http://www.eurogamer.net/articles/2...all-of-duty-ghosts-dev-infinity-ward-responds
Creating a next-gen launch title sounds like a nightmare. Can you explain exactly the challenges you faced?
Mark Rubin: It is for our engineers, especially. Fortunately, both Xbox One and PS4 are very much like PC, more so than the last generation. That helped enormously. If the systems had their very peculiar architecture, like they did in current gen, this would have been a different conversation. But because of that the development this time around it was significantly easier. I have experienced the current-gen launch. I was at Infinity Ward for COD 2. When we launched it was just PC and Xbox 360, but that was our first console, period. There was a lot to learn leading up, but that was just one console, when all it was was PC and that new console. And that was an interesting challenge.
So to do PC, current-gen two SKUs and next-gen two SKUs, was a massive challenge. Working with the theoretical hardware would have been a disaster if... honestly, the hardest thing to deal with is not the architecture. It's the OS (operating system) of the systems. That's the thing that comes on the latest. The Xbox One's OS on their box versus the Sony OS, becomes the hardest. All the SDKs and stuff you have to work with - that's the stuff that changes, not the hardware itself.
Is all that you've just described the reason the Xbox One version is native 720p and the PS4 version is native 1080p?
Mark Rubin: In a way. I don't know if I can point to one particular cause. Early on, we didn't know where exactly the resolution of anything would fall because we didn't have hardware or the software to support it. We tried to focus in on 1080p, and if we felt like we were on borderline of performance somewhere... We tried to make the best decision for each platform that gives you the best-looking game we could get and maintains that 60 frames a second.
There's no specific, oh, well, the VO chat on Xbox took up so much resources that we couldn't do 1080p native. There's no definitive one to one per se cause and effect. It's just an overall thing. We took each system individually and said, 'okay, let's make the best game for each system.'
I think both look great. Some people might notice if they had them right next to each other. Some people might not. The Xbox One is 1080p output, it's just upscaled hardware wise.
It was a late decision, too. That call wasn't made until a month ago.
What everyone will ask is whether this is the result of the Xbox One simply not being as powerful as the PS4, and you're doing your best with the hardware you have, or whether for future versions you may be able to get the Xbox One version running natively at 1080p?
Mark Rubin: It's very possible we can get it to native 1080p. I mean I've seen it working at 1080p native. It's just we couldn't get the frame rate in the neighbourhood we wanted it to be.
And it wasn't a lack of effort. It wasn't that it was like last minute. We had the theoretical hardware for a long time. That's the thing you get pretty quickly and that doesn't change dramatically. It was more about resource allocation. The resource allocation is different on the consoles. That huge web of tangled resources, whether it's threads-based or if it's GPU threads or if it's memory - whatever it is - optimisation is something that could go theoretically on forever.
I definitely see slash hope both platforms will look way better the next time we get a chance at it. As an obvious analogy - and if people are not sure about this it's pretty simple - look at Call of Duty 2 versus COD 4. It was a massive leap forward in graphics, and that's just because it takes time to get through this.
First launch, first time at bat at a new console is a challenging one. That's just the way it is. For people fearful one system is more powerful than the other or vice versa, it's a long game.
Creating a next-gen launch title sounds like a nightmare. Can you explain exactly the challenges you faced?
Mark Rubin: It is for our engineers, especially. Fortunately, both Xbox One and PS4 are very much like PC, more so than the last generation. That helped enormously. If the systems had their very peculiar architecture, like they did in current gen, this would have been a different conversation. But because of that the development this time around it was significantly easier. I have experienced the current-gen launch. I was at Infinity Ward for COD 2. When we launched it was just PC and Xbox 360, but that was our first console, period. There was a lot to learn leading up, but that was just one console, when all it was was PC and that new console. And that was an interesting challenge.
So to do PC, current-gen two SKUs and next-gen two SKUs, was a massive challenge. Working with the theoretical hardware would have been a disaster if... honestly, the hardest thing to deal with is not the architecture. It's the OS (operating system) of the systems. That's the thing that comes on the latest. The Xbox One's OS on their box versus the Sony OS, becomes the hardest. All the SDKs and stuff you have to work with - that's the stuff that changes, not the hardware itself.
Is all that you've just described the reason the Xbox One version is native 720p and the PS4 version is native 1080p?
Mark Rubin: In a way. I don't know if I can point to one particular cause. Early on, we didn't know where exactly the resolution of anything would fall because we didn't have hardware or the software to support it. We tried to focus in on 1080p, and if we felt like we were on borderline of performance somewhere... We tried to make the best decision for each platform that gives you the best-looking game we could get and maintains that 60 frames a second.
There's no specific, oh, well, the VO chat on Xbox took up so much resources that we couldn't do 1080p native. There's no definitive one to one per se cause and effect. It's just an overall thing. We took each system individually and said, 'okay, let's make the best game for each system.'
I think both look great. Some people might notice if they had them right next to each other. Some people might not. The Xbox One is 1080p output, it's just upscaled hardware wise.
It was a late decision, too. That call wasn't made until a month ago.
What everyone will ask is whether this is the result of the Xbox One simply not being as powerful as the PS4, and you're doing your best with the hardware you have, or whether for future versions you may be able to get the Xbox One version running natively at 1080p?
Mark Rubin: It's very possible we can get it to native 1080p. I mean I've seen it working at 1080p native. It's just we couldn't get the frame rate in the neighbourhood we wanted it to be.
And it wasn't a lack of effort. It wasn't that it was like last minute. We had the theoretical hardware for a long time. That's the thing you get pretty quickly and that doesn't change dramatically. It was more about resource allocation. The resource allocation is different on the consoles. That huge web of tangled resources, whether it's threads-based or if it's GPU threads or if it's memory - whatever it is - optimisation is something that could go theoretically on forever.
I definitely see slash hope both platforms will look way better the next time we get a chance at it. As an obvious analogy - and if people are not sure about this it's pretty simple - look at Call of Duty 2 versus COD 4. It was a massive leap forward in graphics, and that's just because it takes time to get through this.
First launch, first time at bat at a new console is a challenging one. That's just the way it is. For people fearful one system is more powerful than the other or vice versa, it's a long game.
