Xbox Series S | X Console Discussion

[Happenstance]

I've only ever properly played one Gears game and that was 4. I was always put off by the colour pallet of the original games. In an era when everything was brown and grey, those games just seemed to take it to another level of bland design.

[Julius]

4 minutes ago, drahkon said:

[Julius]

Say what you might about Xbox's software output, there's no denying that their accessibility hardware initiatives are excellent, and so here's one more: the Xbox Adaptive Joystick. 

Excellent stuff, really lovely to see 

 

Elsewhere for Xbox, the new Series X|S models are now available to pre-order: 

 

Edited August 22 by Julius

[Dcubed]

Nice to see that the Wii Nunchuck lives on

Great initiative, also great to see MS opening up their accessibility line of controllers to 3rd parties like 8bitdo.  Makes their accessibility controllers more... well... accessible!

[Hero-of-Time]

Mixed and confusing messaging from the Xbox division seems to be the only thing that they have consistent with during this whole gen.

 

[Julius]

Windows Central have started to share what they know about Xbox's next-gen hardware plans in their summary of an interview about the Xbox's 25th anniversary, which Xbox seem to be planning to coincide with the platform's 25th anniversary in 2026, and will seemingly be a fight on two fronts: a traditional style home console and a handheld. 

Quote

Instead, it seems Xbox is full-steam ahead with its next set of console hardware, which we tentatively believe based on our sources to include at least both a traditional-style successor to the Xbox Series X, and Microsoft's first real foray into Xbox handheld gaming with its own take on the Steam Deck.

Shouldn't come as a surprise to anyone considering what has come out over the last few years anyways, but I think that Steam Deck-style handled + Game Pass combo could be very powerful and do some serious numbers. 

[S.C.G]

343 Industries rebrands as Halo Studios with development of the Halo series seemingly moving to Unreal Engine 5 instead of proprietary software.

Not sure if this warrants its own thread, but I thought it might bring back a spark of conversation to the Xbox thread at least.

[Julius]

1 hour ago, S.C.G said:

343 Industries rebrands as Halo Studios with development of the Halo series seemingly moving to Unreal Engine 5 instead of proprietary software.

I mean it makes sense in that the entire AAA industry seems to have shifted to Unreal Engine over the course of the last decade (outside of proprietary engines), and Halo moving to UE5 is just one in a very long list of very public announcements of developers moving to the engine: there was CDPR after the whole Cyberpunk 2077 fiasco; Respawn I think have said that they're moving to UE5; The Coalition was one of the first big names to put attach themselves to the engine; Valorant recently had a UE5 announcement; the next Tomb Raider was said to be built in UE5 as far back as 2022; and so on.

It's a long list and so they're in good company, I think it only makes sense that the AAA space has started to lean on one particular engine - though I'm not saying that it's necessarily good - especially with how learning a new engine at every new job in an industry which seems hellbent on making every dev jobless at some point was never going to work. 

Ultimately, it is what 343i, now Halo Studios, decide to make of it. Unreal Engine has seen some great games and some absolutely awful ones in equal measure, and I feel like it was undeniable last gen on UE4 that a good number of games certainly ended up with a similar look and feel, which seems to have pivoted into stronger art direction taking centre stage; Arkham Knight on UE3 looks gorgeous to this day and is still my favourite example that new tech coming in means very little without great workers behind it. Halo Infinite was seemingly a mess in development until Staten came onboard to salvage what he could, but was that on the engine, necessarily? Probably not, it was probably down to 343 just not having a strong idea of what they wanted to achieve with the game, or a realistic way in which to bring that idea to fruition. 

I think this is a move they've made just to have an engine that simply works (ironic considering it doesn't really feel like anyone's done a great job with UE5 yet, at least if you go off what the Digital Foundry guys believe) – does what it says on the tin, Bob's your uncle, and everyone knows and likes him. I'll need to read up on it more because the biggest question on my mind right now is whether this was a 343/Halo Studios decision, or an Xbox decision. 

And yes I'm thinking that because surely if it were up to Xbox they should be pushing for Bethesda (Game Studios, not id) to do the same, right? Considering that they're effectively running games on a super old engine and *surprise* it's become even more obviously broken with every new release for like a decade. Fallout 76 and Starfield in particular seemed to launch in absolutely atrocious states. So yeah, Elder Scrolls VI on UE...7, I guess? 

Edited October 7 by Julius

[Dcubed]

Feels like a bit of an empty gesture to rebrand your Halo Factory studio from a name based on Halo to... a name... also based on Halo.

Also, UE5 is a terrible engine that is far too heavy for what it offers.  It runs like a dog's dinner on every piece of hardware out there and the #StutterStruggle is real on PC.  They'd honestly be better off sticking with UE4; or better yet, maybe actually taking advantage of their Bethesda acquisition and using ID Tech instead?

Edited October 7 by Dcubed

[Julius]

Digital Foundry have talked a bit about the Halo/Unreal announcement and brief bits of footage that we got to see:

I'd completely forgot about the dithering hands on Halo Infinite from John's tech review for the game, such a funny and unique issue to find in a game