“Many” Studios Are Asking Microsoft to Drop Mandatory Xbox Series S Compatibility, Developer Claims

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A good number of game studios aren’t happy with the Xbox Series S, according to new allegations made by Ian Maclure, a VFX artist for Bossa (I Am Fish) who took to Twitter this morning in response to a debate stirred by games journalist Jeff Gerstmann and claimed that “many” have been asking Microsoft to drop its rule that mandates game compatibility for its weaker Xbox console. Gerstmann made it known that he doesn’t agree with the idea that the Series S is holding back next-gen games, but if Maclure is to be believed, many in the industry don’t feel the same way. Xbox Series S costs $200 less than the flagship Series X but features lesser hardware, such a 20-CU (vs. 52 CU) AMD RDNA 2 GPU and 10 GB (vs. 16 GB) of GDDR6 memory.

“It might sound broken, but the reason you are hearing it a lot right now is because MANY developers have been sitting in meetings for the past year desperately trying to get Series S launch requirements dropped,” Maclure claimed.

“Studios have been through one development cycle where Series S turned out to be an albatross around the neck of production, and now that games are firmly being developed with new consoles in mind, teams do not want to repeat the process,” he added before locking down his Twitter account so only approved followers can see them.

From a VGC report:

VFX artist Ian Maclure made the claim on Twitter in response to a comment from veteran games journalist Jeff Gerstmann, who said he thinks the whole ‘Series S is holding back next-gen games’ argument doesn’t hold up.

In a series of since-deleted tweets last week, which were initially sparked by the news that Gotham Knights won’t have performance options on consoles and runs at 30 FPS, Rocksteady senior character technical artist Lee Devonald also claimed that trade-offs need to be made because of Xbox Series S.

Digital Foundry’s Alexander Battaglia claimed in May to have heard from some developers that memory constraints were making Xbox Series S a “pain” to work with.

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Tsing Mui
News poster at The FPS Review.

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