DICE Dev Reckons DirectX 12 Support Will Not Be Enough To Save Xbox One

There’s been quite a bit of buzz surrounding DirectX 12 and the potential performance enhancements this could bring to the Xbox One, but DICE’s gameplay designer, Alan Kertz, has said DX12 support won’t be enough for it to topple PlayStation 4’s performance; while PC will remain the gold standard for performance.

When it comes to the ongoing battle between the PlayStation 4 and the Xbox One, it’s all about resolution. Sony’s console is regularly capable of achieving higher resolutions, hitting 1080p in Batman: Arkham Knight for example, in comparison to 900p on Xbox One. The same can be said of the recent Star Wars Battlefront beta, which was 900p on PS4 and 720p on Xbox One. DirectX 12 was meant to change all this, however Kertz doesn’t reckon this will be the case. Taking to Twitter, Kerts said “No amount of consumer trust can change that [the Xbox One] is just an inferior horse in the horsepower category. Xbone will always be behind the PS4 this generation because it isn't as powerful. “But just like last gen, when enough exclusives pile up and the price drops it'll be a worthy purchase.”

He didn’t end it there either - Kertz reckons the performance gains through the use of DirectX 12 still won’t be enough to narrow the gap. “I don't think so,” he said. “It's not going to be able to reduce overhead enough to make up the margin. And PC is the gold standard still.” By that last comment he means most developers use PC as a premium platform. Rather than lower the visual fidelity on everything else to match the lowest common denominator, in this case the Xbox One, DICE instead use PC as the baseline and it scale it down to suit the platform. It’s worrying news for Microsoft, who continue to trail Sony by a significant margin in the console wars. Whether a bump in performance would be enough to claw some of that back is up for a debate, but it seems a foregone conclusion that the terrible E3 2013 showing for the Xbox One has damaged it irreversibly. Fortunately it’s still selling plenty in its own right, it will just likely never be a dominant force in the fashion of the Xbox 360.