Having a Single Xbox SKU Would Have Been Preferable, But the Xbox Series S Doesn’t Require Too Much Extra Work – Dev

We’ve heard more than a few people in the industry talked about the Xbox Series S over the last few months, and while there are some who have expressed concerns about the console’s lower specs, others have jumped to its defence and praised it emphatically (Microsoft themselves included). The question of whether the Xbox Series S’ weaker hardware will hold back multiplatform games for PS5 and Xbox Series X going forward has been asked often, but Exor Studios CO Paweł Lekki – currently at work on upcoming survival action RPG The Riftbreaker – doesn’t feel like the system is going to present much of an issue for developers.

Speaking with Wccftech in an interview, Lekki acknowledged the fact that having a single SKU of the new Xbox would have been more convenient for developers, but added that owing to the console’s CPU being largely similar to that of the Xbox Series X, scaling games for both consoles shouldn’t be very challenging. Though he did mention the gulf in the two consoles’ memories, which can affect actual game design, and not just visuals, Lekki also added that having a cheaper console that can play next-gen consoles is a smart move by Microsoft.

“Yes, the Xbox Series S requires additional optimization,” Lekki said. “While we were able to simply compile The Riftbreaker for the Xbox Series X and it ‘just works’, the XSS requires additional optimization. Still, it doesn’t look like it will require that much work to be running well at 1080p on the XSS. The best thing about the current architecture is that the CPU power on both Xbox models is practically the same. Scaling graphical effects is a lot easier than scaling gameplay.

“The amount of available memory is a determining factor in a lot of cases when we talk about the size of a game world or about how many things can be happening within it at any given time. The size of the memory that is available in the XSS is the actual determining point for the entire console generation as gameplay features have to be fitted to the lowest spec. From the point of view of a developer it would be much easier if there was a single XSX SKU, but given the circumstances I think that Microsoft has made good choices in how to create a much cheaper console, that can still run next-generation games.”

The Riftbreaker is due out some time this year for PS5, Xbox Series X/S, PS4, Xbox One, and PC.