After countless rumors, yesterday Sony decided to confirm the existence of PS4 Neo, an enhanced version of the PlayStation 4 console.
Similar rumors also point out to an enhanced version of Microsoft's Xbox One, codenamed Scorpio. Since these rumors have begun circulating, pros and cons of these new consoles have been discussed within the gaming community. Some advanced the argument that the historical benefit of consoles, having a fixed hardware to deal with, would be thus erased.
As part of our exclusive interview with the developers of Dead Effect 2, already available on Steam and due for PlayStation 4 and Xbox One later this month, we asked them their opinion on the matter.
You will surely have read about the rumors concerning potentially enhanced PlayStation 4 and Xbox One consoles. As a developer, would you welcome more powerful hardware with open arms or perhaps you'd rather not have more platforms to deal with?
Every developer likes to get his product on as many platforms as reasonably possible, with the best possible quality. The enhanced console versions might provide enough power to support the 4K resolution and that would be definitely great. If all we had to do was to create two performance profiles, for standard and enhanced console, we're definitely interested. It would be still a lot easier than attempting to provide enough settings for a wild variety of PCs in the world.
This echoes the statement released by Sony's President Andrew House just yesterday, who mentioned that supporting both the basic and enhanced PlayStation 4 will require a small but manageable amount of extra work. Perhaps it will be a little harder for those only used to develop for console, such as PlayStation's first party studios, but for anyone used to release games on PC it shouldn't really be a problem.
We also asked them the target frame rate for Dead Effect 2's console releases. Both will run at 60FPS, though PlayStation 4's graphics will be comparable to high quality on PC while Xbox One's will be more like medium quality.
What is your target resolution/frame rate for PS4 & XB1? Will there be a significant drop in graphical fidelity when compared to the PC version of Dead Effect 2?
The versions we're right now tuning and testing are graphically comparable with PC high quality on PS4 and medium for Xbox One, but we're still working and looking for a ways to improve the quality. We want to keep the game at stable 60FPS on both platforms. We were considering the idea of 30fps lock while using a better quality graphics, but we've decided that smooth action play is more important, even if the visuals will have to suffer a bit.
Check back soon for our full interview with BadFly Interactive on Dead Effect 2.
