Dragon Age PS4 & Xbone: "We've pushed them as far as we can"

Link

"Our goal is for there not to be any differences. We've already pushed as far as we can on the Gen 4 stuff, on Xbox One and PS4, so we're already at that point. When we look at how we bring it down to Gen 3, it's a challenge we know we have to solve and we're starting to think about it. But mostly it's going to be visual elements and immersion elements."

Interesting to hear this so confidently early within a gen. Do you guys still believe devs have not fully tapped into the full potential of these consoles like last-gen, or have they already been semi-maxed since they are basically using pc architecture, and not using any weird hardware like the cell? I know that these new console's parts are more "off-the-shelf" than it's predecessors, and based on x86. Maybe that's why it's so easy to bring its full power into fruition so easily. Thoughts?

There's nothing to unlock, its cheap mid/low end machines with better optimization. Wouldn't be surprised if DA3 maxed them and TW3 had to be downgraded.

Always happens. Developers first push the hardware as hard as they can with their existing engines, and claim a system is "maxed out". Then they spend the rest of the gen actually optimizing engines for the hardware and developing new tools and techniques to bring out results they "couldn't" do before.

Translation:

"We have pushed our team as hard as we can to produce the best product that our skills, tools, and understanding allow. "

Pushing it to the "limit" is relative. Naught Dog's limit != Sucker Punches limit.

yet another game that is far better on PC, yawn, this is getting boring....why can't PC ever have competition.

Because thats what they use to create games?

Yet these consoles are nothing more then mid tier Pc's at best using the same standards in hardware.

There is no real learning curve or them having to wait and or design the software to make use of the hardware, we are not talking about previous generations of fully custom made hardware,API's.

Silversix already nailed it. This time there's no untapped power or complex hardware to master, it's just shit PC hardware, practically off the shelf. I'm sure their engines will get more efficient, and they'll use tricks to make games look better as time goes on, but, don't expect any miracles this time around. These consoles are extremely underpowered.

So Dragon Age will look and run as well Killzone SF or inFAMOUS SS? It's my second most anticipated game this year, but they are full of it.

"Our goal is for there not to be any differences."

----

Why is that a goal, or is that PR to sell the game to insecure fans?

Is that really the developers goal? I would think they would try to make the best game they can for each platform.

Either way, this PR is the same tune these companies played for us last gen and the gen before that, hoping we have short memories or are new to the PR game.

They are using existing assets from the PS360 generation, we'll see how they feel after their SECOND PS4/Xbone game.

EDIT: As the owner of all the consoles I would like to see developers use the machines as far as they can as a consumer that buys their games. I know I'm not alone. I've been through this through numerous gaming generations. Clearly, they are taking a sell-as-many-copies-as-possible, don't anger the fanboys, business approach (logical from their view point). The funny thing is this PR statement puts me off buying their product because they are telling me, the consumer, they have no interest in pushing my hardware...deliberately. This PR is having the opposite effect, rather than the intended effect.

I'm not here representing business interests; I'm here representing my stake as a consumer.

Yep. Every generation it's the same song and dance from the PR Pied Pipers.

They try to lead people to follow them off the cliff, but those who learn history can prevent repeating it.

This tard nailed it. The consoles are stripped down pcs.

People who expect more are sucking paint fumes. There is nothing to unlock. This is standard hardware and they didn't push it to the limits. Sony just did a little better.

Your missing the point of the console market. The console market will never match or exceed the PC market. PC's don't have a life cycle. You constantly build and update. That is the nature of pc gaming. The consoles are just a way to sell games to people who do not want to game on pc, want something that is pre packaged and easy to use. The console is the entry level gaming device. You will never exceed the platform which you used to create games. If PC graphics are xyz, then the developers can only produce at that level they can't produce any higher. That is the answer to why PC's will never have competition.

dayuuuuuuuuuuuuum

They may have gone as far as they can for now but throughout the gen devs will find ways to extract more performance from the consoles as they have done every single gen before, this will be no different.

Theres still plenty more to come.

I don't think they'll improve as much as people think, x86/x64 CPU's have been around for years and have so many software libraries to eek out all the performance that it means a console dev can max it out very quickly.

Same story with the GPU's, programming language and tools that have years and years of code examples to sample from.

These consoles will peak very quickly.

nope.

Ouch. These consoles have already peaked and the bleeding starts. What's the bet most of the settings aren't on ultra either.

Maybe as far as their current engine will handle it.

If they optimize their engine more and games become less cpu bound, maybe it would just run better with little limitations.

I agree. I don't get this "We need to provide parity" bullshit from a few of these devs. They should be aiming to provide the best possible experience per platform.

doesn't EA make that game? LOL

It just doesnt make business sense. Creating a noticeably superior version on a console I dont own doesnt suddenly make me go out and drop hundreds of dollars on that console and that game just to play that superior version....I would simply play the inferior version on the console I own. Or pass the game up entirely. Of course devs do not want to develop a game where its fanbase are forced to play an inferior version, because many people will simply say **** you.

Not to mention the fact that these consoles are as far as hardware is concerned are very similar...the differences are negligible and probably not worth alienating one camp over the other by not creating a product of equal quality on both.

Exclusives have and always will be the time to stick two fingers up to parity.

You know... Despite their efforts.... It wouldve been better to get a PC if the graphics were so important to people.

Best answer.

Graphics are irrelevant if the game-play lacks any substance. Tides Of Numenera will provide the intellectual nourishment Bioware titles now lack.

Who cares, besides graphicwhores?

It's about games, that's where PC fails and consoles win.

Yeah, that's why PC gets 90 % of AAA games that console does + entire genres they dont+ its own exclusives like ARMA 3, Civ 5, Total War, SimCity etc.

PC wins by any metric besides having a select few games the best of which can be counted on one hand.

This^^

Wow, so a sh$t ton of indies and some mediocre non indie exclusives..I'm really impressed. LOL

Blood flow to the brain being restricted?

Your posts never cease to amaze.

Usual load of PR tosh. So this guys first time developing his game on XB1 & PS4 is going to be as good as he or his team can ever do. So they wont learn from any mistakes, bugs or issues from the development process that they couldn't improve upon should they wish to develop a sequel? They couldn't reuse some art from this game in a sequel meaning that they have more time in the development process to fine tune or add more to a game. If anybody believes this is as good as games will get on XB1 or PS4 then they are a fool.

Not a surprise, these new consoles are dumped down PCs. You will likely not see any improvement over the years, sure some games like Uncharted can look more pretty - but that is mainly because of the ingame art style.

Ever heard the saying "you cant make a silk purse out of a sows ear?"

These consoles are gimped PC's and they'll never be able to manage a full range of graphical assets in future games especially if consolites expect 1080p as standard.

They didn't use DX12, tiled resources or cloud processing. The PS4 may be tapped out but THE ONE still has plenty of muscle left for the future.

They haven't maxed them out. Devs always say this stuff every gen but then you look at early gen games vs late gen games and it's pretty obvious what the reality of the situation was.

It really concerns me when developers are starting to say they've pushed these consoles as far as they can, this early on into the generation. But I guess you can't expect too much when you really sit down and look at the specs of the consoles.

I do expect exclusives to continue looking better later on though, like last gen those early exclusives looked amazing than a few more years down the track you looked back thinking "Damn, I thought this looked impressive?". But it's a shame devs are already squeezing everything they can out of these consoles.

Cough "EA BS" cough

It's PC architecture you door knobs.. If any of you thought these systems couldn't be pushed to the limit within the first year... well you're probably an idiot..

PC architecture = easier and quicker dev time = much easier time taxing the systems..

This Gen will last 5 years before we need new systems.

Please list some of these non indie PC exclusives then.

Yep, thx for confirming. That's a small list full of mediocre games with a few exceptions.

non indie PC exclusives don't compare to console exclusives

So that's it then? This particular developer believes it can't get any better?

That was fast.

Almost every developer says similar shit nowadays.

Why should there be competition?

Well, it's the same things I've been hearing for ages.

Does not compute.