Phil Spencer says the Xbox team has “a real advantage” from targeting the Xbox Series S
- Spencer says the current focus on handheld and lower-powered devices means the Xbox team’s experience of developing for the Series S gives them an advantage
- Developers have pointed out the complications of making games for the Xbox Series S before
- Spencer maintains that the Series S can run current-gen games “in a great way”
Spencer appeared in an interview on The Destin Channel, where he was asked whether Xbox would ever adjust its parity clause, which requires devs to ensure their games work with both the more powerful Xbox Series X and its little brother, the Xbox Series S. “In a way, I think about it in almost exactly the opposite way right now. With the rise of handheld PCs and even the introduction so far of the Switch 2, as developers we’re building on more device specs, from lower powered — because they’re battery powered devices — all the way through things that plug into the wall,” Spencer said.
“I actually think we have a real advantage because we’ve been targeting S for quite a while, that our games have been built and they’re portable across many different specs. So when we look at something like a Steam Deck or ROG Ally or something, we’ve got this S version of the games, that’s more tailored to the device specs of a lot of devices that frankly are getting introduced right now, and I think that helps us.
“And frankly the scalability of engines today allows them to scale from ray trace-enabled, multi-thousand dollar graphics card on desktop PCs, all the way through to a handheld battery powered device, so for me S has been helpful in our portfolio.”
We’ve seen discussion around the feasibility of getting games to the same level on Series S before; most notably, when Xbox players had an extra wait before they could get their hands on Baldur’s Gate 3, because of difficulties with optimising split-screen co-op on Xbox Series S. In that case, Microsoft’s engineers were brought on board to help, and then we at last all got to delve into one of the best Xbox RPGs we’ve seen in many a long year.
Spencer touched on current-gen games, saying, “I’m playing Indiana Jones on S and it looks great, so like it’s definitely capable of playing current generation games in a great way. But most of your games that are going to be out there are going to be supporting these different devices, and the S spec of what it is actually maps pretty well to the devices that we’re seeing introduced right now.
“So I think it actually is an important design point for teams going forward, that kind of power performance mix that you see in the Series S.”
What do you think of Spencer’s comments? How are you finding your time with Xbox Series S? Let us know in the comments, and if, like Spencer, you’re currently delving through Indy’s world, don’t forget that Indiana Jones and the Great Circle will fix some game-breaking bugs soon.
