Though the PS4 Pro doesn’t have any exclusives (yet), it’s a given that optimizing one’s games for the PS4 while also keeping the PS4 Pro in mind can be a task. How difficult is it actually though, especially with lead engineer Mark Cerny saying it takes only a bit of effort?
GamingBolt spoke to Thumper developer Marc Flury from Drool and asked about developing on two SKUs as opposed to one and whether an incremental console upgrade was a good idea given the currently small market for 4K TVs.
“Thumper is just one SKU. Sony requires every game to support both Pro and normal PS4. It’s more work, but it’s nothing new. Every PC game has a much more complex set of hardware configurations to support. I’m not sure if it’s good move, but an upgraded option for ‘enthusiasts’ makes sense to me. As I mentioned, I think it’s a pretty conservative move.”
As for Cerny’s claims that only 0.2 to 0.3 percent of overall effort is required to convert a PS4 title to PS4 Pro, the developer replied, “It’s hard to quantify, but it’s not too much work. We were lucky because we could afford native 4K, so all I had to do was change some numbers. I didn’t spend time implementing any of the more sophisticated techniques other games use to approximate 4K resolution (e.g. 4K checkboard).”
Thumper is currently available for PS4, PS4 Pro and PC along with support for VR.
