Literally the only thing MS did right this E3 was playing the numbers game. It doesn't mean much outside gaming enthusiast forums, but it's working brilliantly.
We've known now since Feb. that Killzone and Driveclub were shooting for 1080p at 30fps. MS saw the tech specs of the PS4, they were just as surprised as anyone else, and did two things to shift the talk: praise the power of the cloud (done at the X1 reveal) and declare their games to be 60fps at 1080p (done at E3).
They did this by showcasing two games- Killer Instinct, who's small arena and somewhat simple character models was able to achieve 60fps easily (with a very impressive particle engine), and Forza 5, who's lighting engine was painfully bad on the 360, let alone the X1, which decidedly factors into not having night/weather/time change races. Despite all that F5 still leaves a much better impression than Driveclub.
Think about it- MS didn't declare "60fps, because it's next gen yall!" for the casual gamers watching. Dudebro doesn't know what the heck a 60fps game is. There are people in this forum who can't tell the difference between 30/60. It was a direct shot at people who love playing the console wars card. It was a bulletpoint against the PS4 games running at 30fps (i.e. the launch lineup). EA declares Battlefield 4 to be 60fps on the X1, then goes on to show it running on a PC...which they later said was spec'd to X1 standards, which is complete bullshit. I can imagine an EA dev saying to the team, "wow guys, this footage of B4 running on ultra high settings is gorgeous for the big MS conference that will be watched by millions. But let's downgrade it a bit to the X1 standards because I don't want to mislead the consumer or anything."
I've read a few articles here and there about Sony 1st party devs transitioning from the Cell to the PS4, and how it proved to be a challenge at first- all the tricks of developing for the Cell and the PS3 architecture don't really apply to the PS4 at all. Devs who are comfortable with PC architecture (almost all third party devs) will make the transition fairly smoothly as they already have their bag of tricks from working on this type of system for years now. While overcoming the new transition from PS3 to PS4 shouldn't take nearly as long as it did to shine that Cell up, it will be for Evolution and Guerrilla Games who have launch deadlines to meet. One of the Driveclub leads said they're targeting 60fps, but he personally preferred 30fps with a lot of awesome stuff on the screen. That would have likely been the end goal had it not been the smart play by MS of declaring 60fps as the target for all next gen games...and it wouldn't surprise me if Sony is telling Evolution to up that framerate now.
Look at the third party situation on PS4- Watchdogs, Assassin's Creed, Need for Speed, The Division, all running on PS4 and looking fantastic at E3, arguably more so than the first party titles at this point. For all I know these too are running on PC devkits spec'd to ultra settings (I believe all EA games were at E3). But I do think that, when the PS4 launches, the showpieces of the system will ultimately come from third parties. They know how to work the hardware.
Ultimately the comparisons between third party multiplatform games for PS4/XB1 are going to be extremely interesting. I think MS might have bit off a bit more than they can chew with the 60fps goals they have in mind. At the same time it's caught the 1st party games off balance, who's 30fps goals look decidedly last gen. This is a temporary launch issue, and I feel like most devs will be back with 30fps games by next year, but it's a pretty weird situation right now. At the very least, it's the one thing that MS has done right in portraying their console's power.
We've known now since Feb. that Killzone and Driveclub were shooting for 1080p at 30fps. MS saw the tech specs of the PS4, they were just as surprised as anyone else, and did two things to shift the talk: praise the power of the cloud (done at the X1 reveal) and declare their games to be 60fps at 1080p (done at E3).
They did this by showcasing two games- Killer Instinct, who's small arena and somewhat simple character models was able to achieve 60fps easily (with a very impressive particle engine), and Forza 5, who's lighting engine was painfully bad on the 360, let alone the X1, which decidedly factors into not having night/weather/time change races. Despite all that F5 still leaves a much better impression than Driveclub.
Think about it- MS didn't declare "60fps, because it's next gen yall!" for the casual gamers watching. Dudebro doesn't know what the heck a 60fps game is. There are people in this forum who can't tell the difference between 30/60. It was a direct shot at people who love playing the console wars card. It was a bulletpoint against the PS4 games running at 30fps (i.e. the launch lineup). EA declares Battlefield 4 to be 60fps on the X1, then goes on to show it running on a PC...which they later said was spec'd to X1 standards, which is complete bullshit. I can imagine an EA dev saying to the team, "wow guys, this footage of B4 running on ultra high settings is gorgeous for the big MS conference that will be watched by millions. But let's downgrade it a bit to the X1 standards because I don't want to mislead the consumer or anything."
I've read a few articles here and there about Sony 1st party devs transitioning from the Cell to the PS4, and how it proved to be a challenge at first- all the tricks of developing for the Cell and the PS3 architecture don't really apply to the PS4 at all. Devs who are comfortable with PC architecture (almost all third party devs) will make the transition fairly smoothly as they already have their bag of tricks from working on this type of system for years now. While overcoming the new transition from PS3 to PS4 shouldn't take nearly as long as it did to shine that Cell up, it will be for Evolution and Guerrilla Games who have launch deadlines to meet. One of the Driveclub leads said they're targeting 60fps, but he personally preferred 30fps with a lot of awesome stuff on the screen. That would have likely been the end goal had it not been the smart play by MS of declaring 60fps as the target for all next gen games...and it wouldn't surprise me if Sony is telling Evolution to up that framerate now.
Look at the third party situation on PS4- Watchdogs, Assassin's Creed, Need for Speed, The Division, all running on PS4 and looking fantastic at E3, arguably more so than the first party titles at this point. For all I know these too are running on PC devkits spec'd to ultra settings (I believe all EA games were at E3). But I do think that, when the PS4 launches, the showpieces of the system will ultimately come from third parties. They know how to work the hardware.
Ultimately the comparisons between third party multiplatform games for PS4/XB1 are going to be extremely interesting. I think MS might have bit off a bit more than they can chew with the 60fps goals they have in mind. At the same time it's caught the 1st party games off balance, who's 30fps goals look decidedly last gen. This is a temporary launch issue, and I feel like most devs will be back with 30fps games by next year, but it's a pretty weird situation right now. At the very least, it's the one thing that MS has done right in portraying their console's power.
