Ubisoft is capping the video quality of the next iteration of one of its biggest franchises. And the message from the company to fans boils down to this: It’s your fault for arguing so much.
Ubisoft has confirmed that both the PS4 and Xbox One versions of Assassin’s Creed Unity will run at a 900p resolution locked at 30 frames per second.
According to Senior Producer Vincent Pontbriand, who spoke with VideoGamer.com, this was done deliberately to avoid “all the debates and stuff.”
PS4 games tend to perform better than their Xbox One counterparts. This is most evidenced by games such as Tomb Raider, which ran at 60 frames per second on the PS4 and 30 on the Xbox One. If you’ve ever had the displeasure of reading YouTube comments in videos that highlight these differences, you will see many attacking the other side for purchasing the weaker box. It can all get a tad silly.
It’s interesting for Ubisoft to make this move. Generally, the more powerful system acts as the lead platform during development, then things are adjusted to make the game run on the other. This was shown best in the last console generation when Xbox 360 games would run better than their PS3 iterations due to the complex architecture of Sony’s box. The Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim, which was released back in 2011, ran fine on the Xbox 360, but had a plethora of issues on PS3.
Many are claiming that Ubisoft’s decision for console parity is a detriment to gamers. If someone purchases a $400 dollar console, only to get a gimped version of a game to appease the owners of another console, it can come across as anti-consumer.
AC Unity? I’m not longer interested to buy a version which has been hold back. #PS4NoParity
— Sebastian Zeitz (@Buzz17091991) October 6, 2014
Canceled my Assassin’s Creed Unity pre-order today, and I know I’m far from the only one. Ubisoft will never get my money again #PS4NoParity
— Sanjay Vemuri (@BlameSanjay) October 6, 2014
Of course this all can be easily remedied. The game is still in development, so change is certainly still. There’s also precedent of Assassin’s Creed games getting a resolution bump via an update. That’s exactly what happened to the PS4 version of Assassin’s Creed IV: Black Flag.
Image via Ubisoft