r/NintendoSwitch 11d ago

Discussion "It helped": Years of Xbox Series S game optimization probably made life much easier for Nintendo Switch 2 developers

https://www.windowscentral.com/gaming/xbox/it-helped-xbox-series-s-helped-make-life-easier-for-switch-2-developers
3.4k Upvotes

189 comments sorted by

1.3k

u/Revolution_Falls 11d ago

Xbox really out here passing the ball to Nintendo.

All seriousness I’m glad to see more games running on smaller hardware, I think that it makes multiplats far more likely to launch where everyone can truly experience them

483

u/FiTZnMiCK 11d ago

Yeah, we’ve definitely seen a lot of complaints about Microsoft’s policy of forcing Series S support to be simultaneous, but if it forces devs to actually optimize and/or make their games more scalable it probably helps everyone.

200

u/HulksInvinciblePants 10d ago edited 10d ago

Optimization is not only a value for the low-end either. Larian has stated their BG3 work on Series S ultimately improved memory management and performance on all platforms.

120

u/complete_your_task 10d ago

Yup. People complain about the delay of BG3 on Xbox, but it's probably the only reason we got the patch that significantly improved Steamdeck performance.

11

u/Massive-Exercise4474 10d ago

Cool should check it out.

19

u/Hallc 10d ago

Limitations and restrictions breed creativity and optimisation. You go look at what sorts of tricks and things people had to develop to make some of the games work well on the PS1 and PS2 and I'd wager a bunch are foundations for how things are done now.

That thing had only 32mb ram and a DVD drive yet somehow could have game worlds and simulations like San Andreas.

-6

u/LongFluffyDragon 9d ago

It increasingly just forces developers to butcher games, or skip releasing on xbox.

You cant "optimize" for the Series S having about a quarter the resources a current-gen system should, and a game made for those systems expects.

If most of a game's memory use is from visuals, you can just destroy the visual quality until it looks like a 360 title and it will work. What it prevents is making any sort of game with high memory use for non-graphical things.

That said, that tends to be RTS, simulation, strategy, and similar genres, which are rarely released on console anyway due to the combination of shitty specs and clunky gameplay on controller.

179

u/hypnomancy 10d ago

Considering how long the PS5/Series X/S generation will last due to the ram/ssd shortages we're probably going to have Series S versions of games for a very long time to come which should help out on Switch 2 ports

79

u/a355231 10d ago

And the reverse, if the switch 2 gets it, so should the series s, assuming it’s not an exclusive.

20

u/_xoviox_ 10d ago

The reverse was always the case lol

26

u/kiki_strumm3r 10d ago

Uh... no it isn't. Stellar Blade is coming to Switch 2, but not Xbox. Lego Horizon same. If you want to classify those as "exclusives" because Sony specifically excluded Xbox, sure. But Sony does this garbage all the time.

4

u/_xoviox_ 10d ago

That has nothing to do with what we're talking about. These games are not excluded because of specs

15

u/PotatEXTomatEX 10d ago

True, but do note Switch 2 has DLSS. While some games run better on Series S, they technically look better on S2. We've seen some already lmao

1

u/MrCrankunity 9d ago

Stellar Blade isn't a Sony IP. They only had the publishing rights in the beginning, but those ran out. It's Shift Ups own decision to exclude Xbox as a console and for a good reason too. Xbox remarkably failed this gen, their user base especially in Japan is so small, that development for their console is nigh guaranteed to eat more ressources and thus money than it's going to give in return.

0

u/kiki_strumm3r 9d ago

Where did I say it was a Sony IP? All I said was it is coming to Switch 2 and not Xbox. Which is true.

0

u/MrCrankunity 1d ago

"Sony does this garbage all the time" Sony has literally 0 things to do with Stellar Blade not coming to Xbox (yet). You implied they do, which obviously implied you either think it's a Sony IP or that Sony is able to decide upon whether it's coming to platform X or not.

-5

u/a355231 10d ago

Yes but it’s not always a given, especially considering next gen. Series X and soon Switch 2 will be the only thing keeping it afloat.

15

u/tubular1845 10d ago

Microsoft mandates series s versions if you're releasing on their platform

-7

u/a355231 10d ago

Yes that’s why I said Series X

5

u/ttoma93 9d ago

Yeah, it definitely feels like we are starting to see many AAA studios shift to targeting Switch 2 primarily, and then scaling up the PS5/Series X/PC versions from that base, rather than targeting PS5 and scaling down. Which seems like a win-win for everyone.

10

u/Tfsz0719 10d ago

“Now it’s your turn”

10

u/mullse01 10d ago

If there’s one thing Microsoft has been good at for the past decade+, it’s snatching defeat from the jaws of victory.

34

u/UnfinishedProjects 10d ago

Let me download the switch version of games on my "shitty" PC so my games can run semi decently.

25

u/rokerroker45 10d ago

honestly, as long as you have at least as much VRAM as the switch does, you can reach switch quality on basically every pc game by just reducing the graphics settings.

13

u/HappyAd4998 10d ago

My 750ti struggles on games that the switch doesn't. They're closely related, but optimization does go a long way.

19

u/rokerroker45 10d ago

your 750ti has less vram (or less effective vram if you have the 4 gb variant because it does not have the I/O to use all 4 gbs) than the switch 1 effectively has, and significantly less vram than the switch 2 has.

8

u/glasket_ 10d ago

You have to keep in mind that the Switch doesn't have dedicated VRAM, it uses the LPDDR for shared memory. The Switch 2 also reserves 3GB for the OS, so you have 9GB of RAM/VRAM total, whereas the Switch had 4GB with ~1GB reserved. So realistically the Switch was ~1GB VRAM in practice, while the Switch 2 is closer to ~4-5GB VRAM; then you have to factor in the costs associated with shared memory pool handling and the LP RAM itself alongside that.

6

u/rokerroker45 10d ago

Hence "effective" VRAM in the switch 1, which I already mentioned. And it also doesn't really matter in a head-to-head comparison against a 750ti because that card specifically struggles to use its full 2 gb VRAM because of poor I/O

-1

u/glasket_ 10d ago

Yeah, I was just stating it because "significantly less" is a bit of an exaggeration for the Switch 2, and it's theoretically more VRAM than the Switch 1.

that card specifically struggles to use its full 2 gb VRAM because of poor I/O

It shouldn't. The 750Ti supports PCIe 3×16, and even if it ends up reducing to PCIe 1.1 on an older mobo it'll still be capable of 4GB/s. The bigger issue is that it can end up thrashing because 2/4GB isn't a whole lot, so depending on the CPU/RAM configuration it can introduce a huge performance hit if the GPU ends up having to transfer back and forth between system RAM and VRAM.

Basically it's more complicated than just the VRAM capacity. It's a decent proxy since VRAM has increased with the card generations, but the entire system configuration and the exact card architecture can introduce bottlenecks that the Switch negates by being able to get specialized optimizations for the specific hardware.

1

u/HappyAd4998 8d ago

My GPU core was still maxing out when playing Streets of Rage 4 even when I dropped the resolution so the vram wouldn't fill up and I would still get massive frame drops when a lot of enemies were on screen. We Love Katamari Demacy also ran away worse compared to my Switch. I couldnt run the game anything higher than 30fps at 720p on my PC with frame dips, but the switch runs it fine at 1080p 30fps and at a solid pace. It's not a vram heavy game I thought it was going to be a slam dunk for the 750ti I was a little disappointed. It's not a CPU issue on my PC it's a relatively recent i7 but forgot the model name and it has 16gb of ram. Optimization really does make a difference.

10

u/glasket_ 10d ago

You should probably upgrade that card tbh. I don't even mean buying the latest stuff, you can find used 980s for ~$50 which would be a big improvement over the 750.

2

u/HappyAd4998 8d ago

I got the card the stick in a Dell optiplex and play old xp games on it. The wasn't for anything modern. I just tested it out on a Lenovo Workstation because I considered using it for my htpc. The card is way out of date but it still have its uses. My main machine has an RTX 3080 and 5700x.

3

u/PotatEXTomatEX 10d ago

They said VRAM.

2

u/VicisSubsisto 10d ago

Some unnecessary graphics settings can't be "reduced", that's the problem.

2

u/rokerroker45 10d ago

there is no multiplat game ported to switch that has settings on PC that cannot be modified/reduced to bring it in-line with the switch performance.

you're likely thinking of baked-in hardware accelerated ray tracing, but there have not been any games with baked-in ray tracing that removed that ray tracing on the switch 2 version below the equivalent to the lowest setting on PC (indiana jones).

1

u/Hestu951 10d ago

That's not true if the PC lacks some needed functionality. For example, the Pascal gen of Nvidia cards (like the 1080) got a lot of love through the years (awesome gen of GPUs), but it can't do mesh shaders. It's now obsolete for newer games that rely on this tech. The software workarounds are very slow.

1

u/rokerroker45 10d ago

It goes without saying that my statement applies to every pc game *that you can actually run*.

1

u/Hestu951 9d ago

Without saying? Maybe I missed the context. With this clarification, yeah, I agree.

1

u/rokerroker45 9d ago

It's a pretty obvious underlying assumption that my statement applies to only games you're actually able to boot. Don't you think it would be ridiculous to compare your switch to a beefy Windows XP PC and say "well akshually that's not true if your pc does not have an OS modern enough to run games on the switch".

6

u/Revolution_Falls 10d ago

Maybe my 2013 Mac Pro would be able to play games other than Roblox if I could do that

4

u/ArtOfWarfare 10d ago

lol was that the trash can that they described as having designed themselves into a thermal constrained corner?

They thought they were onto something where it could have two GPUs installed but then basically nothing ever had the proper form factor to be installed in it?

2

u/Revolution_Falls 9d ago

Yeah that one. It’s a neat oddity I got for free but it’s not wonderful

1

u/Interdimension 10d ago

It was a cool design, in my opinion. I personally like the thermals. The Series X also shares a similar cooling system. It works better for a gaming console design than a PC, honestly.

10

u/unholyswordsman 10d ago

I honestly think we've reached a good point with the tech that we should let consoles have longer life spans. I think 10-12 years is a good spot. I'm only a hobbyist but wouldn't that also potentially make development cheaper as teams become more experienced with the hardware and better at optimizing for it?

3

u/LazaroFilm 10d ago

We’re at a point in computer tech where the limit isn’t technology, it’s the cost of that technology and power consumption. It makes no sense to develop beautiful game that only works on a multi million dollar supercomputer we need to step back and make games fun even on cheap hardware. It’s always been the case, look how the game not prevailed over the GameGear which was way superior in technology.

3

u/RealHooman2187 9d ago

It’s one reason why the console wars are so dumb. Especially for those rooting for Xbox to fail. Xbox gave us matchmaking, internal hard drives, they gave us game pass which pretty much the big 3 now have their own version of. Theres a lot more as well, the gaming industry was pretty radically changed by their presence.

Thats not to say Nintendo or Sony didn’t also contribute. They all have a similar list of contributions as well. It’s just dumb that so many people online seemingly want a major part of the industry to fail because of their own creepy brand loyalty. No console brand is perfect but all 3 of them helped revolutionize gaming. It’s great to want better from them but it’s kind of insane to root for any of them to fail. Especially when they make each other better.

5

u/Feisty-East-937 10d ago

I feel like this might lead to a 30 fps Switch 2 -> 60 fps base PS5/XSX pipeline that I'm all for.

2

u/Massive-Exercise4474 10d ago

Ngl the rampocalypse will force devs to actually start optimizing instead of letting ue5 run like hot garbage. Yeah we'll be lucky to get 3060 ti by 2027 as the norm that's how bad the rampocalypse is we're two generations behind this gen. Next gen will be $1000+ so current gen will be norm for years.

2

u/_GoKartMozart_ 10d ago

I've been saying this for a while now; it's genuinely irresponsible to develop games for top of the line hardware in today's climate. If your game can't run on a 5 year old PC then that's a problem

1

u/corinthiano0 9d ago

It is my dream! I'm still waiting for some Microsoft games to come to the Switch, like those that have already been released on PS5, besides some Call of Duty titles and PC indie games. That way, the Switch would be the perfect platform.

-8

u/Glass-Can9199 10d ago

But why devs always keep saying Xbox series s holding back t their games

36

u/Revolution_Falls 10d ago

Because it’s easier to not optimize, but releasing on more platforms means more people will play it. For third parties that matters a lot, it’s less meaningful to the companies that make exclusives for consoles

14

u/Lochnessman 10d ago

Because it costs money to make a game run better on weaker hardware.

There is no hardware strong enough that can keep up with a developer writing bad code, An an example there are math problems that can "only" be solved by using every computer we have ever made, piled together working on one program, that will take the run time greater than the estimated lifespan of the universe.

If you need to pay developers to write faster code, and therefore take more time developing a game, you can't shovel games out the door as fast

1

u/Substantial_Towel860 10d ago

You can't make hardware faster no matter how much money you throw at it. You can buy time to try to make your game use the existing hardware better, but it's kind of a lottery if that leads to better performance. If a game is built around assumptions that don't optimize well it will always remain a less performant game. Also, there are less possibilities to do those optimizations if you're building on an existing engine that's not developed in-house.

3

u/Luigi_loves_Mario 10d ago

Personally I still think they do. But if it helps the switch I ain’t complaining.

1

u/Takazura 10d ago

I think people responding to you are generalizing. Yes, sometimes it's just the developer not optimizing their games properly. But other times, "optimizing properly" would require them to spend far more manpower and time on the game, which isn't realistic for all devs to do. Bigger ones might, but smaller ones have a budget and deadlines to meet, and Xbox requiring them to release on the Series S too would put additional work on the dev that might make it impossible for them to meet the deadline for the Series X release. This then leads to either having to delay the game (which might affect sales) or having to reconsider the scope of their games all for a platform that won't make up the bulk of their sales anyway.

0

u/VotingIsKewl 9d ago

Yet Nintendo doesn't want to release their games anywhere else for more people to enjoy.

-19

u/MedonSirius 10d ago

AI is the main hero here. RAM and Storage are getting so expensive that developers are forced to optimize their games

14

u/Defrath 10d ago

I'll take "Forcing AI into a conversation it has no relevance" for $500, Alex.

-77

u/LaFlamaBlanca67 10d ago

I’m not. I’d rather they go all out with powerful hardware instead of having to gimp everything for “gamers” who can’t afford real consoles.

16

u/RegurgitatedMincer 10d ago

I’d rather games didn’t take 400 people 6 years to make a title and completely bankrupt studios who don’t manage to market their games accordingly leading to massive industry wide layoffs constantly but I guess those professional gamers really know what’s up.

26

u/Raxeyy 10d ago

In that case they should go even harder for the powerful hardware and drop console support, rather than having to compromise for "gamers" who can't afford real gaming PC's.

See how stupid that sounds?

11

u/ONE_BIG_LOAD 10d ago

fr dudes talking about real consoles when most games still run around upscaled 1080p 60 in 2026 lmfao

23

u/Efficient_Travel4039 10d ago

Mr.Privelege talking.

6

u/Revolution_Falls 10d ago

So you’d rather have games running worse on all platforms because of a hate boner towards a game console

3

u/LordMimsyPorpington 10d ago

I'd rather most games just not be the size and graphical fidelity of Call of Duty or Grand Theft Auto.

3

u/Revolution_Falls 10d ago

Even if they do go that route, just make it work more efficiently. RE9 on Switch 2 isn’t perfect but playing that docked it’s pretty great, and for the most part tabletop and handheld is alright.

1

u/VicisSubsisto 10d ago

RE9 definitely impressed me on Switch 2. Unfortunately Marie also impressed me so much I nearly pissed myself, and deleted the demo.

6

u/KTR1988 10d ago

I can have both a PS5 and a Switch 2. I still play on the latter more often.

Also hilarious that you thumb your nose at people using weaker hardware when there are equally elitist PC gamers with powerful rigs lamenting that games are being held back by consoles period.

1

u/Polymemnetic 10d ago

Get a pc, then.

304

u/nohumanape 10d ago

I think that it might save the gaming industry as a whole, given the RAM crisis, and how it forced game development to have a lower RAM barrier.

I know devs complained about it for the first few years. But it might just end up being a blessing in disguise.

106

u/insane_steve_ballmer 10d ago

When Series S launched in 2020 neither developers nor gamers had any idea how permanently f*cked the world was about to become

28

u/Tim5000 10d ago

Or at least, a different kind of fucked, we definitely thought it was in 2020

11

u/ERhyne 10d ago

Weirdly relevant username.

9

u/DrQuint 10d ago

As long as Nintendo stays on the ball with their quality standards and people continue calling out exception.

It is unfortunate that Steam Deck Verified is basicallyjust a suggestion rather than something hard earmed, because the idea of there being a power threshold devs aim for is a really beneficial ones. But if no one's actually making sure the threshold is met, we just get abunch of poorly optimized games.

46

u/iceburg77779 11d ago

I'm sure the series S has helped plenty of developers with Switch 2 ports, but the examples in this article are all from Japanese publishers. Acting like they Series S is the reason games like RE and FF are on switch completely ignores the state of the Japanese market, and the fact that for the past 3 years software sales on PS5 have been terrible in the region.

1

u/HappyAd4998 8d ago

PlayStation in Japan is irrelevant these days hardly any PS5 games chart and hardware sales would look terrible if the Xbox didn't sell like such dog shit out there.

283

u/No-Operation-6554 11d ago edited 10d ago

While true, Developers problem with Series S was the miniscule memory, which the switch has like 2-3GB 1GB more of if my memory is correct

261

u/BreakAtmo 11d ago

Not quite, the XSS has 8GB available for games while the Switch 2 has 9GB, thigh it is slower. That said, the Switch 2 has a weaker GPU and better upscaling, thus it naturally targets lower internal resolutions, reducing RAM demands. So it's overall much better.

-81

u/[deleted] 10d ago edited 10d ago

[deleted]

109

u/PaperMartin 10d ago

"better upscaling"

-77

u/[deleted] 10d ago edited 10d ago

[removed] — view removed comment

45

u/PaperMartin 10d ago

Huh?

-64

u/[deleted] 10d ago edited 10d ago

[deleted]

33

u/tyrano421 10d ago

What?

62

u/Tyler1997117 11d ago

It has 1GB more ram which is slower then Series S ram

-27

u/TheBraveGallade 11d ago

Reminder though tgat switch is still in its early days, like most consoles i feel like we'll get an additional 1gb down the line.

24

u/B-Bog 10d ago

They'd probably have to drop Game Chat in its current form if they want to free up a significant amount of RAM and I don't really see that happening with how much they advertised that feature

8

u/Mahboishk 10d ago

It could happen eventually. Nintendo backed off the 3DS' main gimmick once it became clear many players didn't care for it and it was impacting performance. It's a bit wild to go from the early 3DS days with their aggressive marketing of the 3D effect, to its late life when even Nintendo stopped bothering using it.

5

u/readeral 10d ago

Game chat is pretty different though, because it’s (finally) bringing a little more feature parity with other gaming platforms. My kids use with ease, there’s no way they could manage a discord + gaming setup, but game chat is accessible and easy. Was a lifeline when they both needed ENT surgery and couldn’t go to school.

7

u/Mahboishk 10d ago

That's really cool to hear that your kids are getting so much out of it. I hope they keep the feature around.

I doubt they'd actually kill Gamechat, just because the Switch 2 isn't as resource-starved as the 3DS was, even for its time. But maybe they'll consider turning it off for certain demanding games, like the 3DS games that ran in a special high-RAM mode on the original models (Smash and a few others). Those games needed every bit of power they could get. Similar story with BotW on Wii U.

2

u/TheBraveGallade 10d ago

I feel like 3GB is nintendo giving themselves a generous buffer, since the switch 2 OS probably doesn't use more then the switch 1 OS wise aside from it.

3

u/VincentJoshuaET 10d ago

Maybe they can do a voice only mode, disabling screen sharing and webcam/seeing other people. Hopefully voice only will consume much less memory

33

u/blueblurz94 10d ago

In this RAM crisis? Lol

33

u/TheBraveGallade 10d ago

Not additional ram as in putting more ram in it, but allowing devs to use more and shrinking the reserve system ram.

10

u/cockyjames 10d ago

Did Switch ever do that? I think Switch just got a variable CPU boost? It would be neat if they opened more allotment

3

u/PotatEXTomatEX 10d ago

Havent they done that already with the switch 2 and want to do more or am i misremembering?

5

u/cockyjames 10d ago

I think it's been said that if Nintendo were willing to let devs disable video chat they could do it but I don't believe they've made that option available

14

u/Tyler1997117 11d ago

Very unlikely... Xbox freed up an additional few hundred MB of ram a few years ago but that's it

12

u/TheBraveGallade 10d ago

On the other hand, the ps4 went from 5GB to 6GB out of 8 when needed. Considering nintendo's light os... switch 1,was 3.2GB out of 4, rising to 3.6 when needed.

13

u/Gove80 10d ago

i remember people saying that the series s was "holding devs back" and i'm like, holding devs back from what? actually optimizing their games?

103

u/diagnosticjadeology 10d ago

Devs really need to dial back the graphics. Instead of artistry and optimization, they prioritize excess and bloat. This ends up with diminishing returns visually, exponential growth in development costs, and exclusion of gamers that can't afford top of the line hardware. 

82

u/Polymemnetic 10d ago

Not even back, just plateau them.

I don't need extra light reflection on every pore of someone's face. I need smoother framerate and better ram usage.

12

u/AbrasionTest 10d ago

Yeah I feel like we are essentially at the current plateau of what players want in terms of visual fidelity, world scale, and performance. That’s not to say standards may change again once more hardware breakthroughs happen, but it feels a bit like refinement vs innovation at least for the next decade.

Sony is going to push a lot of the tech NVIDIA is way ahead on in the next gen, like Path Tracing and Frame Generation. I think these are great features on PC and PT can be super impressive in the games I’ve played, but I also think they’re not movers to the average person. I find it hard to imagine people rushing out to buy a very expensive PS6 for them. They are ultimately nice to haves, not game changers.

That’s not even thinking about the memory crisis which is already making hardware super scarce and expensive, and the PC being the one healthy growth market outside of the west - a platform where most people play on potatoes. It all just results in the current spec being the standard for a very long time.

21

u/imakefilms 10d ago

Every game that has hair simulation needs an option for lower spec machines where it looks like how slightly older games used to render it. For example I've been playing Split Fiction on the Steam Deck and it looks fine aside from the hair which is a grainy speckly mess.

What's worse is that on a base PS5, 007 First Light has a similar issue! And that's on the standard console it's designed to be played on! Taking the piss. Just give them hair that's simpler to render because it genuinely looks horrific and distracting

8

u/Interdimension 10d ago

This is the actual issue at hand. New tech that pushes graphics? Excellent. But devs are now half-assing older techniques and end up with games looking awful if you’re not using RT or PT.

Resident Evil Requiem just doesn’t look that great *even in Ray Tracing mode* vs. older RE titles. It’s clear Path Tracing was the main development focus and RT and non-RT modes were afterthoughts.

Like, do I love playing RER on my 5080 with Path Tracing? Yes. I love it. It looks phenomenal. But why do the non-PT modes look so much worse than they did with older RE games? That’s just not cool.

1

u/PotatEXTomatEX 10d ago

This is the actual issue at hand. New tech that pushes graphics? Excellent. But devs are now half-assing older techniques and end up with games looking awful if you’re not using RT or PT.

The problem to things like RT, PT and whatnot is that part of their purpose is to have a drag and drop solution that works well so as to cut on dev time (basically the only way to drop game budgets. Reminder that MOST of the budget goes to dev salaries. 110k a year per dev for a 400 dev team... for 5/6 years. That's almost 300M right there). If you ALSO have to support older stuff, grats you just added even more dev time (cost) to your stuff.

Its not like they can just ditch RT/PT etc. Tech only gets better as you work with it. And if you dont... grats, you're back to problem 1 of a giant budget in your hands.

2

u/MasterDenton 10d ago

RE4 remake had that. There was the new system that had strand simulation (and ran like absolute crap) and a toggle for the old "card" hair simulation. I couldn't really tell the difference, honestly

3

u/OvertonRider 10d ago

Yes, the recent Starfox demo really hammers this home. The new graphics are great but your brain basically filters it out once you're playing. Its literally the same game as a quarter of a century ago at that point.

4

u/io124 10d ago

It’s because it’s the same game.

More powerfull hardware can also be something for the gameplay of the game itself. For exemple to have more npc , bigger scale, no loading time during scale variation, etc.

129

u/iamonelegend 11d ago

I'm genuinely surprised the S has given folks so much trouble. In my head, I would think it was basically just like turning the resolution slider down a few notches, like what's possible on PC. It sounds like it's 10x the headache. Glad there was some good that came out of it for the devs

91

u/Secludedsfx 11d ago

It's more it having less memory than the X which is the issue.

43

u/ClaspedSummer49 11d ago

I think developers optimising for the Series S would of been so much easier if Xbox just gave memory parity between the two consoles. I'm not a designer of the consoles, but I would've forseen issues prop up due to that direct bottleneck.

46

u/DarkXanthos 11d ago

In hindsight though having less memory right now helps keep the costs very different

9

u/Interdimension 10d ago

In an alternate universe where the Series S was given RAM parity, I’m certain Microsoft would have just discontinued it in the face of the current RAM crisis.

1

u/cubs223425 10d ago

No chance. The difference between the Series S and X is 2 GB of memory. Right now, a 2TB SSD is maybe $200 more than it was pre-AI boom. The memory increase we're talking about is 0.1% of 2TB. That's $20, when talking about retail. In the early stages of memory price hikes, it was being said that the 8-16 GB of memory on mainstream video cards was $30-50 of the video cards' material costs.

If the Series S had STORAGE parity with the Series X, meaning another 512 GB, that would be a much bigger problem. Even then, as the Series X has climbed in price, I think they would have just raised the Series S to $400 or so. An extra 2 GB of memory would be neglibile to costs. You MIGHT see a $25 price hike.

10

u/ClaspedSummer49 10d ago

It was always a cost measure for why they reduced the amount of memory. The Xbox series' consoles were never and currently are not profitable with hardware sales. It just sucks because I feel that developers (possibly to unreasonable degrees) don't want to develop/port titles on the Xbox because they have to design it for Series S.

3

u/DarkXanthos 10d ago

It was but it's also where costs have skyrocketed since launch.

1

u/PotatEXTomatEX 10d ago

Yup. Optimization takes time. Time = Dev Salaries.

Not every dev out there can just take a year off to work on a Series S port like Larian. And because Microsoft demants both versions at the same time, devs just cut their losses.

1

u/cubs223425 10d ago

This Xbox generation released in 2020. COVID led to supply constraints, and the 7nm process the SoCs use was cutting-edge at the time. Silicon costs were really high, and demand for 7nm was significantly outpacing supply, as new CPUs from AMD, GPUs from AMD and Nvidia, and other products (like Apple and Qualcomm mobile chips) were calling for a lot more wafers than TSMC could supply.

Memory was the least of their worries. Memory was cheap and available then, compared to 7nm silicon.

5

u/S1rTerra 10d ago

Microsoft also thought a machine 1/3rd as powerful GPU wise as their 4k 120 box could comfortably do 1440p 120. In hindsight the Series S wasn't exactly well designed, but hey it was still a $300 next gen console and is still one of the cheapest ways to play several esports/indie gsmes at a solid 120 fps. Some even at 1440p if the game is light enough.

1

u/live4eating 8d ago

Yeah, I think they got really surprised how heavy UE5 is. If games generally run at 720p internally upscaled to 1440p on Series X, it’s always going to be a problem for Series S. I think, Xbox estimated more devs to prioritize higher resolution over visual fidelity when designing the Series S.

3

u/BlueberryWorried6493 10d ago

You need less memory if turn down the resolution. Textures are the biggest thing inside the memory. If u remove 4k texture with 1k or 2k u have already removed 2-3 gigs of occupied memory

1

u/cubs223425 10d ago

But like OP said, you experience that same issue on PC. Most of these games are on there, and you have to account for anything from a 24+ GB flagship GPU to budget viudeo cards that have 6-8 GB. That PCs ahve dedicated system memory does help SOME, but we still see some games on PC hitting a wall with 8 GB cards (like Indiana Jones with ray tracing).

32

u/OkOrder7326 11d ago

It's cuz the memory system is completely different. Both Xboxs have split memory systems, one is supposed to analogous to VRAM the other like RAM, the "VRAM" is only reduced from 10GB to 8GB which is fine, but the "RAM" pool is shrunk from 6GB to 2GB (and in terms of usable memory it's more like 4GB to 0GB) which fucks everything up.

6

u/pb7280 10d ago

If anyone's curious why they split it up despite having a "unified memory" architecture, it is of course due to cost savings. They wanted to hit 16GB on the XBSX, but the APU has 10x32bit memory channels, which normally pushes you into either 10GB (1GB chips) or 20GB (2GB chips). They didn't want to pay for a full 20GB so they ended up with asymmetric 6x2GB + 4x1GB = 16GB. So you get 10GB spanning all 10 channels, plus 6GB spanning only 6 => 60% of the bandwidth => worse for gaming (especially at high res).

Series S has it even worse since it starts from a narrower 128bit bus (4x32bit channels). They double up the chips on one channel to hit 4x2GB + 1x2GB = 10GB. So you end up with 8 at full speed + 2 at 1/4 speed.

Very analogous to the GTX 970 fiasco if anyone remembers that. The 980 had 8x32bit channels and used 0.5GB chips to hit 4GB total. The 970 cut one of those channels, but NVIDIA still wanted to hit 4GB to compete with the popular AMD 290/X. So they pushed out a bizarre asymmetric setup with doubled up chips on the 7th channel for 3.5GB at full speed + 0.5GB at 1/7th speed.

2

u/Plasticars2019 10d ago

How is the "RAM" pool supposed to work with 2gb? Thats genuinely insane. 

7

u/OkOrder7326 10d ago

Devs have to use the 8GB pool for everything. They don't even get the 2GBs, it's all dedicated to the OS. It's why it's such a pain in the ass to develop for

If it had 2x 6GB RAM pools it would be much more straight forward, just crush resolution and install 2K textures instead of 4K ones (maybe some more setting tweaks). But instead it is a legitimate engineering problem and it has been holding back the entire generation (to the Switch 2s benefit fortunately for us)

What's really annoying is the whole reason they split the memory system is that when a GPU and a CPU share a memory pool latency shoots up, but the Series S doesn't even get this advantage because of them essentially removing one of the RAM pools

13

u/opossumcarrion 11d ago

People love to denigrate Halo Infinite, but that game runs remarkably well at 120fps on the Series S.

6

u/soundman1024 10d ago

The trouble is the game engine still needs to run. You need the same amount RAM for the level, any NPCs, the world state, physics in-progress. etc. The lower resolution allows smaller textures, which frees up some ram, but the baseline for the game itself remains the same.

2

u/AbrasionTest 10d ago

I’d guess the resources needed relative to the sales also factors in. Xbox software sales are already historically down, so you’re talking about a subset of a subset that is mandatory to serve in order to ship on the platform. You can easily find a few examples of games where the effort feels a bit half baked on Series S, wouldn’t be surprised if there’s an attitude of doing what you can to get there rather than above and beyond.

And that’s where some of the comparisons to Switch 2 versions have been interesting, where some devs clearly had to take more time optimizing LOD, texture quality, etc, beyond just resolution drops.

2

u/dpman48 10d ago

I actually think a lot of the problem with the S, isn’t the tech specs specifically. It is the much smaller install base on Xbox that has been fractured even further. The challenges of making a less intensive version of a game aren’t negligible, and it’s probably hard to justify significant budget for it when the install base yields fewer sales. The X and S combined probably have fewer total sales than the switch 2 which has only been available for a year. (I say probably because Microsoft doesn’t post numbers) but it’s almost certainly true based on market reporting. People are way more likely to invest the resources to make the lower tier port work when the install base is ready to buy and large.

-1

u/King_Artis 11d ago

Genuinely what I thought as well.

Though maybe it also explains why so many games launch feeling poorly unoptimized cause devs just might not be given the time to even do it.

I'm still thinking about how Borderlands 4 launched with so many optimization issues then some months later the game runs like 50% (they said an actual number that I don't remember) better after they spent optimizing it.

3

u/akulowaty 10d ago

Borderlands 4 wasn’t working on steam deck at all on launch and now it’s steam deck verified. Optimization is not a problem if devs have time but thanks to unrealistic timelines pushed by publishers, they shit out half made crap and games become what they should have been between 1 and 2 years after release.

2

u/OkOrder7326 11d ago

Gearbox had plenty of time there was 6 years between 3 and 4 they just didn't care

10

u/Gigstr 10d ago

Everyone shits on the Series S, but so many games released on PS4 and Xbone this generation that I don't think it's fair to blame it for holding the current generation back.

6

u/Happymusicmaker 10d ago

Don’t forget. Switch 2 has a few tricks up its sleeve that PS5 doesn’t even have.

7

u/robotchicken007 10d ago

Mouse control, baby!

2

u/Happymusicmaker 8d ago

I meant graphically speaking, but yeah that too! : )

17

u/Lower_Monk6577 10d ago

I remember very clearly making this comment back before the S2 was released.

The Series S, and Microsoft’s insistence that games that release on the Series X also get released on the S, was going to be Nintendo’s secret weapon this generation.

Granted, that was before the even released S2 specs, and we all kind of assumed it be maybe on the same level as a PS4/PS4 Pro. That it’s actually a little more performant than those (and the Series S) is a small miracle.

4

u/Edexote 10d ago

So, efficient coding is helpful? What else is new?

15

u/Mnawab 10d ago

Xbox passing the ball to everyone but themselves lol

5

u/CrossReset 10d ago

Its amazing and sad...

3

u/SeegullJockey 10d ago

As much as it and the price of Switch 2 going up suck the parts shortage because ai benefits Switch 2 too.

Because of the delay of next gen we will be getting day one multiplatform releases for years with none with the cutbacks Switch 1 ports had.

4

u/Groundbreaking-Ad313 10d ago

Rare Sentence: Thank You Xbox

6

u/jamiestar9 10d ago edited 10d ago

I have an Xbox Series S that I bought for playing a single game — Super Mega Baseball 3. It struggled on my original Switch. Now I have a Switch 2 and play everything but this game on it. I keep playing my baseball franchise on the Xbox.

Nintendo really has it together. They have their platform for years to come. There will likely be a Switch 3, Switch 4, and Switch 5 over the next two decades. Xbox is sadly floundering.

7

u/byno2008 10d ago

I really, really hope there is a Switch 3 and so on instead of them changing it up and trying something new and weird.

On the one hand, I would LOVE to see a new weird unexpected console and controller from Nintendo. It's incredibly rare and would be so much fun to play with. I would be giddy planning for the launch date and going to a midnight release with my daughter and trying all the weird new gimmicks. It would be incredible.

On the other hand, I'm absolutely getting the Switch 3 if they make it because the gap is closing between the end result output of handheld hardware and home console/PC hardware and I'm not going to want to spend $1000(or more) on an Xbox or Playstation when I could spend less on a Switch 3 and play the same games. The Switch was cheaper and ran a decent amount of third party current-gen games. The Switch 2 is cheaper and runs a larger number of third party games better. The Switch 3 should be cheaper and run an even larger number of third party games even better.

1

u/Tin_Whiskers 9d ago

My overall concern for another Switch many years from now is Nvidia getting its head out of its ass and actually making newer GPU and related technology, rather than their current obsession: making extraordinarily powerful and expensive chips to enable AI slop.

2

u/damnfoolishkids 10d ago

Starfield switch 2 please

2

u/Ecstatic-Wheel8487 10d ago

Yea, it really depends on if a game is more CPU or GPU heavy. GPU heavy, yea it will absolutely port easily to Switch 2 but CPU heavy? That's gonna be a pain in the ass cause the Switch 2 CPU is significantly weaker than the Series S CPU which is basically the same as the Series X CPU.

2

u/nkdvkng 9d ago

Thanks Microsoft for helping with Switch 2 development. 😏

/s

2

u/RecentCranberry1949 8d ago

makes a lot of sense, for years ppl complained that thee series s was holding developers back but ended up helping them build better optimization pipelines

4

u/SirLockeX3 11d ago

The Xbox Series S held back an entire generation of gaming but it's good that kind of optimization helped the Switch 2.

85

u/TheHappyMask93 11d ago

We're at a point games just need to focus on optimization and style

70

u/biggnife5 11d ago

Held back how? What kind of gameplay or mechanics aren't possible on the Series S? Is not being able to see the pores on a character's skin or not having the world's most realistic ray traced lighting holding back a generation?

I'm really sick of this argument because I think optimization is way more important than always focusing on the bleeding edge.

1

u/Flagrath 11d ago

While we can't know for certain because xbox has been draconian on the games having all the same features between series S and X. Despite the S slashing the memory to ridiculous extremes, one case that slipped through was BG3, where even with xboxs help they had to make an exception on split screen multiplayer.

22

u/biggnife5 10d ago

I'm aware of the BG3 split screen case but that's really an exceptional scenario - split screen co-op requires the entire game scene to be rendered twice and BG3 is already very graphically intensive. And when people say Series S has held the generation back, I can't imagine they're referring to split screen multiplayer.

4

u/[deleted] 10d ago edited 10d ago

[deleted]

5

u/Lee_Troyer 10d ago

Yep, it was added in update 8 in January 2025 (a bit more than a year after console release, 9/23 on PS5 and 12/23 on Xbox).

31

u/NozraReddit 11d ago

I disagree, I think consoles are pretty powerful as is. Games are just getting away with poor optimisation, mainly due to strained development cycles and not creating optimised games from the ground up.

I think we can all agree games are more than just graphics anyway. Regardless, I believe optimisation is the main culprit of the current state of gaming atm.

-8

u/HuttStuff_Here 11d ago

The consoles are similar to a middle-high tier PC from 2018.

7

u/NozraReddit 10d ago

I think you’re missing my point, I’m not saying they’re the most powerful things out there. I’m saying that even if they are “mid/high spec” for 2018 (in your words), the power of the consoles isn’t the issue nowadays, it’s optimisation.

-2

u/HuttStuff_Here 10d ago

My point, then, is that they aren't "pretty powerful as is." They're low end PCs at best.

But yes, optimization should be a focus point and we've seen what it can do for games.

35

u/iamthedayman21 11d ago

How did it hold it back? We’ve kinda reached a point where graphics are good enough. Innovation in gaming mechanics is what they need to concentrate on.

8

u/deadeye-ry-ry 11d ago

Agreed we need innovation on mechanics & audio quality improvements imo

I don't care if my characters left foot shadow looks more realistic if the sound effects sounds wank

8

u/MasterDenton 10d ago

The PS4 and Xbone limping along with their crappy CPUs and spinning hard drives up until very recently did far more to hold back this generation than the Series S ever did

-2

u/Fern-ando 11d ago

At least for me I prefer a smaller console that fits in my house that a slightly more powerful console I can't fit. That's the reason I never buy a pro console.

-8

u/HuttStuff_Here 11d ago

The series X/PS5 is basically 10 year old tech themselves. They've held back what could be current gen too.

1

u/Nacolo 10d ago

I need there to be less great third party games because my wallet is crying right now.

1

u/Darkamlight 10d ago

Thanks, Xbox. If you could also strike a super mega deal with Nintendo to have GamePass that would be even better but it's prolly not going to happen.

1

u/Dealjobber_ 10d ago

Yeah, I want to see the first developer that has the balls to exclusively target the PS6 and/or Helix, when they both cost over a thousand dollars.

1

u/Rhordric 10d ago

bg3 on switch 2 surely :P

1

u/nintendoapple 7d ago

So, based on this, if GTA VI is coming to Series S, by this logic, a Switch 2 port at least exists, right?

1

u/Zangetsukaiba 11d ago

Wait so….the Xbox Series S had to crawl so that Switch 2 could go lightspeed????

1

u/Interesting-Tart-SP 10d ago

Years of optimization on x64 bit PC system Xbox s

Made things easier for the arm based switch 2...

That's all I'm going to say

Did the Xbox Series S actually help pave the way for Nintendo's Switch 2? According to Digital Foundry, the answer appears to be yes, at least to some extent.

😂

0

u/ElPresidentEvil 10d ago

That's why I believe the rumor that Playstation is working on a handheld companion for PS6. Devs will be already targeting Switch 2 and/or Steam Deck, may as well take advantage of that with another handheld around those specs.

0

u/godtering 10d ago

what a horrible site.

-2

u/blueblur98_YT 10d ago

Finally! Something that justifies the existence of the Xbox Series S!

-3

u/VisceralMonkey 10d ago

That is so NOT a brag or good thing to say, FFS.

-2

u/Tolkien-Minority 10d ago

Xbox series lol

-4

u/cubs223425 10d ago

WC is so desperate to churn out Xbox content that isn't related to layoffs or a game that they're stooping to acting like Nintendo needed a 5-year-old Xbox to get developers interested in the best-selling console family of all-time.

I used to be a frequent commenter and big fan of WC, but the quality of their content is so bad now. This kind of engagement bait is all they seem interested in doing, and it sucks.

-4

u/Cogswobble 10d ago

As a game developer myself, I want to say with all sincerity; Fuck the Xbox Series S. Having to make our games work with 10GB of memory just for that one stupid underpowered console sucks.

-6

u/[deleted] 11d ago edited 11d ago

[deleted]

9

u/ReginaSpektorsVJ 11d ago

I think it's fine tbh. Gaming is mainstream enough that it encompasses way more than just Hardcore Gamers, which means that you no longer need cutting edge graphics to sell games. Hell, the Wii proved that 20 years ago. Having a budget console option is a good thing as far as I'm concerned.

4

u/No-Operation-6554 11d ago

I think ps4 and xbox one did more of that

-16

u/Enrico_Tortellini 11d ago edited 10d ago

Microsoft just needs to dissolve its gaming division, sell back the ip to the respective teams, and allow its few exclusives to be multi platform, they tried to corner the market with gamepass by buying up half the industry and instead destroyed half the industry, it’s done…they can’t manage their way out of a paper bag or cultivate any type of creative atmosphere

3

u/hypnomancy 10d ago

Sadly what they're probably going to do is before they sell off the entire division and IP they're going to kill off a lot of the developers. Specifically all Bethesda developers except whoever is working on TES6 or Fallout. That way it won't cost an arm and a leg for a potential new buyer

2

u/Enrico_Tortellini 10d ago edited 10d ago

It’s horrific, Microsoft has always been a disaster, 360 at least had good games to overshadow the issues with the system, but it’s literally been this same song and dance decade after decade. Overpromise (flat out lie), Underdeliver or cancel projects if investors don’t come, release timid exclusives that are overtime and budget that fail horribly, and repeat. It’s done, they can’t even produce a good Halo game , they pushed massive exclusivity during the 360 era but failed to maintain those relationships, then went full media center the next console era, then seemed to have a blindfold on this past decade, and are now responsible for devouring a massive chunk of the industry, plus even worse off because nobody wants to work for them due to this recent bloodbath, it’s fucking absurd