What Is The Future Of Tsw On Consoles?

Interested to hear what people's thoughts are on this.

Because whilst my experience on Series X is still mostly good, I have seen, heard and read enough to have a few alarm bells ringing for the future.

As someone who is unlikely to want to put money into a top end gaming PC and who also likes just crashing out on the bed and being able to play a bit of TSW on the big TV whilst relaxing, I do wonder how much longer I will have with the franchise if the newer DLC becomes ever more resource hungry.

Do you think at some point they are going to have to put some serious effort into optimization for consoles, or just blag it for as long as they can until the whole thing breaks?

 

They won’t, as I said in another thread, this texture issue will never be fixed for gen 9 systems.

if anyone has read Kezz’ latest update over in their WCML feedback thread, you’ll see they mentioned eliminating the texture issue in their route may not be possible due to a core game implication. Now why DTG thought it was acceptable to release yet another version of TSW on these consoles (let alone gen8) with that implication is beyond me (not really, they’re simply greedy for cash), but I don’t think it’s acceptable at all.

Personally I’d like to hear what the actual issue is and if there is potentially a sacrifice that can be made in the way of trading feature sets or reducing texture size etc. Either way my scope for buying any more content for TSW is essentially completely diminished whilst this texture issue is present - never mind the all time low QA that’s letting a slew of issues seep into the game constantly.

If you want a look at what DTG will do to address the specific console issues on gen9, just look at what they did with gen8. They’ll simply start restricting it more & more in terms of performance, quality & content, until the next gen comes along & they can carry on depending on raw power of the machines alone. Unfortunately DTGs take on optimisation seems to be that it costs money, whereas simply taking things out does not.

In any case I suspect TSW is on its way out, DTG has made some decisions lately which just seem ridiculous. The switch to primarily communicating via Discord is something you’d expect from a smaller studio or non official community, and it would be done as an early stage in building a community - growing studios do not regress from official forums & honestly Discord is a very unprofessional space for a company to do business in. I suspect this is in an effort to mask the growing complaints about the state of TSW. The next odd decision was to release TSW 6 on Gen8, they couldn’t even get the core routes out without significantly cutting back on them, then you have entire exclusions from DLC’s within the first month of release - this is happening in age where games are actively leaving gen8 behind in order to better focus development on improving experiences of content.

Next on the list you have the rather sneakily announced decision to stop giving ambassadors preview keys to console builds, the reason given for this being the preview content not being suitable for seeing, despite the fact that many DLCs release 2 months worth of patching early & many come in the very same state as we’d have seen on those 24hour previews. If those builds aren’t suitable for viewing, then why are they being sold?

Overall for console players, TSW 6 is quite likely one of the worst iterations to be buying content for, despite the fact we have more developers & features than ever before, these factors are negated by the fact that we’re getting worse quality, essentially 0 testing done on consoles, less communication, less care & we’re paying more for content.

We’ve seen DTG make big additions to TSW’s community team whilst other teams such as preservation crew have been cut. More & more content is coming out shorter, with less trains & more reused trains than before. QA is seemingly worse than ever & lately they haven’t even been bothered to check the software builds being pushed to us - for both content packs & patches. The increasing levels of cash being put up from the increasing customer base is simply not bettering the game. It’s only seemingly encouraging DTG to ramp up the release schedule & the marketing side of the business whilst cutting costs everywhere else.

Ultimately the above is a genuine shame, as you have third parties getting caught in a crossfire of disappointment toward TSW overall, JT got in at the right time with TSW, as early TSW 4 had far less issues on consoles than what came after, whereas AAS jumped in as these issues have reduced new heights.

Every game has issues, every game has bugs. Very few if any have issues as persistent & game breaking as TSW gets. DTG should probably be aware of titles such as ETS2 making the console jump, there is a pretty big crossover between transport sim communities & more of them than ever are making ports from PC to console, once people have somewhere else to spend both their time & money in a space where options have previously been very limited, DTG is likely going to notice other IPs moving into that market.

TSW used to be this at times, frustrating but overall enjoyable experience. Now though you have routes that you can’t even remotely enjoy as you can’t make out trains or scenery, your services fail at random because an AI passed a red signal, your game crashes before you can reach the end of a service, the content you buy is a weeks old build that has severe issues & can’t be enjoyed for upto days at a time whilst the correct build is put out, a patch is released & it breaks more than it fixes - sometimes not fixing anything at all. When you try to get insight on why all of these issues occur, you come to a forum where you hope to get some help from staff where even if they do respond, only reel off a marketing infused spiel about something, so you think maybe you’ll tune into an official stream, only for the developers to make several statements that turn out to be untrue or misinformed.

This is probably the longest post I’ve ever wrote on this forum & abit of a ramble, but I think it does justice for my feelings on a game that on paper, should be in the best phase it’s ever been to date, but in practice it’s the worst.

 

Yeah, i don't get the discord thing at all.

What a weird place to almost make your 'official' channel.

As opposed to the dedicated forum which is, well, yours!!!

 

I'm mothballing my TSW 2020 content for a (hopefully) short while and defected over to Trainz (console version). It may not be as sophisticated as TSW but it satisfies my need to quickly and easily drive a choo choo.

 

Maybe we'll soon have a new product that's very different from what TSW is today.
I don't think users will be satisfied with a multiplayer arcade game like Metro Rivals.
Would it be better to aim for an elite simulation product with super-sophisticated trains with suspensions, malfunctions, etc. (TSG Expert style), or would it be better to aim for a train game without too many complications?
It depends on the market segment you want to reach.
We currently have locomotives with working suspensions pulling wagons (and vice versa) developed 10 years ago, without these characteristics.
Not to mention that there are locomotives repeated/6 times and even more.
What a mess is this?

 

Unless this optimisation/blurry textures is fixed then there is little to no future of this game on console. There has been seldom reason to invest in new routes as of late, because they all suffer from the same issue. Even if my beloved South West Main Line was announced, I'd find it quite hard to get excited.
As such the only addon I'm really interested in is the 171 for East Coastway, since older routes seem to perform fine for me.

I'd like to think DTG are all hands on deck on the issue, but going off the "progress" they have made I'm finding that harder and harder to believe, and part of me is thinking they are waiting for the next generation of consoles so they can use that as an excuse for not fixing it. "Those consoles are years old now, how can you expect it to run without turning layers off?"

 

Given the experience of TSW6, it's safe to say we won't get that competently delivered by DTG.

 

The reference to the release of new consoles as the solution to all problems is unacceptable.
New console release = late 2027.
Before the new consoles are widely released = 2030/2031.
It's unrealistic to think that the gaming world will stand still while waiting for new consoles.
Furthermore, the landscape is changing. Cloud, Handheld, and more...
I don't know if it's still worth taking consoles as a reference nowadays.
Are we sure that the current ones have been adequately utilized?
Or is it a problem with developers who are no longer able to optimize anything due to the rush?

 

DTG no, but apparently others do.

 

I'm very reluctant to buy any more post TSW5 routes unless heavily discounted during the rare Xbox sales. I have most of the pre TSW5 UK DLC to occupy my time. It may even give me the excuse to tackle a few more older German routes. Niddertalbahn is high on my list to give a go. Thankfully the TSW free starter packs are a welcome addition, so I'm not to stuck in the past.

 

I hope Better optimization on gen10 and the end of gen8 on tsw7

 

This about the third time I've said it this week alone...

But yet again, just to say, Gen9 consoles are perfectly capable bits of equipment for running complex games when they are developed properly. And are perfectly capable of running far more complex games then TSW.

The problem is DTG allowing the ever growing snowball of core issues to gather pace over every edition of the game on Gen9 consoles, and then only release 'plaster fixes'. It's got to such a stage that the issues are now more complex then they've ever been. But saying that, if DTG had a dedicated team allocated to solely fixing the core issues plaguing Gen9 consoles, it could be fixed and resolved. But that takes dedicated time and effort to iron out issues. It wouldn't be an overnight fix, but with the right resources put together, over a few months I'm more then sure it could be fixed to a point that the game would run perfectly smoothly.

It's not the consoles at fault. It's not the third party developers fault... It's the developer allowing the core issues to take root and get more complex over a prolonged amount of time.

If DTG genuinely appreciated console players that they are quite willing to continue producing content and taking money for, they would have resolved the issues by now. As I said in a previous comment on another thread, if they continue 'To bite the hand that feeds them', even the most dedicated players on console will eventually lose faith in their abilities and false promises and eventually the revenue will begin to evaporate.

We had a dedicated preservation team, how about a dedicated core issues team?

 

And I have agreed with you every time as well!!

Almost put this in the original post actually.

Baffles me that I can play some truly amazing games on my Series X which at least seem as though they would be far more demanding graphically than TSW and yet they run flawlessly basically all the time.

One of my main reasons for sticking with consoles over the years after being a PC gamer in the early days back in the mid to late 90s and early noughties, was/is that plug and play element and not having to worry about whether your machine has enough specs to play the game properly. Until TSW that is....

 

I put this in another thread, but it does seem relevant here as well...

Birmingham Cross-City today on Series X.



A route and timetable that normally is absolutely fine for me.

Has started happening more in the last few days on a few different routes and no idea why.

 

Apologies as this may seem as me being a bit thick but I see a lot of posts regarding "blurry textures" on console. I play PS5 and have no idea what they actually are. Ignorance is probably bliss because other than the odd stutter, some pet peeves regarding the passengers and the roads looking rubbish I have no issues with the game graphics really.

Is it something right in front of me?

 

Which routes do you use?, since it’s mainly a problem of the higher intensity routes

 

Well if you look at my post just above yours, then that is one of the things, the in cab writing and general appearance of buttons etc suddenly goes a bit N64 Goldeneye!

 

I don't have any of the TSW6 routes yet tbf. MK to Euston and MAC are my go to routes at the moment of the newer routes.

 

I didn't zoom in on it. Admittedly never had that happen to me but fingers crossed I don't!

 

Do DTG have any console devs? I get the impression that they still just make the PC game and the conversion to console is automatic based on something set up by an external company years ago, like the initial game ports. For any console specific changes they may need to hire in external help. The content can be tweaked by reducing timetables for the consoles, probably by simple checkboxes turning things on and off, but it seems things like scenery can’t be changed. It just follows one specific set of settings from the PC game for all of that. I don’t think they can optimise the console builds and they just try stuff in the PC game to see if that translates. That’s the impression I get from seeing years of console specific issues either never getting resolved or taking an age to happen if they do. I might be completely wrong and they may have an army of console experts but I see no evidence of it. Maybe someone can educate me.

 

I'm convinced DTG are trying to keep consoles in zombie mode, not quite dead but not alive neither. If they can keep it this way for a year or so until next generation consoles come out. I think they have pinned their business models on console gamers still being around until the Gen 10 sometime late next year.

Gen 10 hardware should be at least comparable to a good PC and should solve most of the issues in the current releases, like blurry images and memory crashes.

 

Xbox series X. This happened to me a lot on the 323 since purchasing the cross country 170 pack. I don't mind a bit of blurry textures dropping in and out like the 350 on WCML. But on the 323 it was constantly happening. No chance playing hudless.

 

Weird then, I still get blurry textures on MK to Euston but could be fact I have all the layers

 

I think the main thing DTG are pinning their hopes on is that Microsoft now have a great many studios that are heavily invested in UE5, and will have scoped their Gen10 hardware to deliver in all the areas in which the 9th gen systems couldn't meet the demands of that engine. With both the major players tending these days to release similarly specced systems, this should ensure that Gen10 can handle the game similarly to a PC.

 

I think DTG need to put some serious resources and possibly money into optimization, not new features etc. as said many games on console run really well and look fantastic.

But we heard there was a even split between Xbox, PS and PC in terms of players a while ago and I'd be surprised if that had changed. They need to figure it out on consoles otherwise TSW and DTG might end up disappearing IMO.

 

And IMO that's gonna backfire hard, the "Magnus" isn't even really a console by the accounts I've read. It's a high-end $1200 pre-build PC with a "Xbox Series" set of parts for backwards compatibility and a Xbox interfaced slapped on top of slightly more optimized Windows 11. Not a terrible thing on its own, heck, likely means the moment that's out technically we'll have a "10th gen" TSW, because it will just play the PC version. But lot of people don't want to deal with all the headaches a PC comes with, and that stupidly high price point is gonna be a hard sell for lot of the console crowd. I don't see it going mainstream even if it's fine for what it is, best I see it doing is Steam Deck numbers, 4 to 5 million units. Hardly gonna be a "solution" to this unoptimized mess.

As for PS6, there's a handheld version planned, which also raise tons of questions as to how much of a improvement if any that is over PS5/PS5 Pro. Home side will obviously be a improvement I'm sure, but then are Sony gonna allow "PS6 Home" only games? For that matter, even if they do, with how expensive game development is are any developer actively gonna want to exclude the handheld anyways? Granted, maybe it will miraculously be way better than the "PS quintuple", but I wouldn't hold my breath on it.

I don't know, I think people are underestimating how long 9th gen lasts, I've seen so many say it feels like the gen's barely started, and cost of entry's still no better than it was in 2020. I almost expect 9th gen to continue in parallel with next-gen machines, and that 10th gen machines will be the "4K Blu-ray" of consoles. Nice to have, but most games will come out on both just to ensure maximum market saturation, like how films don't really get "4K" only releases.

 

Yeah, Series X costs more now than it did on release FIVE years ago.

Crazy really!!

 

Honestly I would buy the new Xbox just for the TSC ability since man I miss it

 

With how old that game is you could buy a PC for half the price that would play it just as well. Sims from around that mid-2000's period don't scale all that well, reason why FSX always ran so terribly despite better hardware coming out.

 

I’m already too far deep into Xbox so can’t and well I would also be wanting better performance for other games like gta 6

 

I have no numbers for this but I often read on here that consoles make TSW financially viable, so if console issues aren't seriously looked at, then TSW is ultimately doomed to fail. My purchasing decisions are already changing as far as TSW is concerned: Birmingham to Crewe would have been an automatic purchase for me but I'm not going anywhere near it until there are reports of significant improvements. A pattern has formed over the last 2 or so releases and it is becoming increasingly clear.

Who is to 'blame'? My finger is pointing directly at DTG for the current state of affairs. They've allowed technical debt to pile up, small issues suddenly aren't so small anymore and now they can't easily change the wheels while the train is moving. It's a mess. I've been somewhat sympathetic towards DTG because I know it isn't easy and they'll never keep everyone happy, but the snowballing of fundamental problems is now looking existential unless they can directly address what they are doing about it. My confidence in this regard is waning because they seem unable or unwilling to communicate anything convincing that would satisfy me that they know how to move in the right direction.

 

I would be interested to hear what the priorities of console users are with TSW and maybe that is something DTG should be trying to find out as well!!

Personally, I want my trains and stock to look great at all times, the most important thing by a mile. Then track area and immediate surroundings need to look good and stations, depots etc to look decent and dynamic weather/dynamic day/night time to create some nice visuals (which it does). I don't need every tree and bush and every building, every bit of track that I will never even use, to be polished within an inch of it's life. I will spend a lot of time enjoying the details of my trains, not so much going into every nook and cranny of a station to make sure it looks ok and could not care less if a sheep in a field doesn't look perfect!!

Then it needs to run smoothly and the graphics quality need to stay constant throughout.

I am sure there are some areas that they could easily cut back on to give us a better overall experience on consoles.

 

Well they certainly want console players to give them money that’s for sure, the question is are you getting equal value for money?

 

9 times out of 10, no. It's not even a gamble anymore to buy a route without reading the player feedback or gameplay of it first, it's gotten to a point where console players are expecting bugs upon day one purchases. And I've cut back on day one purchases myself and have waited for patches or sales to get the value for my pretty penny.

I play on PS5 so the very moment I open the game, I'm no longer eligible for a refund thanks to Sony's terrible refund policy. So I'm definitely more cautious with what I purchase from here on out and I'm sure I'm not the only one.

 

Good thing I got mine when it released for 500$. 650$ last week at my local Best Buy which is actually insane.

 

I Got for even less, I will never understand Microsoft decision here, probably linked to 300m cod bill

 

Assuming TSW continues moving in the direction of ever more detail the only future for consoles, as I see it, is for DTG to implement DLSS/FSR. 9th-gen consoles are premised on frame-scaling which is how they can get away with using chipsets that are puny by PC standards. All the big game studios use it; they have to if they want to stay in the console market.

I would call that Job One for TSW 7, DTG cannot afford to abandon the console market
_______________________________
"Optimization" is not some sort of amazing zen technique wherein the true masters, if they only tried hard enough, and cared enough, could make GTA 6 run on a PS2. All it is, is tracking down memory leaks, shifting background processes to idle time, and using lower-res textures/polygon models where you don't think players will notice. It can only do so much; it can only clean things up around the edges. That DTG has done; TSW6 runs noticeably better on my PC than TSW 5 did.

 

M$ cut their own throats in this generation when they brought out the Series X for $100 more than the PS5. Combine that with the previous generation's Kinect disaster and Sony's far more successful landing of bestselling exclusives (remember the 7th gen when it was the other way round?), and Microsoft's console arm is looking about as healthy as their smartphone arm. - and I say this with sadness, as an XBox guy going back to the 360's launch.

The one winning idea they had was Gamepass, and now they've LOVEd that up too.

 

I think it’s most likely Microsoft’s set goal for Xbox of a 30% profit margin which is not the market norm.
Here’s the IGN link: https://www.ign.com/articles/micros...rojects-price-rises-and-the-end-of-exclusives

 

It works until it doesn't!!!!

Couple of classic loss of texture moments in my Class 66 just now on Series X.

 

Oh you're soooooooo underselling it, Kinect was a issue, mainly because it increased the price above PS4. But there was also the hyper fixation on TV features, literally the first thing seen on Xbox One was The Price is Right, not a game of it, but the actual TV show. And the few games they did show were multiple platform titles which existed on literally everything like EA Sports titles and COD. I will always remember this absurd "highlight" video that was made shortly afterward.

Some might think this is a exaggeration, but I swear having seen the whole thing live this really is a accurate summary of the whole thing!

Second and arguably more importantly, their aggressive always online push which would've killed off used games. Seriously, they wanted to make sure you needed a constant internet connection, you would've needed to pay to use second hand physical games. And most importantly of all, when pushed on it head of Xbox Don Mattrick said "Just buy a 360" about people who didn't have good enough internet for their scheme..

Seriously, all that hurt Microsoft so much going into the One generation, they gave Sony the perfect attack vector, it's genuinely insane how the crowd reacted to E3 that year.

Also always love this video too.

Seriously, I think anyone around at that time knew the moment they saw all this that PS4 was gonna dominate over Xbox that generation. Microsoft could not have screwed up harder if they tried.

 

Was the XSX more expensive in the USA at launch?Over here in the UK they were both the same price.They`ve gone up now,XSX disc is at £499.99 and PS5 slim disc is £479.99.You can get a deal over here if you shopped around.

 

Yep, if I remember correctly, PS5 was $499, Xbox Series X was $599.

Here's the thing though, those price points being as high as they are also mean used consoles are way more expensive. When I've looked up "cheap" 9th gen machines they often hover around $150 to $200, which is a lot for a used machine that isn't retro. I'm just saying, in a year or two of release for the 3DS you could get used ones for probably half the price of new easy. I remember when the 2DS got slammed at reveal because you could get very good condition 3DS units at the same price easily. Can't comment on how quick Xbox 360 & PlayStation 3 dropped, but certainly I can say by the 2010's they were also dirt cheap and could be gotten used with a few games well under new pricing. (Which unlike current times had also came down a ton in those four years)

Yeah, used is still cheaper, but used pricing is still way worse than it was when other systems were at similar points in their life.

 

I paid $500 USD for mine back when things were still iffy with COVID and the demand for the damn things here was insane. I remember at the time checking stock each morning at the big stores and seeing two pop up at a Target just north of Albany. Needless to say, my wife and I went for a drive that night after work... lol

 

DTG are seemingly fine with releasing reduced timetables on consoles and still charging the same as PC releases while patronising us with "Console have the standard timetables."

They come up with excuses for not allowing Beta testers use console and release them broken.

I think eventually they'll move away from console and blame Sony and Microsoft for doing so.

I won't buy any DLC for console with a reduced timetable and I'm not the only one.

 

They were very hard to get at launch over here.In fact for quite a few months they were both almost unobtainable,PS5`s were up for nearly £1000.00 on fleabay,whats more crazy,is that people paid that for them.
I managed to get a PS5 for me and a XSX for my son on launch day,i had to get up at stupid a clock to spam the reload button on the Argos website,i got both of them in my basket and.........my internet connection disconnected.lol.I managed to get them eventually from Argos store.Delivered by DPD on release day.In my town over the last 3 or 4 months XSX seems hit and miss whether you can get one over the counter or not.Crazy times.

 

A better question might be to ask what is the future of consoles. The next Xbox is going to be a PC running Windows 11 with a UI overlay to make it look like a console on your TV. You will be able to run Steam on it. What then would be the point of buying a console edition of TSW? What would be the point of making a console edition of TSW? DTG knows this too, so while they will still even sell you a bare-bones TSW on Xbox One, they're not going to be too bothered about optimizing for consoles or even fixing bugs, because they know we will all be moving to Steam eventually anyways. And I don't necessarily disagree with their approach. Any further investment anybody makes buying TSW for console is on the players now, because as they say, the writing is one the wall. That doesn't mean not to buy TSW for consoles at this moment in time, but with an understanding that consoles will not be a priority going forward and your collection of DLC on console will eventually be obsolete.

 

The only thing that will make me buy a PC is if one day we can port over to steam our PS account, otherwise i stay whit PS

 

Yes, I don't like reading it, but unfortunately, I can really relate to it! I play on PC, where it is actually quite decent, but on a console, I would have a very different experience. I would say, DTG, focus on the PC and stop spending your time on consoles where you're not going to fix the texture problems anyway. That is something I have been saying for ages that it won't be fixed. I call on console players not to invest in any more DLCs and speak with your wallet. I also find it very strange to continue supporting Gen 8, which is a choice that clearly wasn't made for the players but purely because they can fill their pockets even more. I find that disgusting, and it helps absolutely no one. This clearly shows that a port to a console is simply done for profit and not at all to improve the product, purely because nothing is being optimised. That is simply not possible, certainly not with the release schedule that is currently in place. I call on DTG to stop hiding and running away from responsibility. Although I personally notice little on PC, unfortunately, I should actually be happy about it, but I am not because I wish others the same experience and not that you need a rocket-level PC like mine to play the game decently. I think it's time for a non-commercially driven answer but purely the truth, with a "sorry, we simply didn't do a good job and we are now temporarily going to stop releases to really tackle the problems internally," if only to show that you owe people something.

And stop with all those beautiful videos about what great things we are all bringing. They are just fairy tales that are simply not honest!

 

Because consoles undeniably have far simpler and easy to use interfaces. Bare in mind, some people get scared just moving files between folders, and their mind gets overloaded looking at a graphics menu. In the same way some actively like TSW being more locked down and limited some enjoy consoles for similar reasons. I would also add consoles tend to have much smaller form factors that make them easier to integrate into setups. And suspending on consoles works amazingly well, I wouldn't trust any of my PC to sleep during a game in the way I would a console.

Not to mention as expensive as PS5/6 may be it's still gonna be a cheaper entry point than the Magnus is. It's gonna be a product more along the lines of a niche enthusiast product like a Steam Deck or indeed a ROG Ally than anything meant to compete with PlayStation. I'd be shocked if it sold even half of what "dud" consoles like Dreamcast & Wii U did. And to be clear that could be fine for it, in the same way a McLaren doesn't need to sell what a Ford F-150 does to be a success, but both cars serve different markets.

Why optimize for anything by that logic? We're gonna have wrist watches that have the processing power of a 5090 in 50 years probably. Just because better hardware will exist in the future doesn't justify poorly optimizing something now is justified. If you don't want to optimize your game for PS5 than don't release it on PS5, simple as.