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Microsoft Engineers Helping Get Baldur's Gate 3 Split-Screen Working on Xbox Series S
- Thread starter Musilla
- Start date
adamsapple
Or is it just one of Phil's balls in my throat?
DeepEnigma
Gold Member
reinking
Gold Member
If it is not a fatal flaw with the system, it is with the policy on parity between the two systems. Phil totally didn't answer the question on if he would loosen up on that a bit in the future. Jim Ryan is probably the XBSS biggest fan.
Freelance Yakuza
Member
A total non-answer, of course.
He tried to use the "nobody plays on split-screen anyway," just like Jimbo said about backward compatibility, lol.
1000 of Neogaf members do
the world is bigger than your back-yard. Casuals don’t care .
ZehDon
Gold Member
You think the folks picking up the Series S care? Really?
DenchDeckard
Moderated wildly
I 100 percent agree that it feels like this gen has legit taken 3 years to even start... we basically had an extended ps4 pro and xbox one x period where games ran on the new consoles.
I would much prefer for them to launch with a massive jump over current consoles. Basically, launch next gen when you are ready.
Still grabbing a ps5 pro day one for exclusives.
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So he sees Series S and XSX as separate platforms....
This also adds to the Series S is the base console, XSX is the mid gen refresh debates for the past months.
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X-Wing
Member
I mean, a lot of that was thanks to the pandemic.
Topher
Gold Member
Riky
$MSFT
As predicted, Forza split screen was just a matter of priorities and nothing to do with Series S.
DeepEnigma
Gold Member
It's literally a staple in Larian games and D&D culture.
HeisenbergFX4
Gold Member
Creative decision card played and would not answer the question if they would relax the forced parity clause
BootsLoader
Banned
Why don’t they use their ultra high speed internal memory in combination with high end decompression tech as RAM and call it a day?
DeepEnigma
Gold Member
So, the Microsoft experts couldn't get it to work on the s? or just not in a reasonable time frame at the cost of profits for the developer? Is this a one off, or are the walls finally coming down for parity?
MasterCornholio
Member
I think they realized how big the game is and didn't want to miss out on it. Plus it was generating a lot of bad PR for them right before the holidays.
My guess is that they new they couldn't meet the deadline so they either changed the clause or made an exception here.
My hope is that the policy was either eliminated or changed. Having games not appear on Xbox due to this (even temporarily) is just bad for consumers.
Fabieter
Member
That was pretty poor answer. He is silver-tongued normally but that was poor.
JackMcGunns
Member
Microsoft Engineers Helping Get Baldur's Gate 3 Split-Screen Working on Xbox Series S - IGN
IGN speaks to Larian to reveal why Baldur’s Gate 3 on Xbox Series X and S is taking so long.www.ign.com
The truth has to do with Larian’s ongoing struggle to get Baldur’s Gate 3’s two-player split-screen co-op running well enough on the Xbox Series S, and a Microsoft policy that enforces gameplay feature parity across Xbox Series X and S. This means Larian cannot release Baldur’s Gate 3 on any Xbox Series console until it’s optimised split-screen co-op on the S to the point it hits the quality bar it needs to satisfy players.
The situation with Baldur’s Gate 3 on Xbox Series X and S highlights a looming problem heading towards Microsoft. As more and more developers look to make the most of the power of the PS5 and Xbox Series X, will having to release a version of their multiplatform games on the less powerful S hold them back? Or, in drastic cases such as Larian’s, hold Xbox versions back altogether?
The situation with Baldur's Gate 3 is unique imo, local co-op split screen was a thing in the Nintendo 64 era, hardly a "Next-Gen" problem highlighted by this meme. I'm ok with MS getting rid of the parity clause for a feature such as this one, most people play online now a days, it's rare to see people play local split screen coop, for me it's cool because I grew up playing Golden Eye and Halo this way, but today's generation probably doesn't really care, the concern for me is, will this creep up into other features? Having the same CPU and an SSD makes me believe it probably won't, but if it does, MS should allow these one off's to be cut for Series S owners, they'll just have to accept the compromise.
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Eotheod
Member
You know that having split screen isn't some simplistic flag or splitting two cameras and painting two separate UI's right? You have the entire backend of needing to follow two holy separate players that have somewhat open control of their characters, the systems around them and the environments they manipulate.
You also have several backend systems cataloguing what each player does, their choices, their inventory, any possible sideline changes that may or may not affect both players and entirely separate combat mechanics. Split screen was easy for the N64 era because of the simplistic nature those games operated on. You actually look at split screen games of the last and you'll notice a trend of simple interactions with reduce asset visuals and slower UI drawing.
JackMcGunns
Member
Right, I think we're in agreement, as you highlighted, this "Unique" situation is probably the only scenario beacuse of its complexity, otherwise everything else works on Series S.
LiquidMetal14
hide your water-based mammals
The wizards at Microsoft solved this by removing a key feature. Golf clap?
Buggy Loop
Member
GG engineers
But guys, removing split screen in Forza Motorsport is a creative decision, nothing to do with series S power. See? Parity.
MS fucked up
Interfectum
Member
MS engineers trying to get split screen gaming working on Series S:
DeltaPolarBear
Member
You are not looking at the cause, the split-screen is not the problem. The issue is RAM. Series S has the same amount of RAM as the PS4. This is exactly why there wasn't any problem with all the cross-gen games in the last few years. They were all running on PS4 and thus Series S didn't hit the RAM bottleneck.
If you think everything will STILL work from now on, with PS4 out of the picture and cross-gen ends? Well good luck to you. People are already being told to avoid anything less than 8GB of ram with new PCs. There is a reason the issue took this long to appear, and it is not just because of split-screen. You had PS4 to thank for that.
As well as microsoft's engineers
RoadHazard
Gold Member
So even the MS engineers gave up on this thing huh? Lol.
Made a creative choice. Take a note at last
HawarMiran
Banned
the tools weren't sufficient enough
mrcroket
Member
Spaghetti code cannot be patched even by engineers.As well as microsoft's engineers
Puscifer
Member
They really should've just did a disc and digital edition, sure it wouldn't have been a cheap emulation and streaming box but considering what's on the market now people can do that without jumping through a million hoops.
GG engineers
But guys, removing split screen in Forza Motorsport is a creative decision, nothing to do with series S power. See? Parity.
MS fucked up
Cyberpunkd
Member
Wanna bet how many % of people that bought Mario Kart 8 are playing it split screen on a huge ass TV?
Also, in case of Larian the split-screen was part of the charm of their games - being able to do crazy stuff and fool around while playing with your SO or a friend. It's not the same as e.g. co-op campaign for a shooter where the existence of the second player doesn't mean anything.
mckmas8808
Mckmaster uses MasterCard to buy Slave drives
So did Phil lie in that IGN interview?
Topher
Gold Member
I think that interview was prior to his discussions with Larian and whatever agreement they came to.
adamsapple
Or is it just one of Phil's balls in my throat?
Eh, not really. This is what he said, he's basically outlining that there will be feature differences.
I don't think agreements like that are made on the fly, they probably had been talking about it for a while, see the above quote from the IGN interview, he's talking about feature differences himself. Something anyone from Xbox wasn't saying a few weeks or month(s) ago.
StereoVsn
Member
chromatic9
Member
The little box that couldn't.
mckmas8808
Mckmaster uses MasterCard to buy Slave drives
But do we really think Larian didn't talk to Phil before that information reached us? No way Phil made that decision literally at Gamescom lol.
So aren't didn't Larian putting the game out on Xbox day and date with Playstation?
Topher
Gold Member
Yeah, I really have no idea.
adamsapple
Or is it just one of Phil's balls in my throat?
No, they said within 2023 so in the next 3~ months. Putting it out day and date with Starfield will be a deathnail for the game on Xbox.
MasterCornholio
Member
From what I understand due to this change the game will come out on Xbox this year. Doesn't necessarily mean at the same time as the PS5 version but it's much better than waiting until 2024 for the game.