Home Gaming Developers are “starting to truly harness the power” of the current consoles

Developers are “starting to truly harness the power” of the current consoles

1 min read
50

POWAH

This generation of consoles has surprised everyone. Both the PlayStation 4 and the Xbox One are outpacing their predecessors at the same point in their respective lifecycles, with the PS4 especially leading the charge. What makes it surprising is that many in the industry had pegged the Xbox 360 and the PS3 as the end of consoles as we know them – and that this new generation wouldn’t do all that well.

“Clearly, consoles have sold faster than everyone expected. We’re ahead of the previous cycle in terms of the pace. We’re on track to see, industry-wide, about 50-51 million units by calendar year end. And typically, most of the consoles are sold in the last quarter of the year because a lot of it is around gift-giving,” EA’s CFO Blake Jorgensen said at the UBS Global Tech Conference.

One of the problems with the consoles though, is their relatively weak specifications. They’re built on familiar X86 architecture, packing in the sorts of components you’d now find in mid-to-low-range gaming laptops. Thankfully, thanks to low-level hardware access and better optimisation, consoles games still look pretty good. And according to Jorgensen, they’re set to look even better. Developers, he says, are now getting to grips with the consoles and how they work.

“The power of the new consoles is fantastic. I think software makers are just now starting to truly harness the power. The first year, you had people testing and pushing, but now I think you’re starting to see, particularly this fall and winter, a lot really exciting pieces of software in the industry that are taking the processing power of the console,” Jorgensen said.

Jorgensen cites Star Wars Battlefront as an example of how games are pushing the consoles – and in some ways he’s right. Yes, it’s true that certain resolution concessions were made to keep Battlefront running at 60fps, but it still looks pretty darned amazing. It’s a beautiful game, even if it is shallower than Darryn’s gene pool.

Last Updated: November 18, 2015

50 Comments

  1. Grand Admiral Chief SpaceNinja

    November 18, 2015 at 10:33

    Hehehe, dat header

    Reply

    • Hammersteyn

      November 18, 2015 at 10:34

      dat gene pool

      Reply

  2. Hammersteyn

    November 18, 2015 at 10:34

    • Grand Admiral Chief SpaceNinja

      November 18, 2015 at 10:42

      Sad thing is, I know people like this

      Reply

      • Hammersteyn

        November 18, 2015 at 10:45

        Oscar?

        Reply

        • Alien Emperor Trevor

          November 18, 2015 at 11:15

          Technically his mom wouldn’t be able to do that. :/

          Reply

          • Dutch Matrix

            November 18, 2015 at 11:30

            She should have drowned him. Whoops! That just slipped out. Sorry.

    • Nikola

      November 18, 2015 at 11:31

      LOL again with the GiF’s where do u locate all these things hahahah!

      Reply

  3. PoisonedBelial

    November 18, 2015 at 10:35

    +50,000,000 points for that header.

    Reply

  4. Alien Emperor Trevor

    November 18, 2015 at 10:35

    They’re consoles, not Castle MF Greyskull.

    Reply

    • Hammersteyn

      November 18, 2015 at 10:36

      The hardware doesn’t cost as much either.

      Reply

      • Alien Emperor Trevor

        November 18, 2015 at 10:41

        I don’t know. I’m pretty sure the Castle Greyskull my mate had didn’t cost as much as a console, even with inflation.

        Reply

        • Hammersteyn

          November 18, 2015 at 10:44

          • Ir0nseraph

            November 18, 2015 at 10:45

            XD

          • Hammersteyn

            November 18, 2015 at 10:46

            Is it wrong to want to buy it….

          • Ir0nseraph

            November 18, 2015 at 11:10

            No not really

          • Alien Emperor Trevor

            November 18, 2015 at 10:47

            FUCKING HELL. Thank god I don’t have kids. “R6k? Here’s a tennis ball and a stick, go play outside.”

          • Hammersteyn

            November 18, 2015 at 10:50

            Tennis ball? Too expensive. Use a rock

          • Grand Admiral Chief SpaceNinja

            November 18, 2015 at 10:52

            You never played dodge the rock as a kid?

            It is the reason my AGI is 7

          • Hammersteyn

            November 18, 2015 at 10:56

            And the reason my grammar is 2

          • RinceThis

            November 18, 2015 at 10:57

            😉

          • Grand Admiral Chief SpaceNinja

            November 18, 2015 at 10:58

            So grammar is proportionate to AGI.

            Interesting.

            Would you be prepared to participate in some….tests….you know, for SCIENCE!

          • Hammersteyn

            November 18, 2015 at 10:59

            Sure, my endurance is 11/10. Just ask the guy down at the pub

          • Grand Admiral Chief SpaceNinja

            November 18, 2015 at 11:01

            Good.

            [hands ProfSilverButt a device]

            Hold this

          • RinceThis

            November 18, 2015 at 11:05

            I can vouch for this. And his strength is 15/10. You don’t need grammar when you can HAMMER your point home!

          • Hammersteyn

            November 18, 2015 at 11:33

            Hahahahaha

        • RinceThis

          November 18, 2015 at 10:56

          Is he on your friends list? tehehe

          Reply

          • Hammersteyn

            November 18, 2015 at 10:57

            I bet they still have play dates

          • RinceThis

            November 18, 2015 at 11:02

            lol

          • Alien Emperor Trevor

            November 18, 2015 at 11:00

          • RinceThis

            November 18, 2015 at 11:03

            So a no then? Hehe See you this Sat?

          • Alien Emperor Trevor

            November 18, 2015 at 11:04

            I’ll have to check my Saturday list for people.

          • RinceThis

            November 18, 2015 at 11:08

            I thought that was a shopping list? 0_O

          • Alien Emperor Trevor

            November 18, 2015 at 11:12

            ….

          • RinceThis

            November 18, 2015 at 12:16

            hahahah exactly what I was thinking 😉

  5. fred

    November 18, 2015 at 10:45

    must say , they have performed a small miracle to make star wars look so good and still run at 60fps on consoles.

    Reply

    • Murshid Raven

      November 18, 2015 at 13:04

      That is more the work of the developers optimising the game

      Reply

  6. RinceThis

    November 18, 2015 at 10:57

    As long as there is a good story I am happy.

    Reply

  7. HairyEwok

    November 18, 2015 at 11:12

    We’re harnessing the true power of consoles….. in 900p and 720p XD

    Reply

    • Alien Emperor Trevor

      November 18, 2015 at 11:14

      Yeah, we all know you’re harnessing the true power of something when you have to make concessions to what you initially said would be the true power of said thing.

      Reply

      • HairyEwok

        November 18, 2015 at 11:24

        I’d have to say the anti aliasing they did to Battlefront is impressive, but now all the other developers will hop on that and use it saying “we run the game on 720p but look we took away the jaggies”

        Reply

    • oVg

      November 18, 2015 at 11:39

      Assassins Creed Syndicate. Why does Black Flag feel better to play? I dont get it.

      Reply

  8. Dutch Matrix

    November 18, 2015 at 11:27

    Hey! I met Terry Crews once. WEll, at least I saw him. And yelled “Hey! IT’s Terry Crews!” He waved politely. THen did this weird almost nonchalant quick mosey out of there…

    Reply

    • Gardos

      November 18, 2015 at 11:50

      He’s a very humble man. Although he’s kind of like two men. A humble bundle one might say…

      Reply

  9. Nikola

    November 18, 2015 at 11:30

    I guess they could have made the new consoles a bit more powerful lord knows Xbox One needs it!

    Reply

    • oVg

      November 18, 2015 at 12:31

      All anybody cared about was the jump from 512mb to 8gigs of RAM. What they did not know is that the extra 7 gigs of RAM was going to be used for social media and not the games.

      Reply

      • Nikola

        November 18, 2015 at 12:35

        Hahaha very true!! Stupid stuff when all we wanted is to play games!

        Reply

  10. oVg

    November 18, 2015 at 11:36

    WHERE?

    Like the last gen, all those promises for 60fps/1080p are all lies.

    I would like to see a list of games that do meet Next Gen standards.

    This year had 2 games. MGSV and Project Cars. Re-makes excluded due to the low poly count.

    Reply

    • Alien Emperor Trevor

      November 18, 2015 at 12:36

      It’s not lies, it’s marketing.

      Reply

  11. Aries

    November 18, 2015 at 12:07

    Haha, this is funny they can barely hit 1080p/60fps

    Reply

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