‘Beyond Good And Evil 2’ Would Work On Current Consoles, Barely
Beyond Good & Evil 2 could work on the Xbox 360 and PlayStation 3. It’s possible, but painful.
One thing game developers have struggled with since almost the invention of gaming consoles is the power that the console can handle, and the graphics they can pull off. The battle between PC and console rages endlessly, with PC always able to pull off better graphics and performance than the consoles. This isn’t exactly the fault of consoles, however, since PC specs tend to go obsolete almost from the day the system hits the shelves. Since console hardware typically gets updated maybe once every five years or more, gaming consoles just can’t compete.
With the announcement of the Xbox One and PlayStation 4, we already know that PC systems already exist that can handle more than the next generation consoles. Developers looking for power to run their killer games on usually have to downgrade for the current console or keep developing the game in hopes that the next generation can handle it.
That’s the problem that the developers of Beyond Good & Evil 2 are facing. The eagerly awaited sequel is being developed for the Xbox One and PlayStation 4. However, when asked if it could run on the consoles that already exist, Ubisoft’s Michel Ancel said it would be possible, but painful:
“I think [on current platforms] Beyond Good & Evil 2 was possible, but it’d be painful. It’s always possible to do anything on any kind of console, but sometimes you need to spend your energy not doing [optimizations] or things like that. Now that we have the [new] consoles around the corner we’re working on them. We’re trying to see how we can get the power out of those consoles because there are still things we need to understand on those consoles.”
Putting a game that works best on the latest console technology on something that limits what you can do is like what happened with Mortal Kombat on GameBoy. It can be done, but given the limitations, it probably shouldn’t.
What do you think of the difficulty in porting Beyond Good & Evil 2 to current generation consoles? Would it bother you if Ubisoft scaled it down to work on the Xbox 360 and PlayStation 3?
