Why Baldur’s Gate III is an accidental PS5 console exclusive
Why Baldur’s Gate III is an accidental PS5 console exclusive
Larian is having trouble fitting Baldur’s Gate III on the Xbox Series S, the lower-priced and lower-powered console in Microsoft’s ninth-generation lineup.
Larian is having trouble fitting Baldur’s Gate III on the Xbox Series S, the lower-priced and lower-powered console in Microsoft’s ninth-generation lineup.
I was looking up more information on why there’s such an issue getting BG3 on Xbox, and found this article with a lot more detail on the topic.
EDIT: The issue isn’t graphics or frame rate; it’s memory. The article goes into detail.
Don't want to sound arrogant, but most people here (including OP and the writers of the article) don't seam to know much about video game development.
Because statements like "... Isn't about graphics or frame rate; it's memory" don't make sense at all.
Because if you fast memory is to small you would either more often read from a slower memory which results in less frame rate or you would need to make the stuff that fill up your memory (most often textures) smaller (lower resolution) which "reduces graphics"
The article says something more business politics related: "Microsoft requires all games to run, feature-complete and without changes in quality or mechanics" on both Versions S and X. I'm not really believe this to be true because this would make the existence of more powerful X version completely pointless. However what I think can be the case is that Microsoft QA is forcing the studio to adapt the game for the series S before it could be published. This needs time. Since there is no low spec version for the PS5 there is no need for additional adaptations.
Wait, there's a split screen on Baldur's Gate III? Normally I'd expect split screen games are for games with shorter gameplay loop, e.g. FPS, racing.
It's kinda interesting that there's a split screen couch co-op for a long sprawling RPG. Also doesn't that make all the UIs and texts even more busy / cramped?
I just read that some people are trying out split screen. on steam deck, that's wild.
Okay so after seeing the bot TLDR and the other comments, I actually went and read the article. It's a bit wishy washy as to why and mentions RAM could be the issue for S consoles.
When I read the headline I thought it meant it was also not viable for PCs either, which doesn't seem to be the case at all. Most PCs have at least 16GB ram these days.
Why are people upset at all? I don't get it. I actually think this is good, it will either force Microsoft to change their policy with consoles and/or release a line that can compete with PS. Or else. Meanwhile PC is still an option.
🤖 I'm a bot that provides automatic summaries for articles:
Click here to see the summary
Baldur’s Gate III is a highly anticipated role-playing game set in the Dungeons & Dragons universe, offering familiar classes and abilities in an expansive high-fantasy world.
Though Microsoft’s parity requirements have been in place since the Xbox Series consoles came to market in November 2020, Baldur’s Gate III is the ecosystem’s highest-profile loss directly attributable to these restrictions.
There weren’t a ton of concrete examples to prove this theory, and the Digital Foundry team argued against the idea, citing the existing variance in the PC market and saying that lower targets could actually help games run even better on higher-powered consoles.
“MANY developers have been sitting in meetings for the past year desperately trying to get Series S launch requirements dropped,” Bossa Studios VFX artist Ian Maclure tweeted at the time.
Rocksteady senior character technical artist Lee Devonald similarly tweeted about his experience building Gotham Knights — a game that shipped on consoles with a framerate locked at 30 fps and no performance mode.
Regardless of whether the Series S is restraining the entire video game industry, Xbox parity requirements are literally holding back Baldur’s Gate III, and this system has accidentally created another console exclusive for the PS5, for now.
I ran split screen with my wife last night with my 6700XT which I think is probably pretty close performance wise to a series s. It ran great at 1080p. I wonder if the advertised 1440p is the hold up?
Lowering the resolution for split screen on a AAA game seems like a reasonable enough sacrifice for me.
What I don't understand is why they don't just release both Xbox versions without split screen and then try to patch it in later. That way they'd satisfy the feature parity requirement (as I understand it) and people could at least play the game. I love that they're still doing split screen despite it seemingly having fallen out of favour these days, but it's hardly an essential feature.