“We decided to lock them at the same specs to avoid all the debates and stuff,” explained Assassin’s Creed Senior producer Vincent Pontbriand. Those were, according to Videogamer, his exact words.
“We understand how Senior Producer Vincent Pontbriand’s quotes have been misinterpreted,” Ubisoft said in a statement. “To set the record straight, we did not lower the specs for Assassin’s Creed Unity to account for any one system over the other.”
“Assassin’s Creed Unity has been engineered from the ground up for next-generation consoles. Over the past 4 years, we have created Assassin’s Creed Unity to attain the tremendous level of quality we have now achieved on Xbox One, PlayStation 4 and PC. It’s a process of building up toward our goals, not scaling down, and we’re proud to say that we have reached those goals on all SKUs.”
“At no point did we decide to reduce the ambitions of any SKU. All benefited from the full dedication of all of our available optimization resources to help them reach the level of quality we have today with the core Assassin’s Creed Unity experience.”
It is entirely possible that Vincent misspoke and the game has always been 900p on both systems because parity makes developing the game easier. It is entirely possible the “debates” he referred to were internal disucssions at Ubisoft and we have indeed misinterpreted his words. It is entirely possible Vincent did not speak wisely and now looking very sheepish at his desk whilst #PS4NoParity trends across Twitter and disgruntled gamers cancel pre-orders.
Alternatively, forearmed with the knowledge that many games, including Assassin’s Creed Black Flag and Watch Dogs, run at a higher resolution on PS4, you could wonder why the PS4 version is running at the same level as the Xbox One.
Ubisoft have carefully stated they achieved the “level of quality” they had set and they “did not lower the specs.” Maybe the specs were intentionally limited in the first place?
Only Ubisoft know the answer, and due to this PR cock up whatever they say will be met by some with disbelief and accusations.
Source: Kotaku
double-o-dave
“Maybe the specs were intentionally limited in the first place?” – This.
OR
“To set the record straight, we did not lower the specs for Assassin’s Creed Unity to account for any one system over the other.” – But at the same time you intentionally didn’t bother to raise the specs either.
pdannysan13
This is a new mess for them.
Not long ago was the problem with the female models. It’s been a bad PR year for Ubisoft, a company I respect. Although they milk the Assassin’s Creed cow and are a behemoth company they still try new ideas: Child of Light, Valiant Hearts The Great War. They are not saints but at least they show new things.
MrYd
That “no female models in a game where you all play as the same, male character” thing was stupid, really. Hardly their fault if a few people wanted to try and make some stupid deal out of it.
This, on the other hand, is a bit of a PR disaster for them. Along with the disappointing reception Watch Dogs got. And the reaction to The Crew isn’t going to be great either, I suspect.
Forrest_01
I don’t really get the issue if I am honest – I have always seen it as if you want to play a game, play the damn game. If you don’t want to play a game, don’t bother. It really is as simple as that for me.
If I ever decided not to play a game purely because it wasn’t hitting 1080p &/or 60FPS, I would probably just give up gaming altogether. You clearly aren’t having as much fun as you should be if you are that concerned about specs alone.
kjkg
Have to agree mate. Yes, it would be nice if every game I played had 60FPS and 1080p but in reality, what makes me enjoy a game most is gameplay. If it’s good, then what its specs are is merely a bonus.
double-o-dave
Like I’ve just wrote in the other thread involving this issue, I’d say it’s more to do with the principal of the matter.
If the reasoning behind the PS4 version of the game is scaled down or locked to 900p because of a parity/Microsoft clause this is an issue, especially if the PS4 version is or would have been capable of 1080p.
PS4 customers are suffering at the mercy of Microsoft who are purposely stopping us from playing the game at it’s full potential which is not on at all if you ask me.
Forrest_01
Whilst I don’t entirely disagree with you (regarding principles & all that), there’s still the fact that if a game looks nice enough & plays well enough, where’s the problem?
As I said, I feel people are getting far too hung up on specs these days & will be doing nothing more than harming their own gaming experiences for the sake of a few numbers (that for some probably mean nothing to them anyway).
This gen already seems to be more about the numbers than the games themselves (& the stories & experiences that they bring) & that makes me a bit sad.
double-o-dave
Good, cos otherwise I was gonna make sure I was on the opposite team as you at the BF4 meet on Friday and fly a Hellcat into your face! ;)
Starman
Exactly Forrest. I was going to say something similar but I’m trying to stay out of trouble and didn’t want to stir things anymore!
bunimomike
Agree, Forrest, but with a side-note. There are a handful of games coming out on the PS4 that I want to justify the purchase of the PS4 with. My PC is genuinely powerful and will play all of this on max settings (I think). I’m not a graphics whore, per se, but I do feel like I want the best from any given piece of hardware I purchase. This is the first time that it feels like we won’t be getting it – especially because of another platform influencing those decisions at Ubisoft.
If the PS4 was the underdog, I’d be content knowing the devs are rinsing it for all it’s worth. This time around, it smacks of it not being the case. Historically, we’ve seen where the multiplats shine on the PS4 – resolution and/or frame-rate. If we add the chappie’s comment to this yesterday it really feels like a “oh… so you’re not trying so hard on the PS4?”. That’s the bit that smarts. Not enough to stop me buying the game but I still want someone to do their best for me. When I say “me” I mean me as a consumer along with millions of other PlayStation fans. Not just “I want every game to have sheep in it because I’m Welsh”. Although…. ;-)
Wrap this all up with “I’m still a grown-up and will game regardless”. Hell, you’re reading the reply of someone who played 3D Monster Maze on the ZX81 and that ran at about two frames per second! :D
JustTaylorNow
French is hard to interpret of love is not involved.
They will probably release day one patch but same time they lost many customers to this no parity campaign, hopefully the division & far cry AINT dumben down but have a feeling the division will be due to it having some sort of excluding on xbone
Kennykazey
There’s more to graphics than resolution, there’s still a possibility that the PS4 version will have better effects, AA, or a more stable framerate.
bunimomike
Agreed, fella. If it shines in other graphical departments and is visually noticeable (at least to some degree) then people will hopefully calm down. Especially the I will never EVER buy another game from you brigade. :-)
Tomhlord
Seems a bit late in development to change anything now and I’ll doubt that we’ll ever get the truth.
Jones81
Misquoted my arse, you’re just shitting yourselves because of the response from gamers (i suspect)
bunimomike
As unsanitary as that sounds, I believe you to be spot on. :-) The above rebuttal is them looking increasingly like they’re trying to wriggle out of the articles yesterday – and subsequent backlash. That, in itself, makes it even worse as it’s done nothing to explain why there’s such parity between the consoles when we’ve seen (almost exclusively) resolution and frame-rate benefits for the PS4 on every multi-platform game launched thus far. I only want that explained and that’d be me happy.
Jones81
I agree, they really have put their foot in it. I’ll just leave this fame until its cheaper now, growing backlog and plenty of other releases means this kind of stupidity just makes my attention go elswhere
Amphlett
@Jones81. I agree entirely. One of their graduates in the PR dept wrote up a few lines and fed it to their front man and now they’re trying to cover up with spin (where you read the word ‘spin’ please translate to read ‘lies’) and misdirection.
a inferior race
Genuine question. Was his answer in French, English or a different language.
Tuffcub
As far as I can tell, English. Nothing was “lost in translation.”
Kennykazey
That’s because the Animus translate all spoken language directed to you into your own. Italian still comes across with an accent though.
He may well have been speaking french. :-P
Gaztee
Well I’m not buying the game as I still havent started black flag. The only AC game I’ve really enjoyed since #2 was Liberty on the psv. I do think that whatever the truth there is always going to be some suspicion that the game has been borked to keep MS happy.
bunimomike
If it’s Microsoft meddling in the background we’ll never hear about it directly. However, if it’s the devs being lazy, don’t dress it up as something else.