Cyberpunk 2077 Has Everyone Praising Xbox Smart Delivery Again

@Medic_Alert Kind of to be expected since Sony initially didn't even plan for PS4 games to be playable on PS5. This whole system on PlayStation just feels rushed and not well thought out.

To be honest I prefer having the option to download the last gen version. Sometimes the last gen version is better (e.g. Forza Horizon 4) and sometimes the benefits of the current gen version are small enough that's I'd rather have the option to use an external HDD to play.

@themightyant Didn't know that. Then this makes this even worse and shows how incompetent Sony is.

I think it’s far better to have the choice of versions. With space being a premium having last gen versions for some games on external drive is brilliant. Much better than being forced to have a version and the physical disks have issues offline. I own a ps5 and XSX and have had zero issues with ps5 system. It’s a few mins and a few clicks to Copy save data and chose ps5/ps4 version and you get the power to decide. Lots of people amused by this seem to be Xbox only people that haven’t used both systems and are just reading people on stupid street having issues relishing the fake console wars. Honestly you picked Xbox only well done. Don’t hate on another plastic box.

It’s really great. I had no issues updating it for the Series X during the week. Then I go over to PS and see the article saying there are issues on that side again 🤣

@Medic_Alert I play a lot of driving and sports games and with storage as a premium I’d rather have the option to have more games installed than less. You are kidding yourself if you think the leap for PS4 pro to ps5 for many games is massive. Same with xb1x and XSX and I’d wager on some blind tests not knowing which was which you’d struggle to tell them apart

I am really thankful that MS have implemented Smart Delivery - the fact that you always get the 'best' version optimised and/or released for your hardware is really awesome. That means I can jump from say my XB1X version in the Bedroom, to the Series X version in the Lounge and keep my progress. Even jump onto a PC and get the PC version and my Progress/Save is there too.

The advantages far outweigh any 'negatives'....

Smart Delivery and Quick Resume are both excellent. Ps5 lacks these key features as an owner of both. Its been a mess at times just trying to upgrade to a ps5 version

@Grumblevolcano what happened with Horizon 4?

@BartoxTharglod "Anyway, Smart Delivery is neat but it's not likely to matter in a few years."

If the predictions I've been making for the last few years come true, then you will be very wrong.

So, here I go again.

MS want Xbox to be the game version of windows, and the Series will be their Surface Pros. This has already partly happened. And the reason they have invested so much in to their smart delivery, and were intent on doing cross gen games, is because we won't see an XBox Series X 2 in 7 years, we will see an XBox Series 2 X in like 4 years. It will be incremental upgrades in much the same way you see in phones, and older hardware will slowly drop off support as you see in the PC/mobile markets.

This will be great for MS and the customer because they don't have to place all their eggs in to a basket that could be broken. If you don't upgrade, you are still a potential customer of that market.

So, smart delivery is going to be crucial to ensuring that the xbox community gets the right game on their system, regardless of whether they are playing on an Xbox One, Xbox Series 1, a Series 2, or an X, or an S, or whatever might come out as time goes on.

Sony has a great front end UI but their back end server stuff is criminally under invested. That is why I have to jump through so many more hoops on my PS5 Vs Series S.

@Xiovanni depending on the game.

It is cool that we get next gen upgrades and don't need to do anything extra to download them.

@BartoxTharglod "the general feeling I get is that I'm playing One X games but with better performance."

I more or less felt like that with the 360 to XBox One. The biggest problem for game design isn't hardware, it's time, money, and creativity. All of which are extremely limited in the modern industry.

Take Battle Royales for instance. Completely new to the 8th gen, but is more than capable of existing on 7th gen. Hell, it's on the Switch. ANd it was originally created by a small team and then stolen by Epic.

And all other genres have been refined to hell and back at this point. And when devs are tasked with millions of dollars, and hundreds of people, they'd much prefer to play it safe. And why shouldn't they?. People love buying and playing the same game every year.

Anything new from now on, will come out of the indie scene, and then adopted or bought by the big publishers after it has proven successful.

I would like the option to disable smart delivery. It's a great feature, but I don't want to keep games on internal storage that I only play occasionally. I want to be able to run games on USB storage as well.

What an interesting comments section.

Smart Delivery is more than just cross-gen. It's a single purchase that ensures that you get the best version of a game for the platform you play on. Xbox isn't a plastic box anymore, it's a gaming ecosystem.

It's clear that Sony had zero interest in an upgrade path when it designed the PS5. Backwards compatibility with PS4, yes, but the PS4 and PS5 versions are treated as entirely separate releases from a frontend perspective.

It believed in generations, right?

I realize that it's not THAT big of a deal to upgrade. Yes, it's only a few clicks away. Doesn't hide the fact that Sony made all this an afterthought. Save files aren't a seamless transition. The first few minutes of loading a transferred save file is watching your Trophy Notifications pop (unless you turn them off) as those are treated as a different set. The whole thing just feels like a half-baked scramble to "compete" with Smart Delivery.

I was quite happy to start my Series X and already have the latest version of Cyberpunk downloaded (as it was already on my internal drive) and just start the game with the upgrades applied - and all I had to do was select Continue in the game menu.

@uptownsoul The S was designed as a “weak” device. You’re acting like it’s not operating as intended. This is not a problem, it’s a feature: low cost and low performance, with the next-Gen features like quick resume, fast SSD, etc. They’ve always maintained that it was capable of good performance but nothing like the X.

@Grumblevolcano How is the previous gen version of FH4 better? It's 30fps, with lower settings, and lower resolution. The XSX version is leagues ahead, it's not even close actually.

Tbh Forza Horizon 4 is one of the games I found to be astonishingly good on the Series X, it runs at a rock solid 4k60 and looks incredible with blazing fast loading times and quick resume.

@Quaali @TryToBeHopeful @Raffles XB1 version on XB1X gives you options between performance mode and quality mode meanwhile Series X version only has 1 mode. Also some areas look better on the XB1X than the Series X.

So pretty much both versions are better in their own way such that if Microsoft didn't have Smart Delivery but rather allowed you to install whichever version you wanted, the best version would've likely been playing the XB1 version with the XB1X enhancements on the Series X via backwards compatibility.

Been a PS guy my whole life, and finally bought my first Xbox (XSX). Tbh, I'm loving both of these generations of consoles. But it's so interesting to me how much the PS5 gets mentioned in these articles and comments section on an Xbox site when the reverse doesn't happen quite as often on PS sites. It's like Xbox fans keep having to reaffirm that Xbox is superior to PS. Just play what you want, and get over it.

It's definitely confusing, if you're a casual ps user. But if not, it's just convoluted.

Well it was a buzzword until Sony staunchly stood their ground in the camp of “next gen games cost $70. Come fight me”
Now it’s a good chunk of the reason I bought an Xbox Series X after I already own a PS5. All cross platform games will be Xbox purchases.

@SaltyG Really??? I think if you take a look at Push Square, you'll find plenty of people are talking about Xbox.

Game Pass, Acquisitions, Smart Delivery, MLB The Show. There are pretty much daily debates from insecure people on why Xbox is rubbish and PS5 is the greatest thing ever.

Any chance of third person view

Love to know where Tom Henderson got his information for needing to transfer the save, booted up the PS5 version, low and behold it had the continue option without having to do a thing apart from download it which took two things to do on the app on my phone which was no hassle to me in the first place.

@Grumblevolcano do you have any examples of areas that are better on the OneX? To my eyes, the SeriesX version is basically maxed out at 4k60. It appears to be on ultra settings, and running at a rock solid 4k60.

IE it doesn't need a mode switch, as it's essentially quality mode but at twice the framerate.

You can prefer Nintendo games. You can prefer Sony games. You can prefer Xbox games. Objectively, Series X is the best console in every sense!

Your statement is quite misleading. The quality mode of Forza Horizon 4 runs at half the frame rate on Xbox One X.

@Grumblevolcano I stand corrected, I just watched DigitalFoundry's analysis.

I'm right that it's using mostly Ultra settings at 4k60, but indeed there are some notable omissions like SSAO and driver animations running at 30fps.

It's odd because for the extremely small amount of animation there is, there's simply not reason at all why they shouldn't run at 60, on a machine the calibre of SeriesX. Absolutely bizarre. On modern GPUs and CPUs animation is not that expensive, especially considering it's literally one character.

Same with SSAO, on a 12 TFLOP GPU it shouldn't be too expensive at all, on reasonable settings. Shouldn't put a dent in the frametime tbh.

Night shadows obviously cost more, but that's actually one setting I don't care about, they look very odd actually, and kind of standout in a bad way.

But this version should absolutely have SSAO and 60fps animation, and neither one would put a dent in the framerate. FH4 is very, very well optimised. Runs at 4k120 on my laptop, and my laptop is nowhere near twice the power of a SeriesX.

Still, it does look stunning, and I really can't imagine anyone wanting to play at 30fps just for SSAO

You mean you have to press download on the playstation version ? That's absolutely unacceptable shame on you Sony !

@themightyant Since when does an x86 clock multiplier take years of planning? If by years you mean it's been around for like 20+ years, then yes, it took planning.

@uptownsoul Mighty, I was just teasing, but you, seriously, haven't you never experienced the world of PC gaming or something? Different hardware of different specs is normal. Games performing better or worse on different specs is normal. You shell out money or you don't, and it runs how it runs. A low-end rig and a mid-tier rig run games differently, and that's what MS is offering. Bashing S is no different than bashing a base PS4 for a game that runs shaky but runs great on a Pro. Like MHW. The gap is wider but the idea is the same. After I got my Pro it was painful to have to play on a base PS4. Same for going form an XSX to an S. Similar experience, just a wider gulf.

@Would_you_kindly I know. I smashed my ps5 up early after reading comments here and the replies telling me I’m doing my hobby wrong.

Shameful the way I’ve acted I should only buy one plastic box and worship it.

Just liking gaming is so uncool…. You have to like one games console producer.

Anytime I download a game on PS5 it gives me the option to choose PS4 or PS5. Not that difficult.

@BartoxTharglod 100% agree, bar a few os options which may save you a few minutes, theres precious little that makes it feel next gen at all, even loading times fail to show the ssd advantage.
I guess thats why cross play works so well, the entire eco system is designed for the lowest quality denominator, and its showing.
Mine was bought as a games pass console, mainly because that service sucks so hard on the PC, and in that regard I cant complain, its a great value proposition.
But if someone whos not a keen gamer visits and you want to show them 'next gen', its not the xbox that gets switched on...
I hope with some more AAA 3rd parties and maybe some 1st parties early next year we will really see what the hardware can do. Shame we dont have a demo scene like the old days! Those guys would have shown us what the series x can really do...

@AstraeaV shsssh the uncomfortable truth the Xbox only crew don’t want to admit. The Xbox system is best coz they picked Xbox.

Some of us who own all the consoles know this is a non story and the Xbox system has its own drawbacks.

As someone who has both the Series X and the PS5 and has upgraded games on both consoles, the PS5, especially before they made it easier, is a pain to upgrade. I have Cyberpunk on the Xbox, and it upgraded on its own. I didn't have to do anything, it already upgraded while the system was off.

I purchased physical copy this week. Trying to install it, nothing but issues. Wanted me put in first disc, then 2nd disc to finish install, then error code, then 1st disc, then error code, 2nd disc, error code.

Game is a joke from entry aspect it seems.

Sony clearly didn’t plan for any of this. They said it from the start, “we believe in generations.” Clearly.

Even though the ps5 version has adaptive trigger support, I still choosr to play cyberpunk on Xbox because of smart delivery.