Epic Games’ Nick Penwarden has said that the PS5 and Xbox Series X are not going to showcase a huge leap in performance and visuals compared to current-generation right out the gate. This is true of any hardware cycle, with improvements slowly becoming more noticeable as developers get to grips with the new technology.
Epic Games On PS5 & Xbox Series X 2020 Titles
Speaking during the latest issue of EDGE magazine (via RespawnFirst), Penwarden, who has been extremely complimentary on the PS5 as of late, was quick to note that this isn’t to say people won’t see any difference at all during the initial phase — it just won’t be a major leap.
From a developer engineer point of view, when are you going to really see a hardware fully exploited? You don’t really see what something is truly capable of until more towards the end of the generation. Are you going to see the PS5 fully tapped out on the very first thing that people have tried to use it for?
You’re never going to see that, I don’t think you won’t see any difference – you’ll see some very cool stuff from UE4 on next-gen from other studios. And then with Unreal Engine 5, there’s a but of a step function there: once people get their hands on that, instead of a gradual rise, you’ll see a big jump.
I don’t think that there’s going to be, like this desert of not-great-looking stuff in the first phase of the console/ What we are able to show in the demo, in terms of visual fidelity as well as the size of game worlds that will be built with UE3, is going to represent the difference from what’s possible today and what’s possible tomorrow.
Epic is obviously looking to taper expectations as far as the initial batch of games go, as we know that the studio reckons the marriage between PS5 and UE5 will allow for movie-quality graphics.
The PS5 and Xbox One Series X are both due for release in holiday 2020.
Source – [EDGE Magazine via RespawnFirst]