The Xbox Series X and PS5 both have quite a lot going for them, and it’s clear that both consoles are emphasizing different aspects of their hardware in a bid to create next-gen experiences. The end result for both, however, is the same- they’re both looking like incredible pieces of machinery, and the potential of what developers might do with that is more than a little exciting.
In fact, The Initiative’s Senior Gameplay Engineer Francisco Aisa Garcia – who has previously worked at Naughty Dog and Rockstar – thinks that that is exactly the thing that’s going to define next-gen. We recently had a lengthy chat about the upcoming next-gen consoles – among other things – with Garcia, who’s currently working at Microsoft’s youngest first party studio, and when asked about whether he thinks the differences between both consoles will have any functional impact, he said that that impact will instead come from how developers use the hardware at their disposal.
“There is more raw power (referring to the Xbox Series X), that’s for sure, and you can push more when you have more power,” Garcia said. “But at the same time, ultimately, like you said, they are pretty evenly matched.
“I think the way you have to look at this is that there is a generation jump that is moving in the same direction for both consoles, I would even say this will apply to Nintendo. And it will come down not so much to the raw power they are going to have, but what the teams are going to do with that power. And I think they’re evenly matched because from an architecture point of view, both will allow the same kinds of fundamental changes to the way we do things in games.
“So I don’t think the big difference will be in how much more powerful it is, but rather in what we do with this new powerline.”
Presumably, that is indeed the thing that developers – especially first parties – will be focusing on in the coming years. Again, the Xbox Series X and PS5 have different strengths- for instance, the former has a significantly more impressive GPU, but the same can also be said for the former’s SSD. It will fall to developers, then, to leverage those strengths in order to create new kinds of experiences.
Our full interview with Garcia will go live soon, so stay tuned for that.
