Series S is the cheapest way to play the game by an absurd margin? Steam Deck is only about $100 more and it plays the game just fine.
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Absurd is too strong of a word, but 100$ ain't nothing. Not for everyone.
It's literally 1/3rd more expensive and thats not an insignificant amount. If your rent increased by 1/3rd tomorrow you'd probably be pissed and if you had a 33.33 percent chance of getting struck by lightning by stepping outside tomorrow you'd probably stay indoors that day.
$100, plus the cost of the mandatory microSD or SSD you'll need to add to even install the game on Deck, plus the $50 discount for the Series S if you have a modicum of patience. The difference is more like $175-200, and last year the Series S was $100 off for Black Friday. Assuming the game is targeting holiday 2023 for Xbox, you could potentially grab the Series S + BG3 for under $300.
Asking out of genuine ignorance here: is there a setup that allows a 100+ GB game to be played on the 64GB Steam Deck?
You can plug in an SD card and install it there, it will have longer load times but shouldn't affect gameplay much otherwise.
Edit: You can also expand the USB slots and get an external SSD
128GB micro SD cards are like $12. 512GB is maybe 40$. Can get a 1TB SD card for $100 but I think the 512 is a good middle ground between price and storage.
USB-C SSD:
https://www.kingston.com/en/ssd/xs2000-portable-usb-c-solid-state-drive
I set up a 2TB Win 11 install.
Not currently, no. They burned enough dev cycles trying to get split screen co-op on the S that now BOTH the S and X versions are delayed, which I guess is better than "not happening at all."
The S has every right to exist, but as soon as it starts interfering with Series X development (which has been for a while now), it's time for it to go.
Microsoft needs to cut it loose like the boat anchor it is and just release a discless Series X and call it good.
Wait until you hear about all of the dev cycles spent getting games on the Switch.
In most cases, Nintendo platforms are ignored by 3rd parties. Non-Nintendo games rarely sell well there:
https://www.vgchartz.com/article/449937/the-switchs-growing-third-party-problem/
My cheap mainstream laptop runs the game on mid settings just fine. It cost ~500 USD.
Am I misreading your comment? You're saying Series S is not the cheapest because Steam Deck is more expensive? Did you have a typo? Am I suffering CO poisoning?
AAA PC exclusive titles also have the right to exists.
I miss playing good first person shooters...
I don't blame the lack of good shooters on consoles. Consoles never interfered with that before. I blame the popularity of Battle Royale. Everything is a fucking BR now. And it's not like they just took the gameplay style; they also took the jank.
All the best new shooters are indy developed boomer shooters with retro aesthetics. And I'm getting kinda over that, too. The genre needs some new ideas.
By an absurd margin? Motherfucker the steam deck is $400. If you buy a series s over a deck you're a fool.
The Series S is very frequently on sale for $50 off, sometimes more, and often comes with a bundled controller or game.
The Deck is only playable in Act 1. The frame rate in other acts struggles to reach 20 FPS, even on low settings. Also, the $400 deck you're referencing cannot even install the game unless you buy an accompanying microSD (which I can't imagine provides a good BG3 experience) or an SSD which you then crack open the steam deck to install (which will be too intimidating to most casual, non-tech people).
$450+ is a more accurate price point for playing BG3 on Steam Deck; 50% more than the Xbox MSRP, which is significantly discounted every few weeks. The Xbox will also offer a much more convenient experience to those who want to play the game on their TVs, and the game will look nicer on that hardware.
The Deck is an awesome little device, but you're overselling it here, and ignoring a lot of nuance.
I played the entire game on the steam deck AMA. I found it to be acceptable in act 3. I didn't check the fps but it felt like 30-40
I mean it's definitely not a great experience on the steam deck. I would imagine even the Series S can run the game better than the Deck can. Especially at 1080p since the deck only has an 800p screen. (Yes you can dock it but the experience will be even worse than the already reportedly poor visuals on the 800p screen)
If that report about the Series S losing split screen is true that seems like a pretty good compromise while also allowing a decent quality single player experience for Series S owners.
It is a great experience, I do not know where this sentiment keeps coming from.
How far are you in the game? It gets worse the further you get in the game.
The steam deck is about half as powerful as the Series S. If you don't want mobile gaming, there's zero reason to buy the steam deck over the Series S.
The steam library, full Linux operating system, and emulation of current gen Nintendo games is far from zero reason.
And if a person doesn't care about the steam library, linux operating system or emulation? If they just want to play BG3 and other modern games on their couch, running natively on their machine in a convenient, no-fuss manner? Will you admit that, for that person, the Steam Deck is a terrible option and they'd be far better served, both financially and visually, by buying an Xbox Series S, even at MSRP?
I would probably save up for the seriesX or PS5. If the S is already getting iffy here, what content are they gonna take out in future games? Why take that chance instead of saving for a system that's actually convenient? I'd say avoid the series S.
Sure, the Steam Deck is cool, but a Series S can actually be bought in most of the world. Last I checked, Valve only sells it in less than 20 countries
Article is well written, and I agree with most of it actually.
Microsoft did the right thing by softening their stance on system parity. Insisting on it would have hurt the Xbox further along the line, but now devs know they can still release on Xbox if they can’t get one or two features to run on the S.
It's already been hurting them a lot it sounds like. I don't think Baldur's Gate is the first game to not release on Xbox because they couldn't achieve system parity with the S. If they've really softened on it, then that's a good idea. Better late than never.
I didn't know it wasn't on Xbox, that's GOTTA be hurtin em. I'm sure they'll learn from this and make whatever exceptions need to be made far earlier next time.
Also while it's neat that they made the game as pretty as they did, this is at the end of the day an isometric turn based crpg. It shouldnt be that hard to scale down.
It's not exactly isometric considering you can tilt and zoom the camera and get it all the way down to over the shoulder adventure style, allowing you to see off into those beautiful vistas. It has some performance issues even on PC in some places like the mountains and the namesake city.
Just gotta change some settings and it's perfectly playable throughout the game.