Yesterday, Vince Zampella (Head of Respawn and manager of the Battlefield franchise) took the opportunity to discuss the recent announcement of the PS5 Pro in his interview with IGN about the next Battlefield game.
In terms of development, Zampella seems relatively indifferent to it, in the sense that it’ll be another platform that can run games faster and probably allow some shiny new visual effects.
I mean, we’re not out yet, so does it really help us? Not right now. Can we do cooler things on it? Sure. I guess we’ll see. As we see what the adoption is, we’ll see how much it really affects us. We have to make a game that runs on everything, so it’ll just be like, what can we plus up on something like that, pun intended.
Zampella’s thoughts on the pricing are much more interesting. The executive said that the PS5 Pro pricing, while shocking at first, ultimately makes sense.
I think it’s expected, and anything that gets us better performance for the people that really love it. To me, it’s an amazing thing. I was watching something on it where the price… where they look at is it the most expensive. And it really isn’t. If you go back, some of the older consoles were just as expensive and probably adjusted for inflation were probably more. So it at first seemed a little shocking, but it’s kind of like, it’s actually not that bad. And if you get a $700 PC, you’re not getting the same performance that you’re getting out of it.
So I mean, it’s a balance. Is it expensive for people? Absolutely. Not everybody will be able to afford it. Would it be better if it was cheaper? Sure. I want more people to have it. But it makes sense, really.
The console’s pricing has been a hot topic ever since Sony announced the PS5 Pro last week. Fans have complained loudly against it, but analysts believe Sony can still achieve its goals of selling roughly the same ratio of PlayStation 5 Pro units as they did with the PS4 Pro during the last generation. Moreover, Digital Foundry’s Richard Leadbetter stated that a PC with comparable performance would cost more than the $700 Sony is asking for.
The PS5 Pro is launching globally on November 7.
