A PlayStation 4 dev kit was spotted on a Star Citizen developer’s desk the other day, which turns out to be the PC games equivalent of being pictured doing thumb wars with Gaddafi. Umpteen screeching threads later, Chris Roberts himself has stepped in to introduce the console exclusivity rumours to the airlock – and to pen a long love letter to the PC.
“Instead of Crysis benchmarks when they test a new GPU I want to see Star Citizen!”, he wrote.
“Star Citizen IS a PC game,” trumpted Roberts, as if confronted by a PS4 dev kit door-to-door salesman. “It will NEVER be dumbed down for a lesser platform. We will NOT limit the input options or supported peripherals to the lowest common denominator. We will NOT pass on features and technology just because they will only run on some hardware configurations.”
Roberts briefly boasted about his office rig, which runs a pair of Titans and a 4K monitor, plus an ‘ultimate’ PC his team is building from a silly number of graphics cards.
“You think that’s a good approximation for console, even a next gen one like PS4 or Xbox One?,” he asked, rhetorically.
“I LOVE the PC as a platform because it is open, is always moving forward, with new powerful components (usually at cheaper prices) becoming available to gamers available every year,” he explained.
“The PC platform is great because it isn’t static. It doesn’t have rules or some controlling entity that decides what will and won’t be in the eco system. If a cool new disruptive technology like the Oculus Rift comes along it can have a chance to gain traction and become the next big thing.
“Because of this Star Citizen will always be primarily a PC game and will embrace the best and newest tech.”
That rumour unambiguously dealt with, Roberts went on to confirm that his studio had no plans to release Star Citizen on the PS4 and Xbox One – short of a comprehensive change in update policy from Sony and Microsoft. What’s he afraid of?“Odious” quality control procedures and a community infrastructure split between platforms.
“If Sony or Microsoft are willing to let their platform be open, then I see no real difference between them or Valve’s Steambox, a Mac or a PC running Linux, all of which are platforms that I don’t think this community would mind supporting as they are all viewed as ‘PCs’,” he explained.
“And even then it would only be contemplated as a port from the PC, not the other way around plus we would require a financial commitment by Sony to make it happen,” he added. “If some of the coolest features or peripherals don’t make it because the PS4 can’t handle it we would never gimp the PC version.”
Ultimately, Star Citizen’s high-spec focus and surplus of funding from its community has ensured that a platform exclusivity deal is the furthest thing from Roberts’ mind.
“So fear not!”, he concluded. “The PC is the platform of Star Citizen. Anything else, if it happens at all, will just be after the fact.”