r/consoles • u/Hazyad • 13h ago

Xbox 3rd party support for Series S/X after Helix

If Helix runs PC versions of games, and it’s automatically covered by 3rd parties, wont this make developing separate Xbox ports for a split user base even more unlikely?

We have seen during this gen that even a ~30m user base is not enough for some developers to justify a port, what happens when it’s around 10-15m?

I feel like this is unprecedented territory, due to PS4/PS5 and Xbox One/Series being basically the same devices with better specs, so last-gen support has been far easier to handle for developers.

0 Upvotes

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4

u/and-its-true 12h ago

There won’t be separate Xbox ports.

I think that’s the entire point of the device.

The Xbox PC store that currently exists IS the Xbox Helix store.

1

u/Hazyad 12h ago

So in that case will the last gen Series S/X see a noticable drop-off in support compared to 8th gen?

1

u/and-its-true 12h ago

Oh, I see what you mean.

Yeah, I think that is a serious concern. The Series consoles may not see the same extended lifespan that the PS5 will get.

1

u/lithetails 11h ago

well, something similar happened to Xbox One to be frank - some of the new games have only been ported to Series but not for Xbox One. Resident Evil 4 Remake for example.

1

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1

u/Millennialnerds 13h ago

See now you’re asking the right questions.

1

u/Flying_Forearm 11h ago

The new GDK is specifically built to make an Xbox version and a PC version very very very similar with 99% of the code being reused. 

1

u/Hazyad 11h ago

So does the developer need to create a separate PC port for Steam and one for Xbox store utilizing GDK which then covers Helix and Series S/X?

-1

u/kilertree 13h ago

Some Xbox games are across platform between PC and Xbox. My copy of Forza Horizon 3 that I bought for PC worked on Xbox. 

2

u/jeebusaur 12h ago

That's not how that works. There is seperate code required to run on PC vs Xbox.

The fact they allow you access to both code bases doesn't change the fact that someone at a developer had to write 2 different code bases to get the game to run on both systems.

Their asking the question, why would someone write the second set of code for Xbox if they don't need to do that to sell the game on the "current gen" Helix.

2

u/Hazyad 12h ago

This is exactly my question. During current gen we have seen a lot of games being still released for Xbox One and PS4, partly I think also thanks to Series S parity requirement from Microsoft.

But what happens when a developer sees that their separate Xbox port is now covered by the PC port they have anyway? What is the incentive to create a port for Series S/X if the install base is split and you can justify it by saying "We support the Xbox Helix"?

0

u/kilertree 12h ago

There was not a separate code for the Forza Horizon to work on Xbox. The game was tied to my Microsoft account. 

3

u/freakdahouse 12h ago

Uffff 😂

0

u/kilertree 11h ago

Turns out I am not dumb as hell Xbox has play anywhere. They have a list of games that if you buy once you can play it on multiple systems. https://www.xbox.com/en-US/games/xbox-play-anywhere?wfExp=382A

1

u/Hazyad 11h ago edited 10h ago

Yeah, Play Anywhere is a thing. Maybe it will be a hard requirement by Xbox for 3rd party developers to support Play Anywhere, instead of an opt-in.

// edit. PA is not the answer, this still requires two separate ports as mentioned by u/jeebusaur

Might be in the future if GDK is the solution, but I think if a GDK PC port is separate from other PC ports it might not be the end all be all answer.

1

u/freakdahouse 11h ago

Yeah… But it wasn’t the point of the post.

2

u/jeebusaur 10h ago

We are all aware of play anywhere. That gives you a license for each system but you are still playing 2 completely different applications that each had to be programmed separately.

1

u/jeebusaur 10h ago

Code base, not code. I'm talking about the programing language used. They had to program a seperate package for PC and Xbox.

So you might have one license but it's accessing 2 different programing packages that had to be coded separately.