The Xbox Series X Shortage Is Even Affecting Halo Infinite Esports

I'm glad I was able to secure a pre-order for Day 1 Series X when they first went live. I'm glad that Xbox still allows for LAN parties but not interested at all in 'eSports' regardless of the Game so couldn't care less about the Halo event...

Why don't they just use the series S instead?

The online tournaments were really great to watch with some very close games and some crazy plays. Really looking forward to this weekend. I am hoping optic win

They should use Xbox Cloud. It'd be a good promotion if it was good enough to run a tournament.

@Carck If they all used one then it'd be a level playing field.

The series S runs at a smooth 120fps. Even smoother than the Series X.

Managed to secure one last night on Shopto. Naturally didn't take long to sell out, but very glad I got one!

@Carck It 100% does. I'm running it right now. Digital foundry confirmed it is a 120 frames lock, smoother than the series X version.

@Carck That's for campaign only. Check their multiplayer tech-review. It's buttery smooth 120fps on multiplayer. Unless they're planning a campaign speedrun, Series S is the best option for competitive play.

@PhileasFragg The trouble with the cloud from a competitive tournament perspective is that they cannot guarantee a consistent and level playing field.

That's not necessarily MS's fault either because they cannot control the connection speeds, the 'flow' of data between server and players etc.

That's why these events are 'offline' and LAN based (or at least a closed and controlled system) on the same hardware with the same displays. Its a much more controlled and level playing field. Every display has the same input Lag and display size, every console is connected the same so has the same 'ping' to each other, same hardware so same performance metrics. Its consistent for every player and every match...

Consoles may provide a more level playing field over the internet than PC's - but you can give yourself some distinct advantages. Playing on a Large screen may make it easier to spot and shoot more distant targets, using a Low Latency Game Mode can give you several frames advantage to see enemies and react, where you 'live' can make a BIG difference too as your shots will take 'longer' to register if you are 'further' away from the server so can lose gunfights because their final 'hit' reached the server before your penultimate hit gets there. And that's without taking into consideration different internet speeds and traffic. So even if you all have the same Console & Display, all set up identically, playing online over the internet doesn't provide a level 'enough' playing field for professional competition.

Streaming though could provide a 'better' experience in some cases to the 'Gamer'. FH5 runs at 30fps on XB1S, but maybe with streaming,you get the Series version running at '60fps' and feels more responsive because of the higher frame rate. I don't know if that is the case.

In my 'limited' experience using the cloud to stream, I think its very impressive on how well the games feel to play. The difference in input response to me feels remarkably similar to playing locally - in fact I very quickly forgot I was streaming because it felt like I was playing Locally. However, I am also not a professional competitive gamer and exceptionally sensitive to input Lag. Yes I can feel the difference between 20-30ms difference, but anything 5ms or less is too small a difference to me.

The only drawback for me with Streaming is the drop in Visual Quality (another thing that XB1S users probably will gain as the streamed version could have higher graphical settings and better resolution) as games are running at 1080p with some compression too so compared to (up to) Native 4k with no compression artefacts on Series X, the drop off in Visual Quality has to be considered.

Its worth it to save 'hours' downloading, installing and/or moving games around to make room on the limited Storage for some games - especially if they are only a few hours long or not entirely sure if you'll enjoy the game-play to go through the hassle of moving games and/or downloading to try.

How is there an abundance of devkits sitting around amid the shortage? I would think devs would be clawing over them just as much as consumers are, if not more so.

@BAMozzy FH5 has 60fps mode on both S and X/Cloud, but it's certainly a lot less pretty.

But your premise is right. Yakuza 0 for example (and any BC game with a 1X patch) runs the lowly 900p30fps OG One version on the S, but streams the pretty 4k version at 60fps on cloud. (Until they remove Yakuza 0 from streaming next month.... )

@NEStalgia to be honest, I haven't touched my XB1's since I got the Series Xand so haven't looked at streaming but obviously you aren't going to be playing Flight Sim on XB1 without streaming.

I thought that streaming was limited to 1080p at most so even if you are playing a Series X '4k' version, by the time its reduced down to 1080p and 'compressed', its not going to look the same. However, the XB1S versions don't use the same Graphical settings and some games, the difference is very pronounced. The amount of vegetation on the ground, the amount of pop-in (not just objects, but textures, shadows/shadow maps etc too) as well as things like crowd/traffic density etc will help the streamed version look a lot better. In general, we also see a LOT of games under 1080p running locally and often with unstable, up to 30fps performance so having a 'compressed' 1080p at 60fps is going to be better than playing Locally.

On Series X, the choice to stream does come with 'drawbacks'. The visual downgrade to 1080p with some compression artefacts is a drawback when compared to playing locally on a 4k TV. The difference in input lag seems imperceptible to me on the games I have played but I can't imagine its going to be improved by streaming over local. It may only be a few ms difference, not enough to be noticeable by the majority - but still technically worse. The fact that you have a 'higher' frame rate and at least twice as many 'input' responses being processed, plus the more consistent frame rate holding a locked 60fps vs a 20-30fps local experience drastically improves the input lag and feel of a game.

My point was that in terms of what is the 'best' way to play a game on your console assuming you have the choice, on Series X, streaming is never going to beat local because the Image Quality takes a big hit and whilst input lag is 'negligibly' worse as its having to be sent to a server etc, the hit to visuals is a big drop. On XB1S, the Visual Quality could be significantly better - even with Compression artefacts because its still 'higher' resolution and higher graphical settings than native. Performance and responsiveness could be better as its running at a higher framerate so Streaming could be the 'best' way to play some games on that hardware. On XB1X, you may take a bit of a visual hit in some areas but could offer a better performance to make it feel better to play.

I know if I play on my Series X via streaming, its not going to be the best way to play that game but its trading the 'convenience' to play that way for the Visual downgrade. I wouldn't play the Great Escape for example if I had to move a game from my SSD to HDD, then wait to download and install and then 'uninstall' once I played to make the game I moved playable again. I had to Download FH5 because its a visual showcase and the drop in PQ was too much. If I was on XB1S, I'd use streaming more because you could gain on both PQ and playability/feel. It could well be the 'best' way to play games on that system - better than the 'local' experience...

Exactly, yeah, there's no reason to stream games if you're already on the X locally other than the convenience of playing GP games without having to download and install them (though that does mean I'm going to be using a ton of streaming on my X...most of us probably will, because we're going to want to test drive a boatload of GP games that don't want to keep wearing down the SSD to do! They're only good for so many writes...)

But yeah,I meant more for your example of the S (or the 1X), where I think streaming is in many cases superior. It gets complicated though. FH5 looks much better streamed than on S, even with artifacting, BUT it sounds better locally, plus it has HDR locally while it doesn't streamed. I streamed it on the 1X (no way I'm waiting for HDDs for that) but ran locally on the S despite ugliness. OTOH, BC titles with an X1 patch, unfortunately, don't use the X1 patch on the S, so the old X1 actually has more graphical grunt by far. Yakuza 0, frankly, looks like trash on the S, running the old 1S version. It's not the best experience. It actually runs much better on the 1X than the XSS... That game, (and any BC title with a 1X patch), looks idential on the 1X and the XSX. 4k, 60fps, w/ AA. And looks basically the same, streamed, albeit at 1080p, it's still with AA. On the XSS however it's 900p, jaggy with no AA, and 30fps. Not so great.

That's one thing that was really disappointing about the S (I bought the S as a backup after my XSX died while it was away for repair) was, there's an obvious, but understandable tradeoff on Series games. But for X1 BC games with an X1X patch....it's much inferior to the old console. Streaming is monumentally superior there, with the catch that you can only stream GP games, not your actual library.

There are enough eSports places for that to be an issue?