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Series X|S Parity Clause Changed: BG3 coming to Xbox this year, no split screen coop for Series S
- Thread starter Interfectum
- Start date
Interfectum
Member
No doubt Larian begged Phil to help get their game out of the console war bullshit. What a shitshow.Moment of silence for this poor soul.
adamsapple
Or is it just one of Phil's balls in my throat?
Now the question is, did Larian get preferential treatment just because of how well BG3 was received, or will this change start becoming standard as part of the development process.
Interfectum
Member
It's too public for them to not change it. Probably split screen gaming will be put in with RT as features Series X can have over S. From there more dominos will fall the next couple years.
DaGwaphics
Member
Obviously they'll have to be careful with the exceptions they allow. They can't have levels or entire areas of game maps missing and things like that, but this one always sounded like an easy decision. The full single player experience is there and I'm assuming online coop is there if that is a thing in this game.
adamsapple
Or is it just one of Phil's balls in my throat?
social media + fanboys + anonymity = crock of shit.
Synless
Member
Right? Microsoft and team could have hypothetically solved the split screen issue today and it still might have released this year. It was always a known factor.
DenchDeckard
Moderated wildly
Its still going to be exclusive to PS5 for some time though right? I doubt they want to go up against starfield anyway. Launch it a month or so afterwards.
JackMcGunns
Member
Wait, so there's co-op on Series S online? Series S is doomed over ONE feature missing in ONE game?? give me a break. So the only real issue I see here was the parity clause where features need to be exact on Series S/X and thus losing the X version entirely, but with that lifted, life goes on lol.
adamsapple
Or is it just one of Phil's balls in my throat?
Yes, Series S has all the same features, minus the local split-screen co-op. It will have the same online features as the other versions.
Nothing else is being left out.
Mr Moose
Member
This game is on PC, it's already going against Starfield.
DenchDeckard
Moderated wildly
Yeah, but its been out on PC for like a month on PC. Those users have had plenty of time to play and now some may want to pick up Starfield. Releasing it on xbox the same day as starfield would be suicide.
adamsapple
Or is it just one of Phil's balls in my throat?
Correct, it's not launching day and date on Xbox with PS5, but they said 2023, so it's gonna be within the next 3 months.
Mr Moose
Member
Yeah I don't think this is coming out next month on Xbox. Before the end of the year though.
twilo99
Member
$100 of the x doesn’t bring us to the $250-300 range, which is where the xss stands, and I know that here people are high rollers but that $100-150 difference is meaningful to a lot of people in the real world.
Mr Reasonable
Completely Unreasonable
Oh right, yeah, there's this thing called console wars. People dedicate their lives to it.
Yes while perhaps bad news for series s owners it potentially opens the door for games like GTA 6 to fully embrace series x and PS5 as the baseline and give the S the sloppy seconds. Gotta pay to play. Series S may no longer be holding entire generation back as lowest common denominator, assuming this "one off exemption" is the thin edge of the wedge and opens the door for more "compromises" on feature parity.
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PropellerEar
Member
FTFYMoment of silence for this poor soul.
Thank god some gamers like this saint of a Soul that doesn't suck the PRPRPR straight from Phil's DisPencer.
"Scaling is Easy"#NeverForget
If you have the budget PC will deliver the eye candy and performance.
twilo99
Member
It’s a PC game, so it was never and it will never be a PS5 exclusive.
adamsapple
Or is it just one of Phil's balls in my throat?
Oh? I thought the PS5 version also did cross-save progression.
I guess the Xbox version is getting a bonus add-on.
No, I don't think they've shown a second of console footage so far.
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FoxMcChief
Gold Member
Still no word on how this performs on PS5 or XSX?
Gambit2483
Member
It's the better option of two not so great options.
Option 1: Continue with feature parity clause and continue to lose out on more and more releases, giving your competitor even MORE market advantage while giving your brand a negative image and further loss of mindshare.
Or
Option 2: Get rid of feature parity clause and give developers more options for your platform releases while NOT giving a clear advantage to your competitor and allowing your flagship console to now properly compete on a technical level. Sure some owners lose out on certain features but they KNEW what they were signing up for when they bought the cheaper, weaker hardware. You get what you pay for. Maybe MS can offer an "upgrade path" in the future for those who regret getting Series S
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FoxMcChief
Gold Member
I just know people have said the games performance starts to tank later in the game on pc. Was curious if they’ll just lock it at 30 fps on consoles, to keep it consistent.
Mr Moose
Member
Series S is digital only.
FoxMcChief
Gold Member
A concern trolling attempt, and failure.
Gambit2483
Member
Hopefully a bit if both. If this is what it took for MS to get rid of that stupid clause then so be it
Synless
Member
No one gives a shit about it it’s on PC. When the large majority of people are discussing console exclusives it’s only about them.
twilo99
Member
Nah, I think the whole Starfield situation is making a mess within the PlayStation community so there is a certain amount of “acting out” going on.
Quite entertaining overall..
FoxMcChief
Gold Member
It’s not like they’re creating accounts to review bomb on metacritic.
Cyberpunkd
Member
"Always coming" could mean a year from now, hardly a happy scenario for owners of the console already known for not having enough exclusive games.
NonPhixion
Member
Freelance Yakuza
Member
Xbox Fanboys still in denial it seems
"MS CONSOLES ARE PERFECT; IT'S SONY'S FAULT THEY AREN'T RELEASING GAMES ON XBOX!!!"
Imagine being an adult, doing your job every day,
THEN you go to Twitter and have to deal with manchildren talking shit about your work, saying things they know nothing about.
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DenchDeckard
Moderated wildly
Imagine if after all this we see footage of this game running on PS5 on September the 6th and its a complete mess, or Co op is like 30 FPS or something crazy. If Act 3 performance tanks in FPS it would be such a bad look after all the hype.
adamsapple
Or is it just one of Phil's balls in my throat?
nightmare-slain
Member
Great news... for some.
HeisenbergFX4
Gold Member
Hope it sets the precedent moving forward
Forced feature parity between the two machines was a bad idea to begin with
nightmare-slain
Member
I don't think so. Digital Foundry done a video recently about performance which was obviously based on PC. It seems the game can struggle in Act 3 when in the city. The console CPUs are going to have a hard time for sure unless Larian can optimise it. Might need locked to 30fps/reduced NPCs and or object density.
edit: here is the video
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SenkiDala
Member
Ahah as I expected and said a few times, if MS doesn't change anything people will say "FUCK YOU MS" if they change the rule the SAME people will say "FUCK YOU MS".
As usual I'd say.
Well as I said a dozens of times the decision to make the XSS was a tough decision, it was IMO the good one (getting a new gen console / new gen isn't just graphics / for "cheap" is a GREAT idea), but if someday they need to break this parity thing people who got the XSS can get pissed off and if they don't break this deal, the ones who got the XSX can get pissed off too.
In the end they made the "least worst decision", because they couldn't do both it was factually impossible (can't keep parity AND keep being fair with XSX owners).
The GOOD, and expected thing, is ALL the XSS owners I've seen and read are smart people and UNDERSTAND the decision and SUPPORT IT. And anyway the game on XSS can be updated later when the feature runs well.
The BAD is antiMS trolls (who anyway wouldn't touch a XSS or XSX even with a wood stick) will use it as a reason to shit on MS all day long but oh well.
As usual I'd say.
Well as I said a dozens of times the decision to make the XSS was a tough decision, it was IMO the good one (getting a new gen console / new gen isn't just graphics / for "cheap" is a GREAT idea), but if someday they need to break this parity thing people who got the XSS can get pissed off and if they don't break this deal, the ones who got the XSX can get pissed off too.
In the end they made the "least worst decision", because they couldn't do both it was factually impossible (can't keep parity AND keep being fair with XSX owners).
The GOOD, and expected thing, is ALL the XSS owners I've seen and read are smart people and UNDERSTAND the decision and SUPPORT IT. And anyway the game on XSS can be updated later when the feature runs well.
The BAD is antiMS trolls (who anyway wouldn't touch a XSS or XSX even with a wood stick) will use it as a reason to shit on MS all day long but oh well.
avin
Member
For what it's worth, I don't think this is going to open any floodgates. MS engineers aren't incompetent, whatever the loons like to think. The S is a lovely bit of kit, and the vast majority of games have been and I think will be fine. What hasn't worked are edge cases related somehow to RAM - amount or speed, I don't know. But I don't imagine that devs will now get to say they're missing features on the S just because. MS must know why split-screen on BG3 was so hard, and they won't allow exceptions that don't make technical sense.
And I personally really like the idea of the S, although I wonder if it could be done better so as to avoid these and future edge cases. Overall, I think this is pretty cool. Previously, games that didn't work on the S simply couldn't come to Xbox. Now, they will. From the few that are missing one specific feature on the S, we should be able to reconstruct exactly what it is about the RAM they used that fails in those edge cases. Or others will, and so I'm going to know too.
avin
And I personally really like the idea of the S, although I wonder if it could be done better so as to avoid these and future edge cases. Overall, I think this is pretty cool. Previously, games that didn't work on the S simply couldn't come to Xbox. Now, they will. From the few that are missing one specific feature on the S, we should be able to reconstruct exactly what it is about the RAM they used that fails in those edge cases. Or others will, and so I'm going to know too.
avin
Dr_Ifto
Member
At the end of the day, the numbers on Co-op usage was probably given to MS and they deemed not an essential feature, so they allowed it. They will probably do an assessment on each issue like this, based on the possible sales of the game. MS needed this game to sell this year for their books. It was probably looking like April+ to get it working on there, and they couldn't wait that long. They need that revenue.
Dr_Ifto
Member
With the known issue with save files late game being an issue, and the split screen memory issue, they probably are hand in hand why the split screen wont work on the XSS
Heisenberg007
Gold Journalism
No they didn't. Their marketing clearly said the only change will be the graphics, not content, hence the parity clause.they KNEW what they were signing up for when they bought the cheaper, weaker hardware. You get what you pay for. Maybe MS can offer an "upgrade path" in the future for those who regret getting Series S
Look, I'm not arguing for or against parity. It's Microsoft making dumb decisions with little forward thinking that's the issue here.
ShaiKhulud1989
Gold Member
They can finally go home thoThe team that Microsoft sent to help Larian run BG3 split-screen on Series S:
THE DUCK
voted poster of the decade by bots
Actions have consequences, MS fucked themselfs/their console many times over so ofc instead of praising MAUs ppl check sales, as any1 sane should, somehow nintendo got no problems with sales of their very weak/outdated handheld tech based switch, but for that u gotta have top quality of exclusives instead of gamepass, its a trade off, one company banked on gamepass, other one banked on top quality exclusives as it was always proven strategy that worked well
I think you have to give them a bit more credit, they are still chasing thier own top quality exclusives, the fruit of which is just starting to show. Slower pace than they had hoped for sure.....
The only reason switch does so well despite being older hardware is a that its a handheld.
Put that same configuration out as a console and it's a massive flop.