Arguably, the premier Sony first party developer are Naughty Dog, the creators of the Uncharted and The Last of Us games. These are the folks who can make hardware sing, push out incredible looking games, and who are always at the forefront of the cutting edge. So it shouldn’t come as much of a surprise that in an interview with VG247, Naughty Dog’s Christian Gyrling confirmed that he had been tapped to help Sony with the PS4 Pro.
Speaking about the PS4 Pro’s specs in particular, and those who are obsessed with its numbers, and how they stack up, Gyrling said that the specs are there- but ultimately, it’s about what you do with those specs and how you utilize them that matters.
“You can crunch numbers all day, but ultimately it’s about what you do with the numbers and what you do with the power,” he said. “The more than double the power of the GPU, the boosted clock rate of the CPUs allowing those smoother frame rates, being able to support our existing PS4 fanbase without really taking anything away from them… Like, all we’re doing is adding stuff, adding HDR support even to the base PS4 owners. This patch that’ll be available for release in November will allow both PS4 Pro owners and regular PS4 owners with an HDR-compatible TV or a 4K TV to enjoy the benefits.
“That’s really where it comes from. Tech is only there to support. Ultimately you’ll see vastly different qualities of games on any game console. You can say, well, specs are one thing, but look at the diverse difference in games – it really comes down to what you do with those specs.”
It’s a nice notion, and ultimately correct- but also curiously different from the tune Sony as a whole have been singing this entire generation, where they have pushed the supremacy of hardware specs, and how they allow for top games to be made. That said, of course Gyrling is correct- you can have the most powerful system in the world, and it would be meaningless if nothing out there existed to take advantage of it, whereas even a relatively weaker system could be made to sing and shine by a talented developer and some meaningful software.