Are Xbox One and PS4 being held back by concessions to old hardware?

http://media.edge-online.com/wp-cont...s-Xbox-One.jpgThe next generation doesn’t start when Microsoft, Sony or any other platform holder says so. It starts with the players who decide which console to buy, cascades down to the developers who decide which platform to develop on, and hits its stride when everyone is finally brave enough to write off 360 and PS3 altogether. Yes, hardware is hitting shelves this November, but the lengthy boot-up process for next-gen gaming is just beginning. Soaring development costs, a global recession, the reliable installed base of 360 and PS3, and systems still capable of fulfilling developers’ visions means there’s no sudden end point for the outbound seventh generation of game consoles.“You can never forget that this is a business like any other business, and the goal is to make money,” says Sylvain Trottier, associate producer of Assassin’s Creed IV: Black Flag, explaining why the game’s publisher, Ubisoft, found 360 and PS3’s gigantic userbases hard to resist. “Dropping the current gen – with however many million consoles there are out there – is a key strategic decision. It depends on how much the executives are relying on your project for income on their yearly budget. We have lots of fans, but we also like lots of revenue. The company is counting on us.”It’s all happened before, of course. But while 2005 and ’06 saw the likes of Gun, Hitman: Blood Money and Tomb Raider: Legend ported to new hardware from Xbox and PlayStation 2, there was always The Elder Scrolls IV: Oblivion and Call Of Duty 2 to mark out what PS3 and Xbox 360 were capable of. In 2013, the ongoing survival of the boxes sitting beneath millions of TVs threatens the viability of games that demand top-of-the-line systems to power forward-looking features.There are three kinds of next-gen game. Some are designed exclusively for new hardware; they’re usually platform exclusives – Killzone: Shadow Fall, Forza 5, Ryse: Son Of Rome – but there are a few thirdparty titles built exclusively for the next generation or high-end PCs, including The Crew and Tom Clancy’s The Division. Then there are games such as Assassin’s Creed IV: Black Flag, Watch Dogs, Destiny and Need For Speed: Rivals, which are being built to run at a current-gen spec then ‘forward ported’ to Xbox One and PS4, meaning they have the same core mechanics plus a few cosmetic upgrades. Finally, there are games built for the eighth generation then ‘back ported’ to the seventh, dropping features to run on lower-spec machines. Titanfall and Battlefield 4 are notable early back ports, with the former being produced for 360 by an external studio.

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