Microsoft All of our games… will play up and down that family of devices” – Xbox’s Matt Booty

[Mr.Vic20]

https://www.mcvuk.com/we-need-to-deliver-on-the-promises-that-we-make-xbox-game-studios-matt-booty-on-the-future-of-xbox/

 

 

[Mr.Vic20]

^{“As our content comes out over the next year, two years, all of our games, sort of like PC, will play up and down that family of devices,” Booty explains. “We want to make sure that if someone invests in Xbox between now and [Series X] that they feel that they made a good investment and that we’re committed to them with content.”}

[Brian]

Play? Sure. 
Well?

[crispy4000]

Two years of only cross gen from MS.

Good news if you bought an X and want to ride out until mid-gen refresh.  Bad news if you had hoped for 1st party games fully designed around the SSD, or generally, targeting next-gen specs as a baseline req.

 

I imagine this is a signal for 3rd parties to follow suit as well.  If it does, that has all sorts of implications for PC gamers, and the industry at large.

 

Also worth noting: This is the first time a new gen console will launch with a pledge of non-exclusivity.  Both in regard to the PC ecosystem and back-gen ports (/ new gen-scale ups).

 

[TwinIon]

This is what I've suspected and it'll be interesting to see how it works out.

 

I think it's largely up to Halo Infinite to lead the way. How do you make a title that both sells your expensive new console but also plays well on 7 year old hardware? You really don't want to just have nicer textures and a few more polygons, but if you build to a gameplay scale that requires the new CPU or SSD, it may not scale down well. If Microsoft can provide the blueprint of taking advantage of the Series X power while also building a game playable on a launch Xbox One, they could have a big advantage moving into this next generation, seamlessly transitioning players in a way consoles haven't really done before. However, if they hold back their new games and Sony doesn't, it could hamper the output of all these new Microsoft studio games.

 

Personally, I'm not too worried, and I probably make it out as a bigger challenge than it is. PC games have been scaling across generations of hardware for forever. Most big games are cross platform anyways, and it's hard to think of too many examples of games that just straight up wouldn't work without the newest tech.

[Xbob42]

25 minutes ago, ManUtdRedDevils said:

Play? Sure. 
Well?

I mean, based on the last two generations, what even runs well anymore? I've seen people defending sub-15 FPS. Everything runs "fine."

[crispy4000]

35 minutes ago, TwinIon said:

I think it's largely up to Halo Infinite to lead the way. How do you make a title that both sells your expensive new console but also plays well on 7 year old hardware? You really don't want to just have nicer textures and a few more polygons, but if you build to a gameplay scale that requires the new CPU or SSD, it may not scale down well. If Microsoft can provide the blueprint of taking advantage of the Series X power while also building a game playable on a launch Xbox One, they could have a big advantage moving into this next generation, seamlessly transitioning players in a way consoles haven't really done before. However, if they hold back their new games and Sony doesn't, it could hamper the output of all these new Microsoft studio games.

I expect Halo Infinite will be optimized well enough for old hardware.  Because like Gears, they can't afford it running like crap, and will throw tons of personnel at it.  No magic formula there.

We'll see what happens with Hellblade 2 and others running on a launch Xbox One.

 

25 minutes ago, Xbob42 said:

I mean, based on the last two generations, what even runs well anymore? I've seen people defending sub-15 FPS. Everything runs "fine."

 

For this current gen, I'd say hitting 30fps most of the time and never dropping into low 20's is a good metric of 'acceptable.'  That seems right for the designed intent of the hardware, especially on the CPU end.

It's been that way since the PS2 era, IMO.  More games actually get there now because of dynamic res and other reconstruction techniques.  Though the situation is deteriorating for baseline hardware.

[Biggie]

24 minutes ago, Xbob42 said:

I mean, based on the last two generations, what even runs well anymore? I've seen people defending sub-15 FPS. Everything runs "fine."

Sorry. We will try to be more critical of things we can’t see. 

[Xbob42]

11 minutes ago, crispy4000 said:

For this current gen, I'd say hitting 30fps most of the time and never dropping into low 20's is a good metric of 'acceptable.'  That seems right for the designed intent of the hardware, especially on the CPU end.

It's been that way since the PS2 era, IMO.  But more games get there now because of dynamic res.

What sounds appropriate to me for the intent of the fixed hardware should be software designed to run at a fixed framerate that only dips in the most extreme of circumstances. Most games do not hold a solid 30 at all, and many have frame pacing issues exacerbating their already poor FPS.

 

And plenty of PS2 games ran at a damn near rock solid 60 FPS and are still some of the best looking and best-aged games on the system, also some of the most playable. I think it's a shame we sacrifice so much playability and temporal fidelity (i.e. clarity while the game is in motion rather than just screen resolution) so we can have better visual bells and whistles that won't even age all that well. Hell, we're sacrificing the screen resolution on top of that, and then shitting all over what image quality is left with low quality FXAA, vomit inducing camera-based motion blur, chromatic aberration, etc.

When half these games are in motion you can barely fucking make out anything happening on-screen until you stop the camera. Every "trick" to make the game look better ends up making it look worse in motion, but better in screenshots.

 

I know this is a bit of a side tangent, but playing some of these games lately they look like fucking trash every time the camera moves. I remember Horizon Zero Dawn was just a big blur every time you touched the right stick.

 

Just now, Biggie said:

Sorry. We will try to be more critical of things we can’t see. 

Oh, I don't expect anything resembling normal human observation from the likes of you, no worries.

[XxEvil AshxX]

Yeah... I'm skeptical. I do 90% of my gaming on my Xbox and it sounds great in theory, but I plan on getting a Series X day one and if Series X games are gimped to run on XBO then it's going to show, no matter what fancy bells and whistles you lay over it. It's not really the same thing as PC development, where developers can make the game they want to make and then set their own minimum system requirements. Here, MS is forcing them to a minimum system requirement, even if it might compromise their creative vision.

 

I can see games like Forza being far more scalable and not really affecting anything, but a game like Halo Infinite will have to have the geometry designed with the base XBO in mind, so as to keep a fair playing field in PVP. That's where things are going to get interesting.

 

Regardless, if Sony has developers making games that only work on PS5, it's easy to think they'll look much better than anything MS is forcing the developers to limit themselves on.

 

C'mon MS, you were finally on the right track, don't shoot yourselves in the foot again.

 

EDIT: After thinking about it some more, it's all about the Game Pass. It would be interesting to see how they would portray a compartmentalized Game Pass, where base XBO owners could play some games, but not others. It could definitely be done, but I don't know if that's the image MS wants for now. Maybe a year or two after launch they will slowly phase out support for the XBO.

[JPDunks4]

Playable on old hardware only through.....

 

 

XCloud. 

 

 

[crispy4000]

44 minutes ago, Xbob42 said:

What sounds appropriate to me for the intent of the fixed hardware should be software designed to run at a fixed framerate that only dips in the most extreme of circumstances. Most games do not hold a solid 30 at all, and many have frame pacing issues exacerbating their already poor FPS.

 

And plenty of PS2 games ran at a damn near rock solid 60 FPS and are still some of the best looking and best-aged games on the system, also some of the most playable. I think it's a shame we sacrifice so much playability and temporal fidelity (i.e. clarity while the game is in motion rather than just screen resolution) so we can have better visual bells and whistles that won't even age all that well. Hell, we're sacrificing the screen resolution on top of that, and then shitting all over what image quality is left with low quality FXAA, vomit inducing camera-based motion blur, chromatic aberration, etc.

When half these games are in motion you can barely fucking make out anything happening on-screen until you stop the camera. Every "trick" to make the game look better ends up making it look worse in motion, but better in screenshots.

 

I know this is a bit of a side tangent, but playing some of these games lately they look like fucking trash every time the camera moves. I remember Horizon Zero Dawn was just a big blur every time you touched the right stick.

 

There were N64 and PSX games that ran at 60fps.  Some were ugly as sin though and haven't aged well for that reason.  I still agree that 60fps games generally age better, but returning to a pretty well optimized 30-fps targeted game isn't the pits for me.

My suspicion is that the frame-pacing issues we've seen now (and in the past) have just as much to do with engine developers prioritizing the wrong things as game devs themselves.  These are likely CPU/RAM related issues in how assets are loaded that go beyond added visual flair.  I think we'll see less of it next-gen because of the SSDs.

As for playability, I haven't noticed current games playing worse than previous gens.  Yes, there are caked on effects, but your average PS2 game still runs at a worse framerate than what we see today.  And looks much blurrier, in spite of modern vanity vfx.

[Dodger]

Halo Infinite started development in 2016 for the 1, so I wouldn't worry too much about it running "fine" at least on S models. I actually wonder at this point what percentage of the install base at least has an S model versus the original. 

 

However, I don't really get this from MS. They are the clear third place finisher this gen. This install base they are protecting is all of 50 million. Would make more sense for Sony saying these things to assure their 100+million install base they won't be immediately left behind. MS needs to go balls out for next gen and start showing people the power of the Series X from day one. I'd abandon the 1 pretty quickly and jump straight into next gen for MS. 

[XxEvil AshxX]

2 minutes ago, JPDunks4 said:

Playable on old hardware only through.....

 

 

XCloud. 

 

 

 

Even if you're joking, they've already kinda hinted at that. Not so much only playing it through XCloud, but using XCloud to give it the extra processing boost. There's very much a possibility that playing Halo Infinite online could be similar to Crackdown 3. All the local computations exist in the XBO, but the server-side world state is done by the Cloud. (We all know Crackdown 3 was just a tech test).

 

There's also the possibility that additional processing could make the bells and whistles look better on base XBO than they would, as long as they're playing online. 

 

I'm not saying this is how it will work, but it's not outside of what MS has hinted at before.

[crispy4000]

18 minutes ago, Dodger said:

However, I don't really get this from MS. They are the clear third place finisher this gen. This install base they are protecting is all of 50 million. Would make more sense for Sony saying these things to assure their 100+million install base they won't be immediately left behind. MS needs to go balls out for next gen and start showing people the power of the Series X from day one. I'd abandon the 1 pretty quickly and jump straight into next gen for MS. 

 

57 minutes ago, XxEvil AshxX said:

EDIT: After thinking about it some more, it's all about the Game Pass. It would be interesting to see how they would portray a compartmentalized Game Pass, where base XBO owners could play some games, but not others. It could definitely be done, but I don't know if that's the image MS wants for now. Maybe a year or two after launch they will slowly phase out support for the XBO.

There's your answer @Dodger.

Also, remember that the Xbox One X launched, there was no big 1st party launch game to show off new hardware.  Microsoft left it almost entirely up to 3rd parties in the beginning.

If the Series X / PS5 comparisons work out in their favor with multiplatform titles, I don't think they'll feel the need to push the envelope "day one" or even "year one" with their own projects.  Halo Infinite still looking better on Series X than Xbox One X will be enough for a while.

[JPDunks4]

Yeah I was kinda joking.

 

I just find it hard to believe they are going to mandate their developers to make games that can run on 2013 Xbox One.  All of Phil's messaging is to let developers create what they want to create.  I would think that mandating them to make games playable on old really under powered hardware doesn't really support those statements.  

 

I could where Xbox has their software set up to a place where, if you're on older hardware, it just defaults to having to play it through xCloud if you want to play it.  Where you can buy it on the Xbox Store, or fire it up on Gamepass, but it'll state it'll be playable only on xCloud on older hardware.  It still makes Booty's comments true.

 

Quote

“As our content comes out over the next year, two years, all of our games, sort of like PC, will play up and down that family of devices,”

 

 “We want to make sure that if someone invests in Xbox between now and [Series X] that they feel that they made a good investment and that we’re committed to them with content.”

 

I still think the way its worded is just off though.  If you're investing in Xbox between now and Series X, everything being playable on the Series X makes sense cause of course its Backwards Compat, you're not wasting money investing in stuff that wont be compatible in a  year.  I don't really understand how having designated next gen games hurts that commitment at all.

[crispy4000]

32 minutes ago, JPDunks4 said:

Yeah I was kinda joking.

 

I just find it hard to believe they are going to mandate their developers to make games that can run on 2013 Xbox One.  All of Phil's messaging is to let developers create what they want to create.  I would think that mandating them to make games playable on old really under powered hardware doesn't really support those statements. 

 

Hasn't this already happened in the PC space?  Maybe not to the same degree in regard to the minimum specs.  But their devs have all been mandated to build their games scalable across a wide range of machines.

 

  

32 minutes ago, JPDunks4 said:

I still think the way its worded is just off though.  If you're investing in Xbox between now and Series X, everything being playable on the Series X makes sense cause of course its Backwards Compat, you're not wasting money investing in stuff that wont be compatible in a  year.  I don't really understand how having designated next gen games hurts that commitment at all.

 

Typically, the first party manufacturer makes a hard split between console libraries for the explicit purpose of selling more of the new boxes.  But if Microsoft cares more about selling people on Games Pass than selling hardware (as has been repeated here time and time again), they're not going to want to lock their old consoles out of any new releases for a while.

Trying to do it that strictly through xCloud would cause quite a stir.  I don't think the industry is ready for that just yet. 

It would be a backhanded slap to X1X owners on some level.  "Most powerful console ever" relegated to streaming new tentpole games 3 years after launch.

[Dodger]

55 minutes ago, crispy4000 said:

 

There's your answer @Dodger.

Also, remember that the Xbox One X launched, there was no big 1st party launch game to show off new hardware.  Microsoft left it almost entirely up to 3rd parties in the beginning.

If the Series X / PS5 comparisons work out in their favor with multiplatform titles, I don't think they'll feel the need to push the envelope "day one" or even "year one" with their own projects.  Halo Infinite still looking better on Series X than Xbox One X will be enough for a while.

 

 

Then they need to drop the S to $199 ASAP and include like 3 months free Games Pass with it or something to get as many people into the ecosystem as possible. 

[crispy4000]

5 minutes ago, Dodger said:

Then they need to drop the S to $199 ASAP and include like 3 months free Games Pass with it or something to get as many people into the ecosystem as possible. 

 

Where have you been this past year?  They've been giving out Games Pass sign up promos like crazy.  You can always find an S under $200.  All digital.

[Spawn_of_Apathy]

6 hours ago, crispy4000 said:

Two years of only cross gen from MS.

Good news if you bought an X and want to ride out until mid-gen refresh.  Bad news if you had hoped for 1st party games fully designed around the SSD, or generally, targeting next-gen specs as a baseline req.

 

I imagine this is a signal for 3rd parties to follow suit as well.  If it does, that has all sorts of implications for PC gamers, and the industry at large.

 

Also worth noting: This is the first time a new gen console will launch with a pledge of non-exclusivity.  Both in regard to the PC ecosystem and back-gen ports (/ new gen-scale ups).

 

Yeah, more than we got in gens prior, where first part stuff was only for the new gen starting at launch. 
 

They could still target to take advantage of SSD. It’s not like Xbone or XboneS players aren’t used to long load times as is. The One X improved load times a bit already. Using a SSD even more. I’m not convinced if the load times worsen a bit still on the One and S that the people so frugal to have them wouldn’t just bare it. 

[Guest]

Anybody have some examples of why you couldn’t make a game take advantage of solid state on one platform and spinning disk on another? I see this claim made regularly but don’t really understand it.

[DarkStar189]

43 minutes ago, sblfilms said:

Anybody have some examples of why you couldn’t make a game take advantage of solid state on one platform and spinning disk on another? I see this claim made regularly but don’t really understand it.

I imagine it could make a difference loading into multiplayer games. Sony was really toting the fast/near instant loading times with the next console. If everyone with an ssd loads into a multiplayer game in like 5-10 seconds but it takes regular hdd people 50-60 seconds it would be annoying. 

These are tests on the One X. Not all games make a huge difference because I imagine when the devs make an Xbox port, they aren't optimizing it for use with an ssd. The new consoles will take full advantage though.  Final Fantasy XV in this list could be a good example of a new Series X vs old Xbox One. Or in a 6 vs 6 shooter game, half the lobby could be ready in seconds vs a minute. 

 

https://www.gamersnexus.net/guides/3253-xbox-one-x-external-ssd-worth-it-game-load-times

[crispy4000]

5 hours ago, Spawn_of_Apathy said:

They could still target to take advantage of SSD. It’s not like Xbone or XboneS players aren’t used to long load times as is. The One X improved load times a bit already. Using a SSD even more. I’m not convinced if the load times worsen a bit still on the One and S that the people so frugal to have them wouldn’t just bare it. 

 

4 hours ago, sblfilms said:

Anybody have some examples of why you couldn’t make a game take advantage of solid state on one platform and spinning disk on another? I see this claim made regularly but don’t really understand it.

 

It goes much further than mere loading times.  If an SSD can be assumed as standard, devs are free to make use of it as a helpmate for asset streaming, traversal speeds, RAM related optimization issues, etc.  Basically, it lets developers scale worlds without as much of a regard for performance.  ie: There’s less of a need to put this cliff or wall here to ensure no framerate drops and the like.

 

Even if certain games would still possible without it, it’s going to save a lot of development time once current gen versions can be dropped.  Until then... we’ll see who prioritizes what.  

[Xbob42]

I'm still flabbergasted that anyone thinks devs are going to be taking performance seriously at any level. They haven't for nearly two decades, why start now? No one's ensuring "no frame rate drops" as is, this won't change regardless of the hardware. This shit could be 20th generation quantum computers pulled in from the future and console developers would still find a way to get it running sub-20 with frame timing issues.

 

Obviously there's always the few exceptions, but that's what makes them stand-outs to begin with.

[cusideabelincoln]

While I would love to see the SSD be the driver of change of open-world games, its most likely use will be as a matter of convenience:  Faster loading times, and keeping several gamestates suspended at any given time allowing you to swap between games to pick up exactly where you left off.

[crispy4000]

5 hours ago, Xbob42 said:

I'm still flabbergasted that anyone thinks devs are going to be taking performance seriously at any level. They haven't for nearly two decades, why start now? No one's ensuring "no frame rate drops" as is, this won't change regardless of the hardware. This shit could be 20th generation quantum computers pulled in from the future and console developers would still find a way to get it running sub-20 with frame timing issues.

 

Obviously there's always the few exceptions, but that's what makes them stand-outs to begin with.

 

1 hour ago, cusideabelincoln said:

While I would love to see the SSD be the driver of change of open-world games, its most likely use will be as a matter of convenience:  Faster loading times, and keeping several gamestates suspended at any given time allowing you to swap between games to pick up exactly where you left off.

 

I fully expect there to be unstable framerates and the like.  Where it becomes a matter of convenience is that devs will likely budget less time for memory-related optimization than they have in the past, which means more focus elsewhere.  Though they could still, and probably will, underestimate the work.

 

This gen, if devs got lazy about it and expected the engine to do all the work for them, we got Ark or PUBG by default.  I expect a bit more wiggle room now.

[AbsolutSurgen]

13 hours ago, sblfilms said:

Anybody have some examples of why you couldn’t make a game take advantage of solid state on one platform and spinning disk on another? I see this claim made regularly but don’t really understand it.

Other than the obvious examples of "loading faster", open world games would be able to stream in data faster.  That potentially means more variety in the environment, and the ability to move through the environment faster.  If you still have to support legacy hardware, you can't take advantage of those benefits.

[AbsolutSurgen]

I am assuming that this decision by MS, is primarily due to GamePass.  In order to maintain the value for Xbox One users, MS needs to continue to release new content, and they likely do not have the capability to support both platforms with different games.

 

Other than the obvious difference in GPU power between generations, the two biggest changes are CPU and SSD.  Game designers can make better games (not just better looking ones), by taking advantage of SSDs and better CPUs.  Right now, IMHO, games are being held back by the mobile-quality CPUs in Xbox One and PS4 and the mechanical HDs.  I don't see how game designers can realize the benefits of these technical enhancements, if they are being hamstrung by legacy hardware.  It will be interesting to see how MS's flagship games compare to other AAA games in 2021/2022.

[XxEvil AshxX]

16 minutes ago, AbsolutSurgen said:

Other than the obvious examples of "loading faster", open world games would be able to stream in data faster.  That potentially means more variety in the environment, and the ability to move through the environment faster.  If you still have to support legacy hardware, you can't take advantage of those benefits.

 

One thing that I've kinda been wondering though, is that they still may have to support legacy hardware. That internal SSD is only going to be 1 TB, and we have no idea how much space next gen games will take up. If I wanted to expand my storage by more than an extra 1 TB without having to spend a small fortune, I'll still have to go with an HDD. I'm assuming most others would do the same.

[AbsolutSurgen]

43 minutes ago, XxEvil AshxX said:

 

One thing that I've kinda been wondering though, is that they still may have to support legacy hardware. That internal SSD is only going to be 1 TB, and we have no idea how much space next gen games will take up. If I wanted to expand my storage by more than an extra 1 TB without having to spend a small fortune, I'll still have to go with an HDD. I'm assuming most others would do the same.

SSDs are expensive.  Both MS and Sony know this.  Despite what some would have you believe, consoles are not like PCs.  Console manufacturers have a long history of making them very efficient in terms of performance/$, they know they can't afford to put 1TB NVME SSDs in these consoles.  I suspect they will do something like that here. 

 

They could have a relatively small amount of solid state memory on the MB (say 100-200 GB), with an operating system level strategy of moving the data back and forth between an internal HDD and the flash memory.  Or alternately, they could just put m.2 and u.2 expansion ports on their console, and make the users pay for the storage they need.

 

If developers can't count on their game having access to a SSD, they wouldn't be able to take advantage of the benefits.

[Bloodporne]

This dude's name is Matt Booty...

 

 

[Duderino]

19 hours ago, sblfilms said:

Anybody have some examples of why you couldn’t make a game take advantage of solid state on one platform and spinning disk on another? I see this claim made regularly but don’t really understand it.

With disc HDDs, one of the optimization tasks developers have to deal with is grouping data together into packages.  In other words, store assets that are frequently accessed together close on disc.  For example, there might be an environment biome package, an NPC faction package, a regional audio package, etc.  The goal is to reduce the distance that needle needs to travel to access the requested block of data.  When assets do not breakdown neatly into these separate groups, there are 3 options:

 

1. Pre-load assets into global memory if space is available.

2. Duplicate assets across multiple packages on disc.

3. Suffer the potential performance consequences.

 

(Option 2 is more common than you would think.)

The HDD disc is a limitation that can impact everything from the overall game size to how worlds are designed.  A developer could of course build a game around the PS4/Xbone HDDs, but their next-gen ambitions would be restricted by it.

[skillzdadirecta]

17 hours ago, Bloodporne said:

This dude's name is Matt Booty...

 

 

Heh..... Booty 

[DarkStar189]

20 hours ago, Bloodporne said:

This dude's name is Matt Booty...

 

 

The Xbone, Xbox SeriesX, Matt Booty... I don't know what's going on on over at Microsoft lately. But I like it. 

[AbsolutSurgen]

Eurogamer/Digital Foundry:  In Theory: Can Microsoft deliver next-gen experiences while still supporting Xbox One?

Quote

However, the challenge facing developers in supporting last-gen Xbox hardware is rather more profound. Beyond graphics, there are two key areas where the Series X offers huge upgrades. It starts with the Zen 2 CPU cluster, which promises eight cores and 16 threads. Microsoft says it is 4x more powerful than the current-gen machines, but our architectural testing points towards something closer to a 6x increase between a 3.2GHz Zen 2 processor and the 1.75GHz Jaguar within Xbox One S. Meanwhile, Microsoft itself rates the SSD bandwidth of Series X as a 40x increase over the mechanical drive in the current-gen machine (which one remains unknown, but the point is moot). These are astonishingly difficult hurdles to negotiate, so can it be done?

I'd say that there are definite routes forward for developers to take. A Series X title could target 60 frames per second (or higher in multiplayer modes) while the current-gen equivalents would run at 30fps instead. The advantages in lessening the GPU load are obvious but halving frame-rate also takes a lot of strain off the CPU: everything from world simulation to physics to animation would be much easier to handle. The process of creating draw calls - instructions from the CPU to the GPU - would also be lighter.

There are other methods in lessening the CPU load, some of which we've already seen deployed on the current-gen consoles. Both Halo 5 and Destiny 2, to name just two examples, selectively cull enemy animations depending on how far away from the camera they are. Put simply, enemies further off into the distance update at 30fps on Halo 5 and 15fps on Destiny 2. If you're not specifically looking for it, the human eye tends to be fooled quite easily and it's a useful technique for getting the most out of the limited CPU time available. Another relatively easy win is to aggressively cull world detail: lowering the amount of objects in play gives the CPU less work to do, it lessens the burden on memory and of course, it eases up on the GPU requirement.

Lowering world detail may be a potential strategy in getting games designed for an SSD to run from a mechanical hard drive too - but as well as density of objects, the variety of them may well need to be cut back too. This is where I feel that the generational leap may cause some genuine issues. I've discussed in the past how the move to solid state storage not only serves to radically reduce or potentially even eliminate loading times but also brings mass storage closer to the core hardware than we've ever seen before. A console generation is typically defined by a 6x to 8x increase in power, but a 40x increase in bandwidth and a move to virtual memory is a whole different ball game. It's right here where we have to wonder if the scale and scope of new games will be limited by the need to also support the 5400rpm mechanical laptop drives found in the base Xbox One.

SSD aside, we do at least have some concrete examples of successful scalability in triple-A games from this console generation, encompassing both CPU and GPU. Games based on id Tech 6 transitioning from Xbox One and PlayStation 4 to Nintendo Switch show many of the kinds of scaling techniques I've already described - principally in cutting back resolution and frame-rate. Meanwhile, Saber Interactive's The Witcher 3 port for Switch demonstrates spectacularly how it is possible to scale a CPU-intensive game across to a far less capable processor. The current-gen Sony and Microsoft machines have access to 6.5 available CPU cores running at 1.6GHz and upwards. Meanwhile, Switch is delivering the game using three mobile ARM cores clocked at just 1.0GHz. Those cores may well be more efficient, but they're not likely enough to overhaul the frequency uplift and additional cores that the game was designed around - yet somehow, Saber did it.

Lots more detail/analysis in the article.