As consoles get more powerful, game development gets more resource and time intensive too, meaning higher costs, and unsustainable AAA development models, leading to studio closures. This is something we have seen a lot happening over the last decade.

But what does the added power of a console like the Xbox One X mean for an indie game developer, who doesn’t have to worry about having their game be on the bleeding edge of graphics and tech? As it turns out, for them, having a powerful system like the Xbox One X makes development easier– since they don’t have to worry about optimizing around hardware constraints as much, they can focus more on mechanics and polish more.

That’s what Alejandro González of Milkstone Studios, developers of White Noise 2, told GamingBolt in an exclusive interview. “For indies, [having] more powerful consoles means games are easier to develop. Time spent on performance optimization is time not spent on polishing other game aspects.”

Speaking of powerful consoles, he also confirmed that, much like the Xbox One X, the PS4 Pro enhanced version of White Noise 2 will also push for 60 frames per second- since he doesn’t like 30fps.

“We always aim for 60fps if possible, whichever the target platform is (no, we don’t like 30fps). We’ll tune the settings as high as possible as long as the target framerate is maintained,” he said.

So that’s that- it makes sense that having more powerful hardware makes development easier for smaller developers not as worried about pushing photorealism. In an ideal world, that’s how it would be for all developers- sadly, we live in a world where the unsustainable AAA model of game development is the most prominent one of them all, and that’s what has led to the current state of the western AAA development scene.

Stay tuned for our full interview with Alejandro in the coming days.

We are now long past the point of diminishing returns, as far as visual fidelity goes- while games can and still do look better- and the Xbox One X is a great example of just how beautiful games can look beyond what they otherwise currently do- the jaw dropping generation leaps, such as the N64, Dreamcast, PS2, or Xbox 360 are now long in the past.

But, that doesn’t mean there’s no room for them, either- indeed, the Xbox One X makes existing games look appreciably better. Better enough to justify the existence of the $500 box? According to Alejandro González of Milkstone Studios, the folks behind White Noise 2, yes. It is more powerful than the PS4 Pro by enough of an amount that the additional cost is warranted for people interested in high end visuals.

“As you say, the Xbox One X is the most powerful of both [consoles], enough to justify the difference in price if you seek for smooth 60fps gameplay or have a 4K TV,” he said.

He also confirmed that White Noise 2, while currently not Xbox One X enhanced, will soon get an update to support the console- and he suggested that it might run at native 4K on the system, too.” For now the game doesn’t make advantage of Xbox One X performance, but we plan on adding it with an update. I’m sure the console should be able to run the game at those rates on 4K, it’s very powerful,” he said.

It’s good to see that developers are taking advantage of the new machine- and if enough of them demonstrate that they are serious about it, then customers will naturally follow over time, too. Now if only Microsoft could do something about that prohibitively high $500 price…