Things continue to go from bad to worse for Microsoft and what should’ve been a schrewd business move in the Xbox Series S.
Ever since its release, the Xbox Series S and the tech giant’s “parity” rule requiring a game to release on both the Xbox Series X and Xbox Series S with the same feature set and at the same time has steadily become a thorn in the side of developers, much to the disdain of console owners, especially those who bought the Xbox Series X based on the promise that they’ll get their hands on the “most powerful console” on the market.
Now, this rule and the Xbox Series S’ lack of hardware is affecting not just the Xbox Series X but the entire console industry as a whole.
According to recent statements by Funcom’s chief product officer Scott Junior, one of next year’s biggest games, Dune: Awakening, is facing significant challenges in its development for the Xbox Series S.
Speaking at Gamescom (via VG247), candidly addressed the challenges facing the development team. “It’s one of the reasons we’re coming out on PC first,” he explained. “There’s a lot of optimizations we need to do before we release on the Xbox. But yeah, Xbox Series S is a challenge.”
The development team is doing everything for the game to run smoothly on different platforms. Junior mentioned using Unreal Engine, which handles some of the heavy lifting in terms of cross-platform compatibility. However, he emphasized that most of their efforts are focused on asset optimization and frame replication technologies like FSR (FidelityFX Super Resolution).
Dune: Awakening, based on Frank Herbert’s iconic science fiction universe, aims to deliver a vast, immersive experience set on the desert planet of Arrakis. The game promises to blend elements of survival gameplay with large-scale multiplayer interactions, including resource gathering, crafting, and epic battles across sprawling sand dunes.
Realizing this vision puts a heavy strain on consoles that requires additional work for optimization, especially the Xbox Series S.
Funcom’s goal is to create a game that looks stunning on high-end hardware while still delivering a visually impressive experience on less powerful systems. Junior stated, “We want the game to look stunning on high-end, whether you have a 3070 or a 4090, but we also want it to look good… I don’t think we’ve released our min-spec yet, but you know, powerful cards from a few years ago should be able to run the game. It should look good – it won’t be able to leverage the ultra-spec options, but it’ll still look nice.”
The Xbox Series S, while more affordable and compact, features reduced processing power compared to its counterpart, the Xbox Series X, requiring certain concessions that developers have become more open to talking about after one developer called it out for its “potato GPU”.
What’s becoming clear now is Microsoft’s decision to pursue a two-tier console strategy for this generation has added a complicated extra step for developers who now have to optimize their games for two radically different platforms.
Baldur’s Gate 3, Black Myth: Wukong, and even Xbox exclusive, STALKER 2, are just some of the games affected by this over the past year, and the list will only continue to grow.
While the added benefit is that the additional time to refine and optimize console versions benefits all platforms, in Dune: Awakening’s case, it has led to a direct delay of the MMORPG on the Xbox Series S, Xbox Series X, and PS5.
Despite these hurdles, Junior remains optimistic. When asked if the game would still be demanding on lower-spec machines, he acknowledged, “Yeah, yeah it does. But it will still perform well on hardware that’s years and years old. We’ll be able to do it!”
