Expectations are understandably higher for a 1 billion dollar game than some Unity indie project.
Still think that number is a dumb and over-inflated guess from randos on the internet. The game was very expensive to make for sure but I'll only believe it cost 1 billion to make when I see proof.
Unless you count R&D that went into both RDR2 and GTA V next-gen editions, if that counts to VI's budget then we might reach 1 billion but to me it sounds very silly to include tech from 3 different games in the budget of only 1 since they're developing the tech for their games in general.
ac shadows has a setting that lets you turn off hair for NPCs. they have a lot of NPCs in some larger towns. maybe not as many as GTA but its up there. even if they downgrade it for base consoles, it will be available on PC or the Pro.
BTW, just watched DF and they saw James Bond at gamescom running on PC at 60 fps. The demo we saw was running on the Pro and was dropping frames during physics heavy sections which leads them to believe its CPU bound on consoles. I think us pc gamers with decent CPUs will be fine. Pro console owners on the other hand are fucked by Cerny's retarded decision to not improve the CPU. Maybe people will finally criticize this guy going forward instead of fighting people like me who pointed out how important CPU was to ray tracing and physics.
That's the thing that annoys me the most when discussing GTA VI, even in this very forum we have people saying there will absolutely be a 60fps mode at least on the Pro.
My dude, Rockstar always use every single available resource they can to push the consoles and the games to their limits, the CPU in the Pro is the same as the base PS5, 60fps won't be happening.
But oh well, somehow people still think a more powerful GPU alone is enough to push for more frames, not realizing that since GTA IV Rockstar love to push their fancy physics and NPC AI to the absolute limits and I'll be very disappointed if that isn't the case for this game as well.
Add Ray Tracing on top of that which this game seems to use as well, that CPU will be absolutely hammered with calculations every single second you're playing the game.
I expect them to be able to use the Pro's GPU to perhaps make the image quality a bit more crisp but performance-wise I won't believe in 40 or 60fps modes until I actually see them in action.