The power of the Xbox One X is something that a lot of developers have sung plenty of praises about- which makes perfect sense. As the most powerful console currently on the market, it allows developers to do some truly incredible things from a visuals and technical perspective.
According to Storm in a Teacup’s CEO Carlo Ivo Alimo, who’s also serving as the art director for the upcoming survival horror title Close to the Sun, that power doesn’t really mean much if developers don’t know how to use it properly.
We recently conducted an interview with Alimo about the upcoming horror title, and eventually ended up asking him about what he, as a developer, thinks of the Xbox One X as a machine, and what it provides thanks to its greater capabilities. Alimo gave a very interesting response, saying that notching up the technical aspects of a game is something developers should be focusing on if they’ve already invested as much as they can into actually making the game better.
“In general terms, power isn’t always the most important thing,” Alimo said to GamingBolt. “Developers have to be able to control that power in a way that is both useful and usable. Otherwise, you’re just another developer adding resolution or frame rate specs when, in reality, your game could do with time being invested somewhere else. I would love to see games running at 12K at 1000 FPS on consoles, but only if we have nothing more that we could do to actually make the game better.”
It’s hard to argue with that, really. There’s obviously a lot of value in a game that can provide stunning visuals and can run with buttery smooth performances, but if the game itself isn’t any fun to play, or even if it is but could have been much better, those visuals don’t amount to as much as they could have otherwise.
Close to the Sun, meanwhile, is slated for an early 2019 launch for the PS4, Xbox One, and PC. Stay tuned to GamingBolt for our full interview with Alimo.