Rajat Taneja, Executive Vice President and Chief Technology Officer at Electronic Arts, conjured up an article on LinkedIn of all places talking about the technology behind Microsoft's new Xbox One console. He claims that both the PlayStation 4 and Xbox One are somehow five years ahead of the most extravagant PCs today due to their system-on-chip (SoC) architecture.
"These architectures are a generation ahead of the highest end PC on the market and their unique design of the hardware, the underlying operating system and the live service layer create one of the most compelling platforms to reimagine game mechanics," he states.
Seriously? Did he just say that? He goes on to say that benchmarks on just the video and audio performance alone are 8-10 times superior to the current generation consoles. "The compute capabilities of these platforms and the data transfer speeds we can now bank on, essentially removes any notion of rationing of systems resources for our game engines," he adds.
Of course, he then talks about the company's IGNITE and Frostbite engines, and how they have been tailored to take full advantage of the new console hardware. In a FPS like Battlefield 4, that combination means more detailed gameplay, behavior and awareness for characters and more detailed appearance down to the lighting and clothing on the soldiers. In sports titles, gamers receive a dose of human intelligence that simulate instincts, awareness and unpredictability that’s more like real-life sport.
"These next-gen platforms create dynamic, living worlds," he said. "Your game could change overnight depending on actions by other gamers around the globe. Your player stats and information can be updated in real time with real-world player stats and injury reports. These consoles are also inherently more social – something that didn’t matter much when the last consoles came out eight years ago."
As Destructoid points out, the "hype train is at full speed now the Xbox One and PS4 are both public knowledge, and Electronic Arts is riding first class." The article reads like one big advertisement for the publisher, and may even come across as offensive to those who know consoles will never surpass PC… unless the PC is extinct, of course. Nvidia said there will always be a place for the high-end desktop, and we're right there with them in that opinion.
Why? It should be obvious: the PC market continues to progressively advance whereas new consoles are launched every five or so years. If anything, it's the mobile industry that the PC and console sectors should be worried about, as its advancement slope if by far a lot steeper than the PC segment. That said, until we actually get our hands on both consoles, or at least see the actual full list of specs, we're going to remain highly skeptical of EA's claims regarding next-gen versus PC.
