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[Doczu]

This sounds like something we call a "drama in 3 acts" in Poland.

1. Xbox version is delayed due to parity clause for Series S/X

2. Microsoft sends support to get split screen running on Series S to uphold the parity clause

3. Microsoft said fuck it and fuck parity clause. Launch without split-screen.

The end

 

[acm2000]

The bigger news here is cross save support from steam to Xbox and back again, this will be the second game with this new feature I believe.

 

[drganon]

But he didn't ask what you do in your spare time drag

Nah, that's you in this and every other thread defending Phil at every turn.

You didn't earn that title for nothing, shillapple.

 

[adamsapple]

Nah, that's you in this and every other thread defending Phil at every turn.

You didn't earn that title for nothing, shillapple.

 

[FingerBang]

This is a smart move for one of the hottest games of the year. That parity clause should be changed for cases like this one

 

[adamsapple]

The bigger news here is cross save support from steam to Xbox and back again, this will be the second game with this new feature I believe

I think there's a couple, Infinite does as will Starfield.

 

[cireza]

Nah, that's you in this and every other thread defending Phil at every turn.

You didn't earn that title for nothing, shillapple.

Do you even do anything else than putting lol emojis (in less than 10 seconds after people post) and being aggressive ?

 

[drganon]

Do you even do anything else than putting lol emojis (in less than 10 seconds after people post) and being aggressive ?

Do you ever do anything else than whining about the Saturn selling less than ps1 and posting empathy emojis?

 

[K2D]

My guess is if you have a series s, chances are high that you could circumvent the need for splitscreen by nature of having another series s.

Like for instance two siblings or two friends doing a LAN instead.



Hopeful this will translate into less features being left on the cutting room floor..!

 

[willothedog]

Thank god, now at least the 'BG3 PS5 exclusive/console exclusive' Twitter posts should calm down now

 

[cireza]

Do you ever do anything else than whining about the Saturn selling less than ps1 and posting empathy emojis?

Obviously.

Don't lose sleep over neogaf. Health is precious.

 

[AGRacing]

Yeah that'll go over well for Microsoft. Shaft a bunch of users who were promised 1080p versions of Series X games.

I think the original promise was 1440p versions ;] JK.

I think if this is marked clearly on the box and digital purchase page they don't have too big of an issue.

 

[cireza]

I find the decision disappointing as many developers are going to rush inside the breach to butcher their Series S versions.

Hopefully bigger developers will keep decent ambitions for the Series S versions of their games.

 

[MasterCornholio]

Thank god, now at least the 'BG3 PS5 exclusive/console exclusive' Twitter posts should calm down now

Well at least that pressure made them change and also the fact that the game is great helped as well. Anyways I'm glad it's over. Hopefully neither company adopts dumb policies like this in the future.

 

[Fabieter]

This is a smart move for one of the hottest games of the year. That parity clause should be changed for cases like this one

I think its shitty to only make exceptions if a game is too big to ignore. Just drop it at this point. Give the people the best Versions on x and ps5 and let devs downscale the s like crazy to make both Versions as good as possible.

 

[enigmatic enthusiast]

Good luck for anyone to try and define feature parody in a courtroom.

Seriously, who needs luck when MSFT very clearly defined it themselves?

 

[MasterCornholio]

I find the decision disappointing as many developers are going to rush inside the breach to butcher their Series S versions.

Hopefully bigger developers will keep decent ambitions for the Series S versions of their games.

Developers will just work with the limitations the Series S has. But at least the system won't stop them from releasing on Xbox when it comes to parity.

I think it's a small price to pay to have all games release at the same time.

 

[Ar¢tos]

Seems more like an exception was opened instead of a parity change.
It's also an admission that either MS's engineers suck or the Series S is not what they advertised it would be.

 

[DenchDeckard]

Bravo, Phil. Making the right call here.

I guess this now stops the series S from holding any games back. Which is great overall. I'm sure developers will make the right call and whatever that call is it will send a message to MS.

Best move possible by Phil and MS here and good that he's obviously listening to devs. Maybe they patch split screen in, in a year or so with the content they are clearly going to add to the game. We will see.

 

[SkylineRKR]

As an S owner I think this is good news. I will play BG3 on PS5 no worries, but I think its better for MS game studios too. They don't have to consider XSS as much as before.

Its 3 years old by now, for me, XSS held out longer than I would expect. Its okay if its gets the shaft every now and then from here on. If you're really big into Xbox gaming, i'd upgrade by now. Its a bit like I sold my PS4 after about 3 years to buy a Pro.

The beginning of Series S downfall.
Developers will be allowed to cut more and more features by threatening to not release the game on Xbox at all.

Yes this could be true. If Larian is obliged to do, others will follow suit for sure. RT was already ditched from the beginning, but its a minor thing. Stuff like split screen, even though you might never use it, is a removed gameplay feature.

 

[MasterCornholio]

Bravo, Phil. Making the right call here.

I guess this now stops the series S from holding any games back. Which is great overall. I'm sure developers will make the right call and whatever that call is it will send a message to MS.

Best move possible by Phil and MS here and good that he's obviously listening to devs. Maybe they patch split screen in, in a year or so with the content they are clearly going to add to the game. We will see.

That would depend. If this is just an exception or the elimination of the policy. I'm hoping the policy is either changed or eliminated. Consumers shouldn't have to pay for this.

 

[DenchDeckard]

That would depend. If this is just an exception or the elimination of the policy. I'm hoping the policy is either changed or eliminated. Consumers shouldn't have to pay for this.

There's no way Phil and MS can only allow this for Larien, it has to be changed. So I'm sure it's changed across the board...or will do as more games have to cut features to arrive day and date.

 

[MasterCornholio]

There's no way Phil and MS can only allow this for Larien, it has to be changed. So I'm sure it's changed across the board...or will do as more games have to cut features to arrive day and date.

Either Microsoft makes the announcement or we have to wait an see if this issue shows up again.

That's all that we can do.

Edit:

When it comes to BG3 its a heavily praised game. That's why I said an exception could have been made for it. But without proof of other titles doing the same it's difficult to say if they changed the policy or not. I'm hoping they did though because it shouldn't be a case by case basis.

 

[Lucifers Beard]

Great news. Although, they’ve set this precedent now. Other developers will expect the same treatment moving forward I’m sure.

 

[MatrixReloaded101]

Like I predicted last year, they will scrap the series s as soon as they get a chance too. We are still early in this gen and devs are now removing features just for series s, crazy.

 

[twilo99]

The S shouldn't exist.

But I really like mine!

 

[Ar¢tos]

Bravo, Phil. Making the right call here.

I guess this now stops the series S from holding any games back. Which is great overall. I'm sure developers will make the right call and whatever that call is it will send a message to MS.

Best move possible by Phil and MS here and good that he's obviously listening to devs. Maybe they patch split screen in, in a year or so with the content they are clearly going to add to the game. We will see.

Now that they got the game to release without split screen co-op they surely aren't going to keep wasting resources trying to get it to work on the platform where they'll get the less sales. Adding split screen co-op to series S later would translate in negative profit for the studio, since it wouldn't start a revival of sales of the game, it would just be ignored. (they'll just keep saying "we're still trying to MS" until MS gives up and stops asking)

It will be like Redfall 60 fps patch, to be released after launch*.

* never

 

[DenchDeckard]

I think there's a couple, Infinite does as will Starfield.

Wait, is starfield supporting cross save with Steam?

 

[DenchDeckard]

Now that they got the game to release without split screen co-op they surely aren't going to keep wasting resources trying to get it to work on the platform where they'll get the less sales. Adding split screen co-op to series S later would translate in negative profit for the studio, since it wouldn't start a revival of sales of the game, it would just be ignored. (they'll just keep saying "we're still trying to MS" until MS gives up and stops asking)

It will be like Redfall 60 fps patch, to be released after launch*.

* never

You're probably right. Will be interesting to see how it plays out.

I'd love to see data on how many people are playing couch co op on BG3.

 

[twilo99]

The game was supposed to be a PS5 exclusive and this Phil guy just had to come in and mess it all up for all of us

 

[MarkMe2525]

Like I predicted last year, they will scrap the series s as soon as they get a chance too. We are still early in this gen and devs are now removing features just for series s, crazy.

That's quite a leap there.

 

[Papa_Wisdom]

Do it Microsoft, you know you want to

 

[Duchess]

Has anyone posted that comment from everyone's favourite Xbox expert about how Larian are shitty devs and MS are going to fix the problems for them..?

Ah, here it is:

When Microsoft get it working it will show it was a lack of resources or expertise or both. There are games with far higher PC minimum specs as I've shown earlier that are running on Series S.

 

[xrnzaaas]

It should've happened sooner, MS simply wants such a huge hit in their ecosystem as well. I definitely hope this will continue, even if informing about the X-only features will create additional mess.

 

[SidViscous]

Smart move, will be interesting to see how the series s copes during act 3, the cross save stuff is a blessing for digital foundry when it comes to testing performance.

Wish MS would just phase out the series s at this point, once they can cut the price of the x there is zero reason for it to exist

 

[Panajev2001a]

I guess this now stops the series S from holding any games back.

Ok, thanks for agreeing with us now. Loyalty to Series S’s honour only holds up until MS throws it down the bus eh ?

 

[MasterCornholio]

You're probably right. Will be interesting to see how it plays out.

I'd love to see data on how many people are playing couch co op on BG3.

My guess is that it won't be a massively used feature.

But there's really nothing wrong with developers that include it in their games. They are not the ones that are in the wrong here IMO.

 

[Panajev2001a]

Has anyone posted that comment from everyone's favourite Xbox expert about how Larian are shitty devs and MS are going to fix the problems for them..?

Ah, here it is:

Hehe . Well, everything has a cost in time and resources… often things can be done by investing lots and lots of time, but that is the problem… you should not have to. This is a problem they, MS, created.

 

[AV]

They're not tho, of they were, you wouldn't be seeing these news

They are though, they're sick of it. It's been commented on for months now from various sources.

 

[crackajack]

I have no idea where MS wants to draw the line from now on. Any decently informed S buyer knew he gets an inferior, sort of last gen, version graphicswise. And while I think splitscreen can't be very important nowadays anyway, leaving out game modes feels to cross a line.
How can a few Mhz and less RAM not allow some (massive) downgrade in cosmetic areas to make it run? Afair splitscreen modes did often look far worse in some games. It's usual practice to have to cut down stuff, when the game logic has to run for two or sometimes four inputs.

Kinda embarassing for Larian, who probably don't really need it on S, and also not necessarily on X either, and treated the whole MS platforms as an afterthought, but much much more for the supposed MS experts send out to fix it while neglecting already Halo and Redfall themselves and again achieving nothing.

 

[Riky]

There's no way Phil and MS can only allow this for Larien, it has to be changed. So I'm sure it's changed across the board...or will do as more games have to cut features to arrive day and date.

We've only seen confirmation they are allowing the disparity at launch, have we seen a statement saying that the feature will not appear later? I haven't seen that myself.

 

[faraany3k]

PS5 lost a console exclusive and missing cross save feature. Well I know where to buy the game now as I am planning to upgrade my PC soon.

 

[Fabieter]

My guess is that it won't be a massively used feature.

But there's really nothing wrong with developers that include it in their games. They are not the ones that are in the wrong here IMO.

I expect most couples play it that way, you can play it splitscreen with your better half and play it online too. This is a awesome feature and it's disgusting that people downplay it.

 

[SkylineRKR]

Smart move, will be interesting to see how the series s copes during act 3, the cross save stuff is a blessing for digital foundry when it comes to testing performance.

Wish MS would just phase out the series s at this point, once they can cut the price of the x there is zero reason for it to exist

Yes I figure the S has little reason to exist once the price of SX will be cut. Sure, they can cut the XSS, but its still a device with microchips, I think you can't sell the XSS for like 99 and make a profit just because you are able to slash the XSX to 300 ish. Its better to just phase it out by then.

 

[MasterCornholio]

I expect most couples play it that way, you can play it splitscreen with your better half and play it online too. This is a awesome feature and it's disgusting that people downplay it.

Well I'm not downplaying it I'm just saying it won't be the way that most will play this.

But its still fantastic to have and devs shouldn't be blamed if they want to include this into their games. As we can see in this case the only issue was with policy nothing more.

 

[Fabieter]

Well I'm not downplaying it I'm just saying it won't be the way that most will play this.

But its still fantastic to have and devs shouldn't be blamed if they want to include this into their games. As we can see in this case the only issue was with policy nothing more.

Oh I didn't mean exactly you with that but all that nonsense that no one is using it is quite annoying.

 

[Duchess]

We've only seen confirmation they are allowing the disparity at launch

By that logic, if Larian doesn't implement Series S split screen within a certain time window, the game will be yanked from sale.

 

[MasterCornholio]

By that logic, if Larian doesn't implement Series S split screen within a certain time window, the game will be yanked from sale.

That definitely won't happen. And if the game never gets splitscreen on the Series S I doubt Microsoft will do anything about it.

 

[Harlock]

0.005% of the total consumer would use local split screen on Series S.

 

[FunkMiller]

Well fuck me, Microsoft, you gone done a goodie.

Now just drop the whole stupid ass Series S thing completely, and make me glad I bought a Series X again.

….start with letting Starfield have 60fps on X.