When Microsoft officially announced the Xbox Series S as a cheaper version of the Xbox Series X, it seemed like a masterpiece. Here was a way for consumers to experience next-generation gaming for $100 less than the disc-free PS5.

But alongside Microsoft's commitment that the Series X and S would support the same games, some worried that the reduced specs would cause problems for developers. And in a recent interview with WCCFtech, Oleksandr Shyshkovtsov, Chief Technical Officer of 4A Games, seemed to acknowledge this.

"RAM is not an issue for us [at the moment], but GPU performance will be a challenge for future titles," said the Metro Exodus developer.

"Dropping any of these would require more expensive calculations, which would further degrade performance. Right now we have a compromise, but we are not satisfied yet."

It is not hard to imagine that other developers are working on similar "compromises" The Xbox Series S shares some of the same features as the Series X, such as ray tracing support and super-fast load times via SSD, but there are some key bottlenecks. RAM is 10GB versus the Series X's 16GB, and GPU power is only 4 teraflops versus the $499 machine's 12 teraflops, meaning that the Series S targets 2K or 1080p while the Series X targets 4K resolution.

However, if all Xbox Series X games remain playable on the Series S (although it seems quite unfavorable for Microsoft to reverse this policy), developers may face a difficult dilemma in the future. Either significantly reduce the Series S experience, or reduce the desire for Series X titles to ensure compatibility with less expensive hardware. Neither option is particularly desirable, and the simplicity of PS5 hardware suddenly seems more appealing.

Still, in the short term, 4A Games was able to overcome this teething problem. The upgraded version of Metro Exodus to be released for this platform will support ray tracing on both systems and will run at 60 fps.

The PS5 upgrade promises the same experience as the Xbox's Series X model, and when asked about the relative capabilities of the two systems, Shyshkovtsov was diplomatic. He said, "What I can say with certainty now is that the PlayStation 5 and the Xbox Series X are now running our code at roughly the same performance and resolution."