Earlier this week, Microsoft started testing ray-tracing for Minecraft on Xbox before quickly withdrawing it due to a code omission. “Previous preview builds for Insider testers inadvertently included ray tracing support prototype code for the Xbox console platform,” the Minecraft team wrote in a tweet. With early prototype code being dropped from preview builds, it means the software giant has no plans to bring RT support to consoles anytime soon.
At the launch of the Xbox Series X, Microsoft hinted that it would try to test ray tracing in the console version of Minecraft. While the code rollback made Xbox Series X/S testers happy, the official announcement didn’t completely seal the door.
The previous Minecraft Preview build available to Xbox Insiders inadvertently included prototype code for raytracing support on Xbox consoles. This early prototype code has been removed from Preview and doesn’t signal near future plans to bring raytracing support to consoles.
— Minecraft (@Minecraft) March 31, 2022
Earlier, Tom Warren of TheVerge experienced ray tracing support in a preview build. But early code that lacked optimization still required separate packages and workarounds to get it up and running.
Looking forward, Microsoft is obviously more inclined to introduce AMD’s FSR 2.0 function for the Xbox platform to improve the game frame rate on the XSX / XSS console. In addition, the Windows desktop platform also has the technical blessing of NVIDIA RTX and DLSS.