This generation's cross-gen period is looking increasingly lengthy, due to supply chain disruption and the fact that familiar console architecture means last-gen consoles are still viable. Having said that, just how viable are they in 2022?
The folks over at Digital Foundry have gone ahead and put the original Xbox One through its paces, testing the machine out on a variety of recent games. Remember, this is 2013 hardware playing games almost a decade on, and for the most part, you can tell.
While titles like Forza Horizon 5 and to a lesser extent, GRID Legends, hold up pretty well considering the age and power of the system, more demanding games aren't looking so hot in 2022. Cyberpunk 2077 is notorious for its poor performance here — as shown in the video analysis — but even a game like Call of Duty: Vanguard, from a series famed for 60fps gameplay, is struggling on the base Xbox One.
Load times are also detailed across a selection of games, and the Xbox One is eating into a good chunk of gaming time. Forza Horizon 5 for instance takes over two minutes to load on base Xbox One, which seems ridiculous after using Xbox Series X|S for over a year.
With all that in mind, is now the time to leave Xbox One behind? These results would certainly suggest so. Sub-30fps performance levels and crazy long load times hurt how games feel to play, and no-doubt, the experience is better on Xbox Series X|S. However, the fact that these games can still run even this well on last-gen hardware, not to mention the stresses of the current economic climate, mean sticking with Xbox One still makes plenty of sense in 2022.
Forza Horizon 5 is a game that looks next-gen on an Xbox Series X. You can belt it across the Mexican desert at 300mph, without so much as a stutter, at 60 frames per-second. And yet, the experience is broadly similar on Xbox One, and the game still holds up well enough. Sure, it's an exclusive and Microsoft clearly puts in the effort there, but studios have become pretty efficient at scaling their games to different hardware setups.
And then, of course, there's the stock shortage. While this is finally clearing up, some areas are still struggling for stock and it remains a good idea to put games out on last generation systems. After all, there's probably 50 million or so Xbox Ones out there.
There's also the global economy in a post-COVID world. Hey, look, we want to be the last site to remind you about things like, you know, real world responsibilities, but the fact is that some people just cannot afford new consoles at present, even the cheaper Series S. Gaming can be really beneficial to all sorts of folks out there, as we can attest to, and games being available for those still using older systems is great in this day and age.
And while Microsoft has pushed for Xbox Cloud Gaming to help phase out last-gen, most of us still like to game on native hardware, or we don't have the internet to keep up. Xbox Cloud Gaming could become a core pillar for last-gen players in a few years, but for now it remains a neat bonus that some won't use, whether by choice or not.
But is this focus holding current-gen back? Well, maybe. Without the shackles of the Xbox One we may well have seen more advancements in new gaming technology, but until now Microsoft's first party output has yet to fully capitalize on 'next-gen' anyway. And to be fair to Xbox Game Studios, the likes of Starfield, Redfall and other highly anticipated titles are now moving on from Xbox One and becoming Xbox Series X|S (and PC) exclusive experiences. It's primarily the third-party developers and publishers who seem to be holding onto the Xbox One generation in 2022.
For now, we think that developers and publishers sticking with the Xbox One, maybe through late 2023, is going to be a reality. We can't lie and say we won't be disappointed if by that point we haven't started to leave the old machine behind. But for now, it remains a great option for many players, and regardless of the number of drawbacks shown in this video, the console still provides a place for more Xbox fans to play the games they love.
But, what do you think? Should the Xbox One be dropped sooner rather than later? Let us know your thoughts down below.
Comments 49
That reminds me, I still need to get FH5. 3 was really fun and I haven't played in a while.
On the topic of the article. While I wouldn't mind if MS and third-parties stopped making X1 games, it doesn't matter much to me but I guess I'd rather they drop it.
With new consoles hard to come by, and there still being over 100 million PS4s in the wild, and the Xbox One and PS4 being very similar, why would you cut off those gamers just yet?.
Clearly for 1st party exclusives, that threshold, where the XBox One just doesnt have the audience, will come very quickly. But for 3rd party, there will be a big audience on PS4 still.
Keep making Xbox One and PS4 games (and Switch games) for as long as the gamers on those platforms continue to buy the games. 9th gen console users aren't more important than 8th gen users.
It's definitely not going to come to a halt anytime soon. Nothing to do with Microsoft's first party output - it seems they've totally moved on from Xbox One development now, which makes sense.
But in terms of third party developers, more games are STILL being released for Xbox One natively than Xbox Series X and Series S every single week. It's slowing down, but only a little bit, and I think it's going to take years for that to dry up.
Plus, with games like Microsoft Flight Simulator being supported on Xbox Cloud Gaming via Xbox One now, you don't technically need a new console to play next-gen games, so that extends the lifespan of the Xbox One even more.
Personally, I like that younger gamers or lower income households will still get games for years to come.
You can buy an Xbox One for under £100. Get Xbox Game Pass for around £50 for a year. And you have yourself a fantastic little console with loads of games and future ones at that.
Not to mention that Microsoft is releasing cloud versions of Series games on the Xbox One.
I know it is underpowered for enthusiasts and those of us who can afford the latest gen, but I honestly think the Xbox One / PS4 / Switch are all super good value offerings that deliver fantastic gaming experiences for a low budget.
So while I want to see gaming advance with the new generation, I’m also happy to see a future for those who can’t move forward just yet.
Voted yes, But i can understand why 3rd party publishers don't want to move on yet.. The PS4 has almost sold 120 million consoles and Xbox One has sold 50 million consoles, That's 170 million playerbase you're leaving behind and a ***** load of sales you're losing out on...
One really important thing many don't consider is the financials of game making. If you are making a game for next-gen only then your budget will need to be much smaller to get a return on investment. It's 50 million XBO install base vs 15 million XSX|S. On PlayStation that's 116 million vs 20 million. Granted early adopters are likely to buy more but it's still a large enough delta.
On the whole you won't get the same budget and scope of game on next gen only titles. This is why on PS5 for example Demon's Souls remake and Returnal are next-gen only wheras larger budget titles like Horizon, GT7 and God of War are all cross-gen [Edit, thanks Xiovanni]. If Horizon was PS5 only it would likely be a smaller game. That's important to factor into your thinking here. Yes it would be great to have more next-gen only games but do we want them to be smaller in scope and budget? It's a tough balance.
To be honest MOST games are pretty scalable and being cross gen isn't the biggest deal, the way the designers are building the games is still very last gen in concept and tools therefore it wouldn't take full advantage of the new tech anyway.
But it would be great to see some devs push the envelope in terms of design towards games that can leverage the full power of the SSD, unshackling themselves from design limitations forced by older hardware. Bye bye narrow loading corridors.
Trying to hold on to last gen not only holds back current gen but only continues to ask for technical issues to keep occurring for both gens.
Developers you need to stop being greedy!!! Let last gen go!!!
Or stop trying charge $70 for current gen!!!
I see all these people touting cloud gaming as an alternative and I just don’t see it happening. Streaming works with Musik and Movies because the sites can buffer in case of package loss or bad internet connections. You can’t do that with interactive media. That’s why these games will always have lag and compression in the BEST of cases. Worst case the game is actually unplayable.
@FraserG We'll see a clearer picture when events like Summer Game Fest happen but from what we can see right now, plenty of 3rd parties appear to be dropping XB1/PS4 versions for 2023 games so it seems like 2022 might be the last big year for last gen.
With Redfall and Starfield delayed to 2023, I could honestly see it turn out to be that Microsoft's original 2 years crossgen comment for XGS ends up true with the exception of Flight Sim which was originally announced for XB1 but got cancelled.
Just remember, Xbox One support is a huge reason why there is no campaign coop in Halo Infinite.
The mid-gen refresh is what hurts the base console.....and it being hella old. Games run fine on the xbox one x, I hear. But when the install base for the xbo/ps4 is 150m+, why would you, as a dev, purposely leave that money on the table. Especially if you aren't using the ps5/xbsx to it's full advantage? Would I like them to leave xbo/ps4 behind, sure. But do what you have to do, to get yours and the funding to make great games...so long as it isn't MTs.
Ps.
If they can implement xcloud gaming with little to no latency, either input or graphical fidelity, then keep promoting it.
@uptownsoul At some point the economics make sense to move to next gen, plus there will usually be a few loss leaders and a few studios who are determined to push the boat.
Lets also not forget AAA games used to cost 5-25 million and now often get into the hundreds of millions including marketing.
Plus this gen is almost an extension of the last in that the consoles are just like PCs with new upgraded hardware but the same basic instruction sets, this makes making cross-gen easier than it's ever been. That's never been the case before, porting games was a much larger job prior gens, whereas now it just makes sense.
Ultimately we all want to see some fully next gen games asap, myself included, I just think there are a lot of completely valid reasons why we aren't seeing that yet.
I have an Xbox One and no plans to get a Series anytime soon, so I'm happy to have the Xbox One supported 😂
Microsoft's poor game delivery and DRM policy have me contemplating PS5 as my next secondary console.
I think it's great the owners of the older console aren't being left behind with new releases. Not everyone can afford to get a Series X or S, or are just content to carry on using their Xbox One. It's a pretty ungracious attitude to be griping on and on about Series XS games being compromised by this.
I think an exception has to be made for last gen this time around. It's only recently that Series X is becoming somewhat available in stores.
Also the fact that you can play a lot of next gen games through the cloud on your Xbox One means it could be a viable platform for a long time to come for some people.
@Leuke OK. I'm curious. How is Sony avoiding poor game delivery and DRM policy?
@GuyinPA75 I'm not sure, that's why I haven't bought a PS5 yet 😂
@Leuke PS has had more exclusives released more quickly, but in terms of DRM and digital distribution/management, they're pretty much always more Nintendo-like while XB is more PC-like.
@NEStalgia Yeah, those exclusives are a big potential draw for me...
The big thing that concerns me with DRM I think is how the Series basically locks down without internet access... like say what you will about Nintendo and Sony being on the draconian side, at least the games work without an internet connection. Or so I understand the recent outage, anyway.
I love the cross generation compatibility that we got with the Xbox One to Series consoles. Everything about them pretty much feels the same only the Series consoles offer the latest hardware, but the software is pretty much the same. What makes it all work so well is the way games are automatically optimized for whatever console you are using. On Series X some old Xbox One titles I got are pretty much Series X enhanced games IMO with the frame rate and other enhancements, and the actual Series X and One X enhanced titles have always been impressive.
I just love the way everything feels smoothly integrated, very much like games are on PC.
It took a year and a half into the next gen for me to be able to find anon-scalped Xbox Series X. I think we need more in the wild before games go fully next gen.
I (well, my kids and me if I’m helping out) still use a behemoth Xbox One (the one that came right after Kinect was dropped, it’s so huge compared to the PS4 slim that sit beside) almost daily. I mostly play on Xbox Series X and PS5, but other than load times and the drop in graphics etc I think both last gen consoles still work quite well. I vastly prefer Series X over my other consoles though. My Switch hasn’t been hooked up to the TV for a couple of months now… it’s almost unused since Metroid Dread :S
From my perspective code is way easier now than a decade ago… scalability is well rooted in almost every aspect and there should be no problem whatsoever to keep publishing games that work across generations. Sure, loading a few levels simultaneously and switching between them in a split second may require better hardware but even that can be solved by good scalability. I mean, even Sony aims for half of their 1st party to be released multi platform (Windows counts!)… Flexibility is good. Measuring against a minimum viable product is a good way to bash out kinks that bog stuff down, so I’m all for keeping the old dogs around for a while… I’d set the deadline around the time when the next gen shows up.
@Leuke I think most of the issue with the outage was people that hadnt set their console as home console. I'm not positive though there weren't some that had that had issues though. Ps has the same setup but the difference may be that xb defaults to relying on sign in if it's not set as home while ps assumes it's home. But the other difference might be when I set up my PS5 it automatically assigned itself as my home console. Switch and Xbox I had to set it manually as my older console retained home status by default.
I may be off on that though, there seemed to be confusion on general with that outage. Xb can have os quirks at times... It's Windows 11 after all...
Xbox One games can look amazing. As long as those can be made to run at 60fps on the new consoles then I'm ok with it.
@NEStalgia Alrighty, thanks for the info!
I think a big reason why 3rd party is still developing for for Xbox one is due to the pandemic. With Xbox and PlayStation having issues getting their systems out, I can see why companies are sticking with the older systems. There’s a lot more of those out there, so there’s a lot more money to be made on older systems because of that.
Another reason, and I see this with my kids, they are not in any hurry to upgrade to a new system. I personally have the Series X, but my kids are sticking with their Xbox Ones. I can’t speak for all, but I find my kids playing mostly “free to play” style games. There’s no desire to move on, 3rd party is not going to move on yet either. If games like Fortnight were to end Xbox One and PS4 support, then you’d see kids wanting to upgrade. We’d see more 3rd parties moving on as well.
My base broken disk drive xbox one and I are doing a-ok.
@themightyant What about all the HDDs in PCs?
I don't think the SSD is ever going to change game design, for anything other than a handful of titles.
@Richnj Most developer will put SSD as a recommend/minimum spec. If a PC gamer decided to run the game on an HDD and has issue. Then the gamer is at fault, and the developer can blame the person's PC.
Anyway, who is honest still using an HDD? m.2 nvme drives are dirt cheap at this point, and even PCIe gen 4 stuff will probably extremely more mainstream by the end of the year due to PCIe Gen 5 stuff releasing on the market.
If someone is still using a HDD. Then they probably not some one who buys the latest games, and probably stick to older stuff.
@Kooky_Daisuke they also develop for series S & pc so they're never going to 'push the hardware' of the series X
@Floki recommended isn't the same as minimum. Recommended means that a HDD is still a viable way to run the game.
Cyberpunk is SSD recommended but not in the minimum section. Elden Ring doesn't state. Wonderlands doesn't state. Halo Infinite doesn't state. The closest I found was Ghostwire that says "SSD recommended" in the minimum requirement section. Is Ghostwire a truly next gen game design, or is just graphically heavy?
What latest games actually have SSD as minimum?, and are their designs next gen?
And it doesn't matter if "someone is still using a HDD. Then they probably not some one who buys the latest games". There isn't a set hardware standard on PC, and any dev that will release on PC (which now includes pretty much every 1st party XBox and PS studio), will have to consider these variables.
I'm glad there are still games for Xbox One. My X1X is not that old and I don't have spare cash to throw at a new console...plus it's fugly!
It's a gradual switch across to Series X/S.
The pandemic has slowed the transition with development times and stock shortages.
However, It's happening, I think the road map for Xbox One will be roughly like this from now on:
2022 (from now)
Majority of games released on both gens with odd the Series X/S exclusive.
2023
Many Series X/S exclusive games released but still a solid amount of Xbox One versions of games also released on established Series games but seriously taping off near 2023 end to a trickle.
2024
Very few Xbox One games released bar Sports titles/Movie tie ins etc. (5 -10 all year)
2025
Xbox One gets It's last Fifa equivalent and a Just Dance Game 🤣 (2 - 3 games all year)
What will keep Xbox One more relevant regardless is the Cloud option.
Providing you have relatively good Internet many next gen only games will work fine on Xbox One.
This could mean it's feisably possible to go through the whole of next gen or current gen on a base Xbox One just fine, especially if you are only a very casual gamer...
@Xiovanni Ah you're right not sure why I put Rachet in that column. It's a BEAUTIFUL game that does utilise some of the power of next-gen. I've fixed it.
But the point still stands. They can have the occasional loss leader to tempt people to upgrade, but you just can't make all your games next gen at the same scope and expect to see a return on investment. Either you make them for a smaller budget or you make them cross-gen, it's simple finances.
The two big things that are different this gen is
1) they use the same basic platform as last gen, so porting to last gen is easy, consoles are effectively PC's nowadays and just get a hardware upgrade.
2) AAA Games are proportionality so much more expensive to make.
Both of these make cross-gen the sensible choice in most cases. Which I admit is disappointing, but the reality. The fact that pandemic, war and more has impacted supply and will extend this cross-gen period is also a bummer, but those are far bigger things than our entertainment.
@Floki I still have an HDD in my PC... three in fact. Though I do also have an older SATA SSD this is just a small boot drive (128GB) and not large enough for my games after OS + programs.
The reality is MOST gamers don't have the newest hardware, that is only a small niche of hardcore gamers. Look at the Steam hardware survey (which doesn't do HDD vs SSD btw) the most popular cards are 1060, 1050 Ti (6 years old GPUs) as well as 1650, 1050, 2060 etc. These are all mid to lower end cards and all years old.
The last PC hardware study I saw still had hard disk drives as the most popular boot drive followed closely by SATA SSD and then a long way behind NVME. But even if those faster drives have overtaken as BOOT drive doesn't mean people necessarily use them as gaming drives as they are usually much smaller, many still have a secondary HHD to store larger files like games.
I agree that a few games now list SSD as recommended but as @Richnj pointed out that isn't the same as minimum, these games are all designed and work with slow HDD's. Albeit some with a few occasional hiccups and streaming issues.
@Richnj I agree than for now PC's are holding back developers from embracing faster drives, especially NVME, but i'm hopeful that a few will be bolder in future. Ultimately it's EXACTLY the same issue as cross-gen titles, it just doesn't make sense in MOST cases to reduce the size of your player base by making hardware restrictions. A shame we won't see more games pushing the envelope for a while but it makes financial sense.
@Richnj I don't know anyone who games on a PC that's still using a HDD as their primary storage device. SSDs are dirt cheap these days and even the newer m.2 drives are reasonably priced. The only reason to own a HDD at this point in time is if you have a lot of high resolution photos, videos, music etc.
Also listing Cyberpunk as an example wasn't the smartest thing to do, that game runs HORRIBLY on a HDD, it's one of the reasons the last gen versions were so poor. Modern games can't stream in data fast enough from a mechanical hard drive.
@themightyant SSDs are much smaller than HDDs? This isn't 2011 my dude, SSDs are dirt cheap in 2022. My current PC doesn't have any HDDs at all, I have two m.2 NvMe drives and a pretty fast SATA SSD. And the biggest out of all of those is my secondary m.2 drive.
Old hardware is holding back development of Series X/S games imo, I got my Series X back in January and so far the lack of Series exclusives and deluge of cross gen games is less than ideal. Hopefully we get some good news at the Xbox Showcase next month.
@themightyant First, considering the fact that I've seen you on this site, and it sister site tells me. You're not primarily a PC gamer, and have other platforms. So if a game doesn't play "right" to you. You'll just play the game on another platform. So it not super surprising you still have HDD in your PC.
Second, Steam hardware survey is a stupid tool to gage anything. It doesn't take in account people who turned down the survey or the thousands of "gaming" PC in internet Cafe that had steam installed.
But yes, having the newest hardware is niche, but playing the latest AAA gaming on PC is niche as well. Most people are play F2P, indies, and games that can run on $100 laptops from Walmart. So of course the overwhelming majority of Steam players are gonna have low end hardware. You only need a 1060 to play Steam top 10 games.
There is probably a massive overlap of gamer with the latest hardware playing the latest games.
Most releases these days are third-party minor releases so it doesn't surprise me that they're Xbox One games because of the backwards compatibility. New games should be at least optimised for X/S and most big games are, e.g. Guardians of the Galaxy. All of this is normal and next big Ubisoft/Capcom/Activision/Square Enix games will be current-gen only, e.g. Assassin's Creed, Resident Evil, Call of Duty, Final Fantasy.
@Richnj I'm not talking about the current set of games on the market. I'm talking future games. Also developers aren't obligated to consider the variables of people using HDD. Developers can set whatever target they want. If they want the game to only run on intel... they can do that. That is literally why they put of spec sheets for games.
Plus they didn't take in that consideration when they started pushing out DX12 only games knowing full well 10 series cards had poor support for the API.
They’re not going to leave the ps4 any time soon…Sonys not dropping ps4 support any time soon so why would 3rd parties?
Xbox though I can see being sooner…and I’m sure will result in some backlash when it does regardless of most of us here ready to move on. Hopefully MS will get the message across of streaming well enough to make sure people know there’s plenty of options there…I mean even at this point you’d expect the performance of streaming to be better than what they’d get out of cross gen games on Xbox one for most.
@Banjo- there is no way that next years cod is next gen only…even if ms does own it. If it’s hitting PlayStation (which they said it would) it’s hitting ps4 without a doubt in my mind. If they’re willing to leave ps4 money behind then they may as well have it as a gamepass exclusive
Microsoft can continue to support the Xbox One via game streaming. I can play Fortnite on a ping between 0-10 on my WiFi in a web browser and other games with no perceptible lag.
@Floki I'm not primarily a PC gamer anymore, never said I was... though I once was a long time ago and I still play on my PC and ALL platforms. I also agree the steam survey is skewed, though if it's skewed in any direction it's more likely to be in the direction of hardcore gamers keen to boast about their rigs.
Regardless the point still stands that most gamers don't have the newest hardware, or fast NVME drives, there are GDC and other talks from developers who have tools in their games to report back on hardware configurations confirming this, the data the industry uses isn't just from opt-in Steam hardware, or other gaming, surveys.
If the majority of gamers DID have fast drives don't you think developers would have tapped into that by now? They are the ones most hamstrung by this and the ones that want to move forward the most, but they can't yet because the larger market doesn't have the hardware yet. It's not rocket science.
@Acurisur You know what I meant size v cost. E.g. Right now today on Amazon:
I wouldn't call £130 - £200 "dirt cheap" for 2TB of storage, it's literally 2.5x to 3.75x the cost.
Judging by the last generation, I'm guessing most publishers and developers treat the first 2 years of a new generation as the cross-gen period, so any games projected to release after that point will probably cut ties with the older machines. It ultimately comes down to when games entered development and when they're due for release. For instance, I can't imagine many games which began production around 2019 are targeting last-gen machines.
@themightyant So there was really no reason for you tell me what you had in your system.
Steam Survey is no place to boost about specs. That what reddit is for. Lmao. So no, it not gonna be skewed heavily towards hard-core gamers.
"If the majority of gamers DID have fast drives don't you think developers would have tapped into that by now? They are the ones most hamstrung by this and the ones that want to move forward the most, but they can't yet because the larger market doesn't have the hardware yet. It's not rocket science."
The larger market being consoles, not budget PCs. How games are designed and developed are hamstrung by consoles due to console players being the biggest spenders.
Like I said, AAA gaming on PC is niche. Gone are the 80, 90, and early 2000 where PC games actually pushed the hardware. Big budget game development is dead on PC. Any developer known for pushing hardware are either console developers, closed, or shadows of their former self. Now it nothing but indies and MMO.
The only time developers taps into that hardware is when there a new generation of console that support it, or a stronger sku.
The extremely fast storage space in PC will only now be used cause of a console base API.
@Richnj most sensible comment so far
@PhhhCough my One X ran as good as the Series S, once i did the SSD upgrade to the HDD... its only really missing ray tracing dolby vision, 120hz for 4k, There is a reason why MS stop selling the One X before the Launch of the Series S mainly it more powerful then the S in the graphic department... in most games the One X holds better framerates and at a high res then the Series S.... i have a series X on my LG C1 and the One X is on my Sony 1080p tv now the series S i returned as it was a waste of space for me as the One X did the same thing but better(has a drive and plays better on a 1080p tv and can do 120hz on the 1080p tv)
Show Comments
Leave A Comment
Hold on there, you need to login to post a comment...