When the PlayStation 4’s lead architect Mark Cerny announced that the console’s GPU would become available to developers to utilize two years after the console’s launch, speculation and criticism began claiming the PS4’s inferiority to main competitor, Microsoft’s entertainment-geared Xbox One.
According to Evolution Studios’ Technical Director Scott Kirkland for Driveclub, this is not something that should raise concerns, but instead raise further praise and excitement. Here is Kirkland’s statement in an interview with The Guardian:
While some of the GPU power is currently locked within the console’s architecture, "you already have a lot of CPU power at your disposal. I think with many of the first generation PS4 titles, developers probably won’t need to worry about it – they’ll be able to get a lot out of parallelism across the CPU cores – but for teams who are a bit more ambitious, who want to do interesting things, it’s just waiting there," Kirkland said. "We’re doing some of that in DriveClub and I’m sure other guys will go further – and the platform guys will expose more of that functionality through the lifespan of the machine, unlocking more potential."
While there is still a lot of mystery surrounding the PS4’s GPU and how it will be utilized in the future, it is comforting and encouraging to see developers so optimistic about both the present and future of the console’s capabilities.
Steven Chaffin, Jr. is an American editor for PlayStation Universe. Come this holiday season, Steven will be playing Battlefield 4 on his new PlayStation 4, which he pre-ordered for launch. You can get more from Steven on his all-topics blog, and by following him on Twitter @runnersravings.