In recent days, the director of Black Myth: Wukong assured that the Xbox Series S is responsible for his game not reaching the Microsoft console. This is due to the console’s memory, which requires a long time to be optimized and run well on the less powerful sister of the Series X.
This is not the first time that the Series S has come up as being responsible for the delay or non-arrival of a game. In fact, there are already several studios and developers who consider this console as a kind of brake on realizing their vision. Here we tell you what some of them were.
The studios and games that had problems with Xbox Series S
First we must understand the Xbox Series S problem
Before starting with the list of games that mentioned the inferiority of the Xbox Series S, we will give a little context about it. This console was designed as a more affordable way for users to make the leap to the next generation. It is designed to be entirely digital and also has less power in its components.
Fuente: Xbox.
Even though it is confirmed to be less powerful, Xbox has a parity policy. This establishes that all games that want to be published on your console must have a version that runs on both Series X and Series S with the same modes and elements. This, as we will see, has been the cause of different disputes.
ID Software was one of the first to talk about this console before being bought by Microsoft
Back in 2020 when the Xbox Series S was recently announced, several ID Software developers shared their concerns about the console. Many of them insisted that RAM would be a problem for developing games on it.
Lead programmer Billy Khan and lead programmer Axel Gneiting shared on Twitter that RAM would be a ‘major problem’ as it would run games slower and would be quite difficult to compensate for its lack. Plus they mentioned that it was ‘nerfed’ compared to Series X.
Source: id Software.
Of course, there were also those who were more positive with the Xbox Series S, such as Dustin Land, a Senior programmer at ID Software. At the time he said that despite being less powerful than the Series
Since those statements, ID Software has not released any games for the current generation of consoles. It won’t be until 2025 when Doom: The Dark Ages arrives and we’ll see how it runs on this console. Of course, since they were already purchased by Xbox, it is unlikely that they will say negative things about their development. But it is not forgotten that they were among the first to criticize it.
Remedy Entertainment already talked about the challenge that the Xbox Series S represents
Remedy Entertainment, creators of the excellent Max Payne, Alan Wake and Control, have also mentioned the Xbox Series S as a challenge to develop. Thomas Puha, its communications director, said at the end of 2023 that it is a brake on the development of new experiences.
The reason behind his statements is that from the beginning of the concept of the games, the developers must already take into account the limitations that this console will have. That is to say, there are things that should remain just ideas simply so that the game does not have problems with parity on this Microsoft platform.
While this statement was recent, they also expressed concern since the reveal of the console in 2020. At that time one of its senior producers, Sasan Sepehr, mentioned that the Xbox Series S sounded good as a consumer but was a problem due to optimization . 5 years later the director of Black Myth: Wukong expressed the same ‘brake’ so it doesn’t seem like something unique.
The 2023 GOTY forced Xbox to forget the parity between Series X and Series S
In 2023 Baldur’s Gate 3 had a somewhat similar situation to Black Myth: Wukong. First it was released only on PC and then came to PS5 while the Xbox Series version took the longest to arrive. Larian Studios, the creators of the 2023 GOTY, also indicated that it was all due to Series S and its memory.
Game director Swen Vincke commented that the Xbox Series S’s memory didn’t allow Baldur’s Gate 3’s split screen to work well. Due to parity, they had to ship the game with this feature or they wouldn’t be able to release it on the console. However Phil Spencer got to work.
Source: Larian Studios
After a meeting, they allowed the Larian Studios team to launch Baldur’s Gate 3 on Xbox Series After all, after so much good press that came to it, Microsoft did not want it to be left out of its console.
Even in 2024 we had titles complaining about the Series S
Before Black Myth: Wukong, one of the most recent studios to mention problems with Xbox Series S was Funcom, developers of Dune: Awakening. They mentioned that they preferred to release on PC first than on consoles due to the great optimization work that reaching Xbox represents.
‘It was one of the reasons we came out on PC first. There is quite a bit of optimization we need to do before releasing it on Xbox. But yes, the Series S is quite a challenge.’ Mentioned Scott Junior, product manager at Funcom. So far Dune: Awakening only has a confirmed release date for PC.
Source: Funcom
Thus we can find several more examples that show that the problems with Xbox Series S for video game development are not exclusive to Black Myth: Wukong. Perhaps as the generation progresses and more demanding games come out, we may find that this complaint becomes more common. In fact, we have already seen that some games decide to skip a release on these consoles and it could be related to this problem. Now we wonder again if what is said so much on social networks is true and the Xbox Series S is holding back this generation. What do you think?
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