Quantic Dream’s David Cage “Not a Big Fan” of Xbox Series S

[Tsing]

Image: Microsoft



More and more developers seem to be piling on the hate for the Xbox Series S – Microsoft’s cheaper, lower-ended next-gen console. Speaking in an interview with Wccftech, Quantic Dream’s David Cage (Heavy Rain, Detroit: Become Human) admitted that he wasn’t a fan of the system due to its separate, weaker hardware configuration, which “complicates” the development process.



While the Xbox Series X boasts a 12.15-TFLOP AMD RDNA 2 GPU (52 CUs at 1.825 GHz) and 16 GB of GDDR6 RAM, its lesser sibling features a 4-TFLOP GPU (20 CUs at 1.565 GHz) with 10 GB of memory. That translates to a lower performance target of 1440p at...

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[Burticus]

Now if Quantic Dream actually made "games" that people wanted to play. All they have produced is very slick looking interactive ... things. I don't know what to call them, but they don't feel like games.

I'm actually about 2/3 way through Beyond Human right now. It looks amazing, but is it fun? Ehhhhh. More like a choose your own adventure interactive movie. And the only reason I even have it is because Sony gave it away on PS+, no way I would pay for these.

 

[DrezKill]

I don't like David Cage or his non-video-games, but this is the first time I can agree with him about something. I've been saying for generations that it's **** annoying when developers choose to continue to support a previous generation of consoles when a new generation is here, cuz it holds back game development for the new consoles, preventing the developers from fully utilizing the hardware in the new consoles. Now in the same generation, we have Xbox Series X and S. Developers might end up standardizing around the lower-end model. At the very least, they'll have to keep that lower model in mind when designing their new games. It never works out well to have multiple models of a console with different levels of hardware power. By the end of the 8th-generation, a sizeable gap had opened up between the base consoles (XB1/XB1S and PS4) and the upgraded/refreshed versions (XB1X and PS4 Pro). Now right off the bat we'll have XBSS potentially holding **** back. I don't know, it could turn out to be a non-issue (especially as console devs grow more accustomed to the PC model of supporting different hardware configs), but I'd rather not have that variable that is the Xbox Series S in play. Developers often choose to develop based around the lowest common denominator. It was bad enough that a general focus on console development hurt PC. Now among all the 9th-gen consoles, the XBSS could be ****ing things up. Then again, with Microsoft pushing devs to continue to support XB1, XBSS may not even be the limiting factor. I do wonder how long Microsoft plans to continue to support XB1 in the 9th-generation, and how long developers will stick with that. The multiplatform devs may not take too kindly to it. If you're making games for PS5 and XBSX, it'll probably be dang annoying to have to factor in the XBSS or XB1. Devs might indeed decide to base a game's design around XBSS or XB1 and then try to scale up for PS5 and XBSX (it seems like XB1 support might have been a limiting factor for Halo Infinite's graphics). I'd rather XBSX and PS5 were the lowest design targets from the get-go (barring a return to the old proper way of designing a game for PC first, then porting down to consoles - though with XBSX and PS5 having Zen 2 and RDNA2, that might not exactly be "porting down," since this is the first time new consoles have been relatively up-to-date with PC hardware at launch). Well in a few years, when the 9th-generation starts to really get rolling, we'll see what becomes of all this.

I general I just have no idea what the purpose of the Xbox Series S is. It seems like a useless SKU to me.

 

[LeRoy_Blanchard]

I don't like David Cage or his non-video-games, but this is the first time I can agree with him about something. I've been saying for generations that it's **** annoying when developers choose to continue to support a previous generation of consoles when a new generation is here, cuz it holds back game development for the new consoles, preventing the developers from fully utilizing the hardware in the new consoles. Now in the same generation, we have Xbox Series X and S. Developers might end up standardizing around the lower-end model. At the very least, they'll have to keep that lower model in mind when designing their new games. It never works out well to have multiple models of a console with different levels of hardware power. By the end of the 8th-generation, a sizeable gap had opened up between the base consoles (XB1/XB1S and PS4) and the upgraded/refreshed versions (XB1X and PS4 Pro). Now right off the bat we'll have XBSS potentially holding **** back. I don't know, it could turn out to be a non-issue (especially as console devs grow more accustomed to the PC model of supporting different hardware configs), but I'd rather not have that variable that is the Xbox Series S in play. Developers often choose to develop based around the lowest common denominator. It was bad enough that a general focus on console development hurt PC. Now among all the 9th-gen consoles, the XBSS could be ****ing things up. Then again, with Microsoft pushing devs to continue to support XB1, XBSS may not even be the limiting factor. I do wonder how long Microsoft plans to continue to support XB1 in the 9th-generation, and how long developers will stick with that. The multiplatform devs may not take too kindly to it. If you're making games for PS5 and XBSX, it'll probably be dang annoying to have to factor in the XBSS or XB1. Devs might indeed decide to base a game's design around XBSS or XB1 and then try to scale up for PS5 and XBSX (it seems like XB1 support might have been a limiting factor for Halo Infinite's graphics). I'd rather XBSX and PS5 were the lowest design targets from the get-go (barring a return to the old proper way of designing a game for PC first, then porting down to consoles - though with XBSX and PS5 having Zen 2 and RDNA2, that might not exactly be "porting down," since this is the first time new consoles have been relatively up-to-date with PC hardware at launch). Well in a few years, when the 9th-generation starts to really get rolling, we'll see what becomes of all this.

I general I just have no idea what the purpose of the Xbox Series S is. It seems like a useless SKU to me.

Well seeing as how the consoles aren't special, purpose built CPU and GPU architectures anymore and are all based on AMDs x86 CPU and their Radeon GPUs what you're seeing now is just the different levels of performance PC gamers have had the options of for decades.

I do not think anything will be "held" back as people with PCs do not feel like they've been held back by weaker PCs in terms of visuals, but rather by older consoles where porting them to a PC was a lot of work.

Everything is basically a PC now.