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Microsoft has enjoyed great success with the Xbox Series S over the past two years, but some developers appear to be dissatisfied with the device’s technical limits. Poor platform development is “an albatross around the neck of production.” After receiving complaints from multiple other teams on his Microsoft demand that game creators release their works for both the Xbox Series X and Xbox Series S, Maclure was restrained. Bossa is not the only one, he claims.
It may appear broken, but that is only because many developers are frantically trying to have the Series S launch requirement dropped at this annual conference.
Maclure apparently sent these comments to his journalist Jeff Gerstmann on his Twitter account, but Maclure’s tweets have since gone private. Bossa Studios is the team behind the game I am Fish, released on multiple systems including Xbox One, Xbox Series X|S, PlayStation 4, PlayStation 5, and PC. Supporting systems like the PlayStation 4 and Xbox One seems to be a much bigger headache for developers than the Xbox Series S, but support for those consoles could wane in the near future.
Given the success of the Xbox Series S, it’s unlikely Microsoft will change its requirements. In reality, the console is a relatively inexpensive gateway to the Xbox ecosystem and next-gen exclusive games like Gotham Knights. The current-gen console launched two years before him, but the Xbox Series X and PlayStation 5 are still very hard to come by at MSRP. The Xbox Series S has been a great choice for those who can’t find or afford another console, but there are performance tradeoffs. I don’t know yet if it’s really holding back some developers, but if it is, I’ll hear from more teams in the years to come!