A Gotham Knights developer took to Twitter with a controversial opinion on the Xbox Series S - it's the culprit of the new-gen hardware clique that is holding multiplatform titles back with its "potato" GPU.
Of course, we are above the tribalism of the console wars of yore, appreciating the fact that PC, PlayStation, Xbox and the Nintendo Switch all offer a variety of advantages to a variety of customers. The Xbox Series S, for example, offers the shininess and sparkles of the new-gen experience at a lower price point. It possesses the same GPU as the Xbox Series X with a slower clock frequency, however, it uses four teraflops of processing power. Unfortunately, it seems to be this factoid that has led Gotham Knights to feature a locked 30 frames per second on consoles with no performance mode to select from.
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Fans were disappointed with this news, with some accusing Rocksteady of controlling the narrative around the game only one week before the game's release, and others threatening to cancel their pre-orders. Naturally, Rocksteady has attempted to do some damage control, yet, one employee has pointed the finger at the Xbox Series S for this 30 fps design decision.
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In a series of now deleted Tweets, senior character technical artist Lee Devonald called the console out for its "potato" GPU. Players then mentioned that games are able to run at 60 fps at 1440p on the Xbox Series S, so it shouldn't be the hardware that's holding Gotham Knights back.
Devonald continued to say that he hoped "gamers understood what 60 fps means in terms of all of the things they lose to make the game run that fast, especially taking into account that we have a current gen console that’s not much better than a last gen one." And, just to hammer the point home, Devonald said that the Xbox Series S was the "lowest performer" of the collection of new-gen consoles.
Though there were a few people agreeing with Devonald, the fact that his Twitter account no longer exists is speaking volumes to me.