They gave them the first dibs to tear apart the Series X/S weeks before the launch. Did the same thing with One X.
They definitely value them as marketing partners and know the value of their platform.
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My bad, completely forgot they did this.
Hi, have you been on the Internet before? This is how it works on the Internet and social media - people argue over minutiae and crown things as either the best or trash. As I mentioned in my earlier post, it’s how Digital Foundry make a living. If you haven’t seen this sort of thing before, don’t worry, but do be assured they’re been zooming in on tiny parts of the screen and counting frames to find out which console drops frames since at least the 360 days.
If you don’t think it’s important, that’s fine, but rest assured this will get reported on, it will be shared on social media.
So when I say that it’s a bad look for Microsoft, I’m not saying the lower resolution shadows are spoiling my enjoyment of HFR, what I’m saying is that people will definitely be looking for ways to say that PS versions of games are better and Microsoft should by now be aware of this. In fact, they are aware of this. It’s why Phil Spencer sent a celebratory email when he found out Series X was capable of more terra flops that the PS5. The meaningless is more impactful than you might think. If you think that the Xbox One wasn’t harmed by having games run at a lower fidelity than on PS4, sorry, but you’re wrong. It didn’t make a difference when playing the game at all. But it did make it easier for people to make a choice when comparing two consoles.
Microsoft really ought to be making sure that the XBox version is the best version of their software.
AGAIN, it’s ok if you don’t care about the shadows, it’s not about the shadows. It’s about Microsoft making the PS5 version of their game the best version.
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I’m saying that the bubble of people that would give a damn about this is tiny, and “the best version” because of one shadow render technique is just insane to care about.
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I don’t think people really care about the shadows, they care about the optics of their first party titles going to other platforms and looking/running better on the non first party platform.
I’m not one to care as I’m a PC gamer but this is surely the logic they have… In short it’s console war fodder
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The sad part is, few people played the game on Xbox and almost no one on PS5, and yet the infitesimally small difference in rendering quality has been trumpeted to death.
Meanwhile, the entire Halo community on PC has all settings on low (minus the one responsible for rendering enemies at a distance). 
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You’re still focusing on the shadow. The shadow doesn’t matter, it never mattered. It’s that the PS5 version is the best version. That’s what matters. That’s what will do damage.
Ding ding ding!
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Those people, the tiny amount of them out there, need a more fulfilling life and aren’t worth caring about.
There’s millions of them.
Digital Foundry has 1.38m subscribers. Their second most watched video has 3.9m views and highlights the differences between an Xbox and a PlayStation version of GTA.
This stuff is more important than you think it is!
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so their biggest video potentially hit 1% of the audience Xbox is going for, noted
A couple of things can be true at the same time:
- The actual difference in shadow quality doesn’t matter when you play.
- The PS5 version looks better.
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“looks better” is so generalized. “has one improved shadow” is more accurate, i.m.o.
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You’d be surprised Jesse, your site is Xbox era … Fans of Xbox as a brand, the hardware, the ecosystem … They are here and they aren’t happy
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I know this, I’m just saying that that makes the PS5 version look better. That’s just the truth.
It still doesn’t matter of course. But that’s what they’ll boil it down to.
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There’s nearly 3000 users on here and there far less than 1% of them in here worrying about it
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We aren’t?
Why are you pretending there isn’t a general dissatisfied feeling in the Xbox community at the moment ?
Even Klobrille isn’t happy
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Because it’s not a hivemind
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There is a small contingent in the online bubble we partake in that is loudly upset about Xbox stopping their attempts to “win” hardware unit sales, yes.
Yup. I remember because Jason Schrier implied on Twitter MS paid them off to say something nice about it. He blocked me for calling him out about it lol.
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