Developer Says That Xbox Is “Holding Back” Next-Gen
An anonymous developer explains why Microsoft is “holding back” next-gen consoles by withholding information on Project Lockhart.
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EDIT 7/6/20: The original NeoGAF post makes reference to a specific development studio. The studio since denied that the anonymous poster works for it, citing “factual inaccuracies.” As such, we have removed specific references to this studio at their request.
An anonymous developer explains why Microsoft is “holding back” next-gen consoles by withholding information on Project Lockhart.
We’re well-acquainted with the Xbox Series X at this point, but Microsoft has a surprise in store for us. Just like the Xbox One X has a smaller, digital-only brother called the Xbox One S, so too will the Series X have a digital-only sibling. Known internally as “Lockhart,” it’s widely expected to be called the Xbox Series S upon its eventual reveal.
Microsoft has released very few details about the Xbox Series S, and as it turns out, they’ve also released very few development kits for Lockhart to studios already hard at work making next-gen compatible games. This has caused at least one developer to lash out at Microsoft and accuse the company of holding them back.
A post on NeoGAF claims to have interviewed an employee working on the next-gen version of a popular modern franchise. They say that “Microsoft failed on providing real dev kits and details on [Project Lockhart]. We didn’t get any type of Lockhart hardware until very recently.”
This caused delays as the developer had to basically guess as to what Lockhart’s hardware profile would eventually be. “Microsoft never mentioned that it would have the same CPU and an SSD or how much RAM they intended Lockhart to have. I suspect this was because they themselves hadn’t decided.”
There was a real concern that the Xbox Series S would follow the Xbox One S and be a scaled-down version of the Xbox Series X–one with reduced processing power, memory, and graphics.
Lucky for them, the Xbox One S didn’t turn out that way. A Lockhart dev kit was eventually provided that had essentially the same power as the Xbox Series X just without the disc drive. However, that period of indecision “made us hate Lockhart.”
Of course, we can’t just leave a next-gen developer without asking the truly important question: is the PS5 better than the Xbox One X?
“PS5 dev kit is a bit easier to work with,” the anonymous developer said. “It’s well thought out and designed in ways that make it a bit easier to tweak and change things vs [Xbox Series X].”
That said, they admit that both are great pieces of hardware and that they both look “very similar” when running a next-gen game.
Source: NeoGAF
Link Source : https://www.thegamer.com/xbox-holding-back-next-gen/