AC4 Dev: Current Gen Development Was 'Nightmarish'

[Dohc-WP]

Assassin's Creed IV: Black Flag just released this week for current gen consoles, while the PS4 and Xbox One versions have a little longer to wait. Although the game is reportedly running well on both generations, a Ubisoft employee suggests that similarities in development were few and far between.

"Development on both [next gen] consoles was very smooth, since they are both very similar to PCs," community developer Gabe Graziani said in a recent Reddit thread. "Last generation was very difficult, even nightmarish.

"Both Xbox One and PS4 were very easy to deal with and the [first parties] were both there to help us out."

Despite somewhat similar quality, current and next-gen development wasn't so similar.
by Mike Mahardy
November 5, 2013
Submit Tweet Share +1 Share

Assassin's Creed IV: Black Flag just released this week for current gen consoles, while the PS4 and Xbox One versions have a little longer to wait. Although the game is reportedly running well on both generations, a Ubisoft employee suggests that similarities in development were few and far between.

"Development on both [next gen] consoles was very smooth, since they are both very similar to PCs," community developer Gabe Graziani said in a recent Reddit thread. "Last generation was very difficult, even nightmarish.

"Both Xbox One and PS4 were very easy to deal with and the [first parties] were both there to help us out."

Graziani said that, while there were a few kinks while Sony and Microsoft both tried to figure out their own "requirements" for their respective consoles, the development transition to next-gen was "super smooth" overall.

Assassin's Creed IV: Black Flag releases November 12 and November 19 for the PS4 and Xbox One, respectively.

Source IGN

[dampi256]

And this is why I question the graphical quality difference of BF4 on PS4 and Xbox One. The architecture is similar and not as inherently different as PS3 and Xbox 360's was to each other. There should be a greater degree of similarities between next-gen multi platform titles than in the current gen but there isn't. It is good news that developers across the board is loving next gen systems and their respective development processes as this will ensure that they produce greater titles early on in the console's life cycle. I remember how slow developers were in getting PS3 games out as it was very difficult to program for it and development was cumbersome.

[Isengard]

And this is why I question the graphical quality difference of BF4 on PS4 and Xbox One. The architecture is similar and not as inherently different as PS3 and Xbox 360's was to each other. There should be a greater degree of similarities between next-gen multi platform titles than in the current gen but there isn't. It is good news that developers across the board is loving next gen systems and their respective development processes as this will ensure that they produce greater titles early on in the console's life cycle. I remember how slow developers were in getting PS3 games out as it was very difficult to program for it and development was cumbersome.

You need to understand that while they are similar they are not the same. It's like saying a PC with a Radeon 7670 should have the same performance as a PC with a Radeon 7870 because they are very similar. Yes they are similar but the latter has superior hardware and will thus perform better every time.

That said, I'm glad the new consoles are so closely based on PC architecture this time around. It should mean shorter dev times and more polished games all around.

[Dohc-WP]

And this is why I question the graphical quality difference of BF4 on PS4 and Xbox One. The architecture is similar and not as inherently different as PS3 and Xbox 360's was to each other. There should be a greater degree of similarities between next-gen multi platform titles than in the current gen but there isn't. It is good news that developers across the board is loving next gen systems and their respective development processes as this will ensure that they produce greater titles early on in the console's life cycle. I remember how slow developers were in getting PS3 games out as it was very difficult to program for it and development was cumbersome.

the two consoles are only similiar on a cpu level, memory and bandwidth wise they both use different approaches. Ms took the same route they did with the 360, the 360 had less bandwidth than the ps3 but the 10mb edram it had benefitted it greatly and kept it competitive. same with the xbone it has 32mb Esram (which will serve the same purpose as the edram on the 360) which most developers need to utilize to get the most out of the console.

[James]

Assassin’s Creed 4 current-gen ports “nightmarish” – Ubisoft

Ubisoft acknowledges that porting Black Flag to current-gen consoles was a difficult task.

[steaksauce]

"Assassin's Creed IV: Black Flag releases November 12 and November 19 for the PS4 and Xbox One, respectively."
Assassin's Creed IV: Black Flag releases November 22 and November 29 for the Xbox One and PS4 , respectively.

Fixed that for you.