According to Unity Engine’s Brett Bibby, the Xbox Series S is an extremely powerful machine that focuses on delivering a similar experience at a lower resolution.
Introducing a new generation console at just $ 299 was an impressive move by Microsoft, but while it will likely grow their sales significantly in the years to come, many have been concerned about the console’s lower specs and the gap in performance between her and the flagship Xbox Series X.
Unity Engine’s Chief Product Officer Brett Bibby and solo developer of Xbox Series X / S launch title The Falconeer, Tomas Sala, believe the Xbox Series S is more than capable of holding its own for this generation of consoles as a whole.
“It’s important to remember that the majority of people don’t have a 4K120 screen, so there is an audience that the S is designed for,” Bibby said. “Maybe they don’t even need some of the details the X can achieve. It is important to remember, however, that the S is an extremely capable machine as these hardware differences are geared towards providing a similar experience at a lower resolution. “
Bibby went on to point out that the Xbox Series S has almost all of the features that make its more powerful counterpart, from support for ray tracing to an SSD to a largely similar CPU.
“It’s a really smart approach, the device has ray tracing, an SSD, nominally the same CPU as a Series X,” he said. “The only thing missing is the power to run at 4K – which is just not always needed. A teen gamer’s bedroom TV is unlikely to be a 4K wallhanger beast, so it’s great for situations like this. I would expect the Xbox Series S to be a real differentiator for this generation. “
The Falconeer developer Sala pointed out that, thanks to functions such as Smart Delivery, the performance gap between the Xbox Series S and X is easy for developers to close. He added, however, that this generation will be more about gameplay innovation than visual jumps, and that there is no shortage of Xbox Series S hardware in that regard.
“With Smart Delivery, the Xbox team made sure that games can be optimized regardless of the platform they are played on,” said Sala. “This gives developers the ability to tailor their releases for both Series S and Series X without compromising on either player. I think it will also depend on how the gaming experience is designed. More and more it is no longer about photorealistic graphics, but about innovative, unbelievable, fluid and captivating experiences, which overall will surpass the number of purely realistic experiences. At the end of the day, content is king and the console with the best games will prevail. “
It wasn’t too long ago that Xbox systems architect Andrew Goossen also spoke about the perceived lack of performance of the Xbox Series S, saying that the console does not stop the next generation, but rather advances it.
