PS4/Xbox One Upgrades Not Necessarily a Bad Thing, Guacamelee Dev Says

One of the bigger news stories in gaming this year has been around the rumors and reports regarding supposed PlayStation 4 and Xbox One hardware revisions. While some believe an incremental upgrade would be very problematic, others, like Chris Harvey of Guacamelee developer DrinkBox, think it may not be such a tricky thing.

Harvey said in an interview with GI.biz that he can understand the concerns some larger studios might have about supporting multiple systems at once. But Drinkbox is a smaller, independent team. While there might be a little more legwork to be done, it wouldn't be too much of a burden, he said.

"For a big developer, they might not necessarily be overjoyed about it because of additional work that may have to go in to support different hardware SKUs," Harvey explained. "But as an indie developer, it's not really that big a deal. Our games are not exactly pushing the edge of the devices anyway.

"So from our perspective, there might be some additional certification stuff to make sure it works, but it's not going to fundamentally change how we develop our games for the consoles."

Head to GI.biz to read the full story. DrinkBox's latest game, Severed, launched for PlayStation Vita last week.

Retired BioWare founder Greg Zeschuk said in April that he's not too interested in the idea of mid-cycle hardware upgrades. "I'd say that'd be a gigantic pain in the ass that flies in the face of the purpose of consoles," he said at the time.

A new, more powerful version of the PS4 codenamed Neo is reportedly on the way. Microsoft, too, is apparently thinking about releasing new hardware, with a recent report claiming a new Xbox device would be announced at E3.