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Sasan Sepehr, technical producer at Remedy Entertainment, sees trouble in the works supporting the Xbox Series S when it comes to optimization.
Over the past few days Microsoft has officially unveiled the Xbox Series S, less powerful than the Xbox Series X but priced at just $299. The Xbox Series S has been very well-received so far, due to fans hoping to leap into the next-gen experience at a much more affordable price. Game developers, on the other hand, might be warier about the realities of supporting different tiers of next-gen consoles. Especially so given this is the start of a new generation of consoles.
One striking example is Remedy Entertainment’s senior technical producer Sasan Sepehr. Remedy is currently working on a new unannounced game, of which Sepehr is a part of. Given that Remedy is a multi-platform studio, supporting Xbox would certainly mean supporting both Xbox Series S and Xbox Series X from 2021 and on. With the announcement of the Xbox Series S, Sepehr felt comfortable acknowledging that it was going to lead to “trouble.”
On Twitter, Sepehr retweeted the Xbox Series S confirmation from Xbox with some added comments. “As a consumer, I love this!” says Sepehr, repeating a similar sentiment that’s being shared by gamers online. But then Sepehr adds, “As a Technical Producer, I see trouble!!!” While Sepehr doesn’t elaborate, he does clarify the point for a curious Twitter follower. The follower asks, “Why trouble? Game optimization?” and Sepehr replies “yuuuup.”
Adding a new platform to account for through the next generation affects game development in myriad different ways. It’s one thing to have to focus on both the PlayStation 5 and the Xbox Series X, as they’re both similar but reasonably different pieces of hardware. The amount of work optimizing for them, as well as PC is incredible. Now add into the mix another major piece of hardware that’s significantly less powerful than the other two consoles. Trouble, indeed.
But the problem isn’t just in the immediate future. The Xbox Series S will, presumably, be considered as important to the next generation as the Xbox Series X. That means that this limited-in-comparison console could need to be supported by developers for 6 or more years into the future.
If only things were as simple as Xbox advertises them. If only the Xbox Series X was the 4K console and the Xbox Series S was the 1440p/1080p console. It’d only be a matter of optimizing for the resolutions. But clearly it’s a much more complicated and challenging process than that. And it’s game developers that will have to pay in order to make those optimizations happen.
The Xbox Series S releases November 10.
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