spacedogroy

All sounds pretty sensible. I do think it might feel annoying waiting minutes to download a model for the sake of generating a line of alt text the first time, though. It would probably be quicker to write the alt text.

It also didn't release as a physical copy. New digital releases in the UK at least are always pretty expensive, whereas with physical copies there's at least a chance of a small discount from a retailer.

It's really quite bad imo, but it's surprising considering how the consoles are basically the same, hardware-wise - the Xbox on paper might even be technically more powerful.

I think that if they'd been able to get out there with a couple of great 1st party games early in the generation it might have helped swing the market in their direction but they didn't and now it doesn't matter.

This is a brain dead decision and nothing short of a complete 180 will perhaps save them, but even then the reputational damage is severe.

It is silly. The CMA has tunnel vision around this, and because the streaming issue was essentially the main point of contention this change in the deal puts them in a position where they'd look like hypocrites not to let it through. Microsoft just capitalizing on their ignorance (rightly so).

It's a great base for general desktop use as well as server. Been using it on my PC for years now, and aside from a few 3rd party repositories it has everything I need. It just works and continues to work.

Even if you ignore the time it takes to download for those with low speed connections or data caps, the issue is made worse by a lack of competitively priced storage options for the Xbox Series consoles. PC owners by comparison have it much easier.

It would be to Microsoft's advantage to change that perspective, which would reinforce why they might maintain their hard line of feature equivalence. I agree though, it appears to be the status quo.

The Series S is more powerful: https://www.eurogamer.net/digitalfoundry-2022-steam-deck-vs-xbox-series-s-how-future-proof-is-the-valve-handheld

But the Steam Deck is a portable console, so the design considerations are different, so it's a bit of an apple to oranges comparison. On pure numbers, though, Series S will perform better. (Steam Deck is still awesome though 👍)

I find it hard to believe BG3 would run that poorly at that low quality but I guess time will tell. It's up to Larian how much they want to release on Xbox

Going back to the article, I think whether it hurts MS more to keep this promise over features or not depends a great deal on what the split is between Series S and Series X consoles. I would suggest it's worse to sacrifice the Series S audience as there's less sunk cost there compared to the Series X audience, who we might assume have more of an investment in the Xbox ecosystem from the previous generation, and therefore it's harder for them to make the switch to PS5.

Honestly, it's kind of on the developer. If they'd taken the Series S as the base line during development, they would have made life a lot easier for themselves. I think Microsoft are right to stick to their guns. It will seriously piss off their consumers if they can't land good quality versions of equivalent games on PS5.

I actually think it could be more beneficial for players across both console platforms to encourage developers to build games which scale reasonably, and at the low end target a 30 FPS minimum frame rate whilst the Series S/PS5 get 60 FPS+ or improved image quality, or both. Instead of it just being a race to the bottom on performance just so we can have a little bit of ray tracing.

Also, as far as I'm aware, Baldurs Gate 3 hasn't released on PS5 and is not due until September. I will be very interested to see how that goes, because I think the conclusion of this article is premature until we see that.

A lot of Xbox exclusives are available on Windows, yes, but Steam Deck compatibility is something you'd need to check on a game by game basis.