Xbox Should Series S Be Dropped Along With Gen 8?

the writing is on the wall for gen 8 consoles at this point, we were all surprised they were kept for tsw6 but it’s inevitable that they’ll be cut off in a month or so. this is absolutely the right decision, but as far as the series s is concerned there’s a case for that to be dropped, or at least partially rolled back because it’s not powerful enough for lots of tsw routes nowadays. often there’s reports of crashing where ps5 and xsx don’t suffer as badly, and reduced timetables seem to be the limit on bigger routes. is it worth keeping them around? financially the playerbase is presumably much more significant than gen 8, but the limitations show that the series s is headed down the same route of fewer dlc available because they just can’t handle them anymore. should they be kept and fully supported, cut off entirely, or have some dlc restricted to only ps5 and xsx?

 

First of all, Microsoft does allow to only release for Series X and not for Series S. So this answers the question, they can't quit Series S, as long as they want to release for Series X.

Secondly, it's not like Series S has more crashes then Series X or PS5. My last crash on Series S is a very long time ago. Most routes do run fine enough in HD mode, comparable with Series X in 4K mode. The only issue is the limited amount of RAM, for that reason there are routes with a limited timetable. The Ludwigsbahn has no layers at all on Series S, however I have the impression the Series S can handle more then it got with this route.

Series S is not like PS4 and Xbox One, the hardware is as current as Series X, with a fast SSD, fast CPU and a GPU fast enough for the HD mode. Only RAM is a limiting factor, but also Series X and PS5 do have issues with their amount of RAM and TSW.

 

Unfortunately Mircrosoft won't allow developers to make games only for one and not the other.

Its in the contract. So even if they wanted to they would not be allowed to.

The only way would be to drop Xbox completely to stop making it for Series S.

 

Dropping older consoles / Series S won't solve any problem. TSW doesn't run properly on the newest consoles (PS5 / Series X). The problem is on DTG's side.

 

The game was ported to consoles back in the day where a route would have two types of trains, very little AI traffic and that was your lot. It was perfectly foreseeable that as new layers became available, the very limited resources of consoles would start to struggle with what was being asked of them, and that's where we're at now. In 2026 the PS5 is equivalent to a very average PC, in fact it doesn't even meet DTG's own recommended specs on Steam, and a PC with the same specs as a PS4 is be considered potato material. Xbox series S doesn't meet the recommended specs either, so I think it should be dropped although I'm less familiar with Xbox having not owned one since the 360 was released in 2005.

Every game in history, with the exception perhaps of simple flat interface games such Premier Manager, has gradually increased its minimum specs as each version was released. Or on consoles, switched from PS3 to PS4 to PS5 etc. Unless you release separate versions of the game, you can't keep supporting the oldest possible hardware when you have a highly-demanding game environment.

So yes I think PS4 and Series S should be dropped, and should have been with TSW6, because it just leads to frustration for console players, who quite rightly expect games released on their platform to work.

I even think DTG should produce separate branches of the game for PC and console, instead of downgrading the PC experience as they've now decided to do, but that would eat marginally into their profits so I can't see that happening.

It's entirely possible to waste away on your couch whilst playing on PC through the medium of a wireless controller

JB

 

i believe matt spoke about this in one of the roadmap streams before, and to put a long story short, it’s not happening. it would require the development and maintenance of essentially two separate games, and whilst for the players that would be the best solution- as neither pc nor console users are getting a fair experience- it’s not financially viable

 

Also plenty of other games have no issue having console and PC run well. Gen 9 consoles are essentially low-to-mid PCs. So it’s just a matter of setting those specs/options for the Gen 9 consoles while allowing PC settings to max out. It’s been like this forever and people still falsely think consoles are holding games back for PC users when it’s totally unrelated.

 

The sniping in this thread suggests that some people have already forgotten that we nearly lost General Discussion because of such behaviour.

 

The only sniping here is the second person of the thread who should not be welcomed here with their ugly sense of entitlement.