this post was submitted on 14 Aug 2023
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What I don't understand is why they don't just release both Xbox versions without split screen and then try to patch it in later. That way they'd satisfy the feature parity requirement (as I understand it) and people could at least play the game. I love that they're still doing split screen despite it seemingly having fallen out of favour these days, but it's hardly an essential feature.
The article says they're not allowed, legally, to do that, and the ball is on Microsoft's yard.
As far as I can tell the article only talks about a feature parity requirement between the Xbox Series S and Series X versions. And that could be met by just dropping the feature from both versions.
They may or may not have the requirement anymore, but they definitely used to have this parity clause as well. Then if it came to other platforms first and Xbox later, the Xbox version had to have bonus content beyond the original release.
I also thought they might have such a requirement but I was unable to find a source that confirms (or even mentions) it. Definitely still possible though.
I remember it coming up on podcasts back during the 360 era, so that was long enough ago that things may have changed.
they are not allowed to have one good version and a crippled version. they absolutely are legally allowed to just cripple both. "but the ps5 will have split screen!" well then, sucks to be you if you bought an xbox. think microsoft for that, sony consoles have nothing to do with it. or microsoft could just admit to themselves that expecting a next-gen game to run equally well on literally-worse-than-last-gen hardware is just a pipe dream.
Releasing it without a feature that the PS5 does would be bad for the brand. "Sega does what Nintendon't" and all that...
True, but I feel like not releasing the game at all is even worse. The consensus seems to be that PS5 already has better exclusives and now you can't even play one of this year's best third party games on Xbox.
At least this way they can blame it on the S instead of just being the ganked version.
I remember when Mortal Kombat came out censored on the SNES and uncensored on the Genesis, not a technical limitation, but a policy limitation. Not a good look.
Can't they blame it on the S either way?
And "just being the ganked version" in this case would mean not having a single feature that the vast majority of players likely wouldn't even have used in the first place. Yes, it's not good, but the choice here is between either locking your players out of that one non-essential feature or locking them out of the entire game. And the second option is, to me, very obviously much worse.
And it's also not like it would be the "bad" version forever. They can just patch it in when they get it to work. And let players decide for themselves whether they want to get the game now without split screen or wait.
They COULD blame it on the S, but, again, Microsoft won't allow it.
What I'm hoping they do, on the next hardware refresh, is a discless Series X and just ditch the S completely.
There is precedent when they axed the Xbox One and replaced it with the S and X.
I don't get how blaming the S for a delayed feature would be different than blaming the S for a delayed game, which is what they're doing right now.
But I definitely agree that this is bad for Microsoft and they should do something about it. Not sure whether dropping the S would be the right call but they definitely need to reconsider the feature parity requirement policy.
The S was just a bad idea from the get go. The Xbox One X introduced 4K gaming, 4K televisions are dirt cheap and the defacto standard now, why bother doing an under-powered 1440p machine? Even if you wanted a cheaper option, it doesn't make sense coming out with a machine that belongs in the last generation, not the current one.
They should have gone the Sony route... Series X, Digital Series X. $499/$399.
If they wanted a $299 box, keep the One X alive for 1-2 more years then kill it. Still a better choice than the Series S.
Yeah for sure. I agree that pushing the One X as the cheaper/entry level version would have been much better. Even for much longer than 1-2 years. People wouldn't get as mad if they gradually started to phase it out and stopped releasing the high profile games on it after a few years while still supporting it somewhat. Even the feature parity thing wouldn't have been that much of an issue if they'd just clearly communicated an expiry date beforehand.
It’s hard to communicate it to the consumer. Far from everybody follows this discourse surrounding the game. Maybe someone buys BG3 just for the split screen capability, just to disappointingly find out that the Xbox version doesn’t support it. Especially when they already have paid full price for the game.
That's a good point, but I feel like there are reasonable solutions for that like a disclaimer when buying the game digitally. For the physical version they could either put a sticker on it or just delay the physical version only. I also think that people who are informed enough to know about specific features like that are more likely to hear about this discourse.
Right. A compromise and maybe a discount for the series S. Seems fair.