The Xbox Series S is an affordable entry into the next generation of gaming for those who don't want to drop $500 on an Xbox Series X or PlayStation 5. Now, there's talk of the console hurting Xbox as a company and making life difficult for game developers.
Is the Xbox Series S why games aren't dropping on Xbox consoles at launch?
Funcom, the studio behind Dune: Awakeningan open-world survival MMO, described bringing their upcoming game to the Xbox Series S as a “challenge”.
Chief Product Officer Scott Junor spoke directly about developing the game on the Xbox Series S while at Gamescom last month and said it wasn't easy.
So it's one of the reasons we're coming out on PC first. There are a lot of optimizations to do before we release on Xbox. But yes, the Xbox Series S is a challenge.
Unreal does a lot of work for us in a way. What we do more is optimizing the assets and using various technologies, whether it's FSR or something else, to render frames. We want the game to look amazing on high-end, whether you have a 3070 or a 4090, but we also want it to look good… I don't think we've released our minimum specs yet, but you know powerful cards from a few years ago should be able to run the game. It should look good – it won't be able to take advantage of the over-spec options, but it'll still look nice.
The S series is probably causing other issues
This latest news comes after many speculated that the Xbox Series S could be the reason Black Myth: Wukong's delayed release on Xbox consoles.
According to of IGN referencethere are no technological problems behind the game delay, but it could be due to an exclusivity agreement that neither Black Myth: Wukong's developer, Game Science, nor Sony confirmed.
Baldur's Gate 3 It was also reportedly delayed due to Microsoft's feature parity requirement for the X series and S series.
In August 2022, Lee Devonald, a senior technical character artist at WB Games Montréal, called the Series S a “potato” and added that it held back an “entire generation of games”.
VFX artist Ian Maclure also had smoke about the Series S, adding in a post on X, ex-Twitter, “It might sound broken, but the reason you're hearing it a lot right now is because A LOT [sic] developers have been sitting in meetings for the past year trying desperately to lower the launch requirements of the Series S.”
It's just been a wave of bad news for Xboxwith other games like Enotria: The Last Song, an upcoming Soulslike that will be released on PC and PS5 on September 19, announcing via its website that the game will skip both the X series and the S series.
Many immediately believed it was due to the Series S, but according to the game's developer, it's because “Microsoft took months to get back to us when we have the game ready for submission.”
Dime.
What's happening on Xbox?
You can see more reactions in the gallery below.