Unlike the original Watch Dogs, Watch Dogs 2 will not be releasing on Xbox 360, PlayStation 3, or the Wii U. And this is ultimately to the game’s benefit according to Ubisoft, who stated in recent interview with Hardcore Gamer that not having to consider the older, weaker consoles helped Ubisoft make the game they wanted without having to worry about hardware limitations.
“It’s obvious when you have many SKUs that the pipeline and process is much heavier,” Danny Belanger of Ubisoft said. “You have to take into account the different optimizations and quality of art. If we add a feature we had to ask ourselves if it could be done on the other platforms. So, it’s great to focus on just fewer consoles and take full advantage of their power. It helps us take a step forward and include new features that we want to do rather than having to think about the weaker hardware. It’s been a lot easier.”
That does make sense, and ultimately, that’s why I’m glad that more and more developers are letting go of the older consoles and moving past them to the more modern PS4 and Xbox One. It’ll help developers make the games they want to, without having to worry about being restricted by machines that are over ten years old at this point.