. Look up stats for average income for instance for "gamers" and over 50% make under $30k a year in the US. But it's incredibly difficult to say how that relates to consoles.

In the end I get what you are saying and not denying that part of the surge is gainfully employed people bored at home.. but guess who is keeping those people employed? The masses spending money on things... everyone should be afraid for their jobs moving forward if we can't figure out how to adjust for a pandemic like this.

I'm also not saying next-gen consoles are doomed.. early adopters likely skew wealthy in general... but it will have an effect.. parents buying their kids presents, people in their 20's unemployed or underemployed, etc.
 
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Shmunter

Member
Those same stats report ~46% of gamers are women, because they include anyone and everyone who ever plays a game.. including shit on Facebook, Candy Crush, etc. That is not representative of console gamers.

I'm not a stat denier, but there are no good statistics on the average demographics of people who buy console games. Look up stats for average income for instance for "gamers" and over 50% make under $30k a year in the US. But it's incredibly difficult to say how that relates to consoles.

In the end I get what you are saying and not denying that part of the surge is gainfully employed people bored at home.. but guess who is keeping those people employed? The masses spending money on things... everyone should be afraid for their jobs moving forward if we can't figure out how to adjust for a pandemic like this.

I'm also not saying next-gen consoles are doomed.. early adopters likely skew wealthy in general... but it will have an effect.. parents buying their kids presents, people in their 20's unemployed or underemployed, etc.
Fair enough. I guess we just need to see what happens.

Barring further unimaginable news or the consoles pricing themselves out of the mass market, my prediction is for record sales, supply constraint not withstanding.
 

Bo_Hazem

Banned
According to Digital Foundry's John Linneman he has talked to multiple developers who have said no one wants to work on the under powered Jaguar CPU's any longer. Says it's a painful process. That was followed up by a post from Liza Shulyayeva who is a programmer and formally worked ad DICE who confirmed it is hard to scale to these older systems.

This also follows reports that Microsoft had cancelled the Xbox Series S or Lockhart early on because this was causing a lot of issues for developers. Source: https://www.thurrott.com/games/208837/microsoft-shifts-xbox-focus-to-anaconda-next-gen-console#

Could this be why we still haven't seen any games running on Xbox Series X?

Seems like I remember other rumors where devs were saying the S SDK was having a lot of problems.



Digital Foundry: Halo will ALWAYS be held back so long as Xbox One is tied to Xbox Series X.


Now that I can see how Sony is securing more and more 3rd party exclusives due to helping them shift to PS5 directly as well without caring about PS4. Maybe there are some forced agendas for GamePass and Xbox One that drive developers away from XSX? Time will tell.
 
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Kamina

Golden Boy
Those who made magic with them doesn't mean that they didn't have a hard time and got their vision hindered. PC gamers have been laughing at current gen consoles since their launch, and rightfully so. 7 years is more than enough, we need to move on.
Sure, but i have a feeling that its not the developers that had a hard time but still actually managed to do awesome stuff that are complaining.
 
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Romulus

Member
720p dynamic resolution with a locked 30fps could be the answer. Whatever the resolution needs to drop to achieve locked 30fps. The GPU and CPU disparity is ridiculous between current and next gen and developers should not be forced to contend with it.

My solution would be to just go with whatever you can to make it run stable, as a programmer is was not my decision to implement shitty CPUs last gen.
 
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Bo_Hazem

Banned
Sure, but i have a feeling that its not the developers that had a hard time but still actually managed to do awesome stuff that are complaining.

Man, naming those CPU's (Jaguar) is an insult to that majestic animal. They're very weak, and the GPU's of the base models are pretty outdated. We need to move on, CD Projekt Red should've been smart like Capcom with RE Village. We didn't even see a gameplay of PS4 nor Xbox One.
 
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Kamina

Golden Boy
Man, naming those CPU's (Jaguar) is an insult to that majestic animal. They're very weak, and the GPU's of the base models are pretty outdated. We need to move on, CD Projekt Red should've been smart like Capcom with RE Village. We didn't even see a gameplay of PS4 nor Xbox One.
Dude, I am not trying to protect old CPUs, chill.
All I am saying is that often the complaining parties are the ones who have a hard time because they cant make it work like others do.
 

Aladin

Member
By reducing no of NPC, NPC rate of refresh, brand new simpler AI, non-interactable environment. You can scale games to ps4/one. Its not impossible. Its will not be hugely expensive.
 

Bo_Hazem

Banned
Dude, I am not trying to protect old CPUs, chill.
All I am saying is that often the complaining parties are the ones who have a hard time because they cant make it work like others do.

All have suffered, probably the best were Sony, but it's unfair as they're only focusing on one system (Although they're technically 3 "Pro/Slim/Base"). Those Jaguars are torturing gaming, and you'll know it when you see the second or even the first batch of 1st games on PS5. You'll see more ambitious games, yet they might not take as long as they don't need to work around too much bottlenecks.
 

sainraja

Member
But Microsoft haven’t contradicted anything, and this article isn’t about Microsoft. They said that all their first party games for the next 2 years will be on Xbox one as well. That’s it. As far as we know, Infinite is the only first party game coming in the next 2 years, and like they said, it’s releasing on Xbox one and will also work on the Series X.

People in here seem to be confused and lacking critical thinking. Third parties say they struggle to make games for the one and the Series X, but third parties don’t have to make games cross generation. No one is asking or forcing them to. People in here are somehow reading the title of the article and interpreting it as all games releasing on the Series X also have to release on the One, when that is complete bullshit.

Third-parties have always released games near a transition of a generation on both the previous and future consoles. What you seem to be ignoring, which is what is different this time around is, Microsoft has made it part of their messaging which now they have been backtracking on and that is why we're having this very conversation. A few months back, 'smart delivery' was being touted as a feature.
 
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Hendrick's

If only my penis was as big as my GamerScore!
Game Pass makes it really hard to leave behind Xbox One right now. So unless they can convince that player base to use xcloud for new games, they are SOL.
 
Actually the point of this thread is to put paid to the "just scale it bro, it's just a few settings sliders" fallacy that has been created due to certain executives claiming being held back by old hardware is a "meme".

It was already apparent when we saw Halo Infinite and it's even more apparent when there are 3rd party developers weighing in saying that it's not simple.

The reason this thread is talking about the Xbox platform specifically is because nobody is being forced by Sony to still develop for the PS4 alongside the PS5 whereas unfortunately the same can't be said for Microsoft and the Xbox One.

Hopefully they see the light and drop the Xbox One versions of their first party games.
3rd party developers aren't being forced to do anything. At this point you can count on 1 hand the number of cross platform games MS is developing. MS is not going to support the XB1 forever and the launch titles on a platform are NEVER the most impressive and technically advanced games on said platform. The 'concern' from Sony fans is disingenuous and it's much ado about nothing. They weren't going to buy an Xbox and their concerns have nothing to do with their preferred platform.
 

MrFunSocks

Banned
Third-parties have always released games near a transition of a generation on both the previous and future consoles. What you seem to be ignoring, which is what is different this time around is, Microsoft has made it part of their messaging which now they have been backtracking on and that is why we're having this very conversation. A few months back, 'smart delivery' was being touted as a feature.
You are missing, probably deliberately, the fact that smart delivery is literally for games made for the XB1 that also have a Series X patch, like Cyberpunk, Gears5, etc.

It’s got nothing to do with forcing developers to port down their next gen games. Absolutely nothing. Smart delivery *is* a feature, because like you said, devs will be making cross gen games that are just current gen + better assets for next gen, and smart delivery means that the current gen owners don’t have to download those 50GB of 4K textures. That’s all it is.

Amazing that that was your reply to me saying posters in here lack critical thinking skills lol. Perfect example.
 

MacReady13

Member
Makes their talk about supporting current gen even more bizarre, they barely have any games coming out for these systems. Xbox's marketing is so messed up.

That is because all they are focusing on is their bullshit subscription service Game Pass. How about they just focus on their next gen console and not worry about the fucking streaming bullshit that only casual gamers seem to care a fuck about.
 

Redlight

Member
Those game will be cross-gen games that are designed for PS4 with enhanced versions released on PS5 Which will no problems will occur.
This is something different and a bit obvious.
Nobody in there right mind would make a Next-Gen title and then try and squeeze it onto current gen.
It's not gonna happen on PS5 unless a developer is stupid enough to waste time doing it and Sony has said no to it too.
Whereas MS actually want this to be the case the next two years.
So that's why in practice, this is only about Xbox
Cross-gen is a thing on BOTH consoles.

Any game that appears on both PS4 and PS5 is a cross-gen game. There will be plenty of them in the early days. All the big publisher's games will be cross-gen, COD, Battlefield, Madden, Fifa, Dying Light, Assassin's Creed etc, etc.

MS has said that it will support first-party cross-gen for the first couple of years. That only applies to first party MS games, not console exclusives such as 'The Medium' which is next-gen only.

So, how many first-party MS games do you think there will be in that two year period? Halo Infinite and...? I don't know, maybe one or two more? How many Sony first-party games in the same period? Not a lot more I'm tipping.

The difference between the two policies isn't as stark as you think it is.
 
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