[News] Xbox One And PS4 Similar In Construct, Makes Game Developing Easier

(This was supposed to be published Thursday but I was busy. So this is today’s article, sorry for inconsistencies. Friggin’ D3:RoS review took forever so I’m trying to get back on track.)

So as we all know the Xbox One and PS4 are next gen gaming systems. However I myself would not have expected them to assist developers in making games, more like hinder them. Just because it’s like ‘Oh, now we have to up our systems and make more graphically detailed games because that’s what the masses want’ or some junk like that.

However, to Massive Entertainment’s Managing Director, David Poldfeldt, this isn’t true one bit. He believes a lot more things will be easier with the Xbox One’s systems, along with the PS4′s. (Just an FYI this is an Xbox One news article, so deal with the PS4 here. God.) The PS4 and the Xbox One apparently share the same specs mostly along with build of the system, which will make developing for both platforms much easier. The last gen offered two completely separate types of systems which made developing a pain in the ass for developers.

Poldfeldt said that it excites him, the fact that the two consoles are so similar. He also mentioned in the previous gen, they spent so much time having to develop for 2 completely separate consoles to get the same thing on both platforms when they could have spent that time obviously working on the game, roughly 25% of the ‘game dev time’ was spent developing for each other console. Also it means that they’re roughly similar to PC too apparently, so that’s good to hear. Now they should have 20-25% more time to put into games’ development, which is always nice.

Honestly, publishers are a bitch in my opinion. Yes, you have to set a release date. You need hype, publicity, and the publisher can offer that. However, in my opinion, you really, really need to say, hey, it’ll be finished when it’s goddamn finished, and just work on the game and let the publisher do its thing with other games that are releasing. I feel like publishers put too much pressure on game developers to rush games out and create bad quality games (I’m looking at you, EA. Activision and Epic Games, and other companies being publishers, not so much. They understand, I think anyway.) and then BAM, zero-day patches for everybody. And no one likes a buggy game upon release. Stop pressuring game developers in general and start supporting them like you’re supposed to be doing. Though I get everyone needs a bit of pressure every once in awhile, but that’s why you have a job. If you didn’t have a job I think you’d be under a lot more pressure. I should know, right now…

Anyway, back to the main topic of easier game developing. At this point since the systems are so similar, customers will expect higher quality games because of additional time being put into creating these games. David believes again, this will help to get things done faster and more effectively, again, creating better quality games for all of us. However, of course, there is the technical side of things. Perhaps something in the game completely bugs out and takes the team an additional month to fix. Rare, but it does probably happen, or something of the like in any case. Or any bad social situation with the team or HR problems that need to be resolved. THQ’s closing comes to mind for me, to be honest. Not making enough revenue is always an issue too, to pay people and to keep dev centers up. At least on the technology part there’s a lot less work to be doing, so Poldfeldt says.

The Division looks like it’s shaping up to be a great game, and from this information, they should have more time to put into it for Xbox One gaming, PC gaming, and PS4 gaming, and I can’t wait to play it.

The Division is based off of one of Tom Clancy’s books, one I’ll be reading quite soon before the release of the game. Tom Clancy is a fantastic writer, and Massive Entertainment has some talented game developers, so we’ll see where that goes.

Prepurchase The Division right here:

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