Shinji Mikami, creator of Resident Evil, currently working on the last game he’ll direct – The Evil Within – says “There’s no real difference between them,” when referring to Sony and Microsoft’s next generation machines in this month’s Edge magazine.

“We only need one console. Why do I have to make two versions of a game? And when Xbox One was first announced it had lower specs than PS4, but now they’re almost identical. “So either will do.”

He’s obviously speaking in terms of development, rather than specifications, and it sounds as though they’ll both be more in line with PC architecture, making it easier to port these games due to the similarities with development.

The Evil Within is set to release on both of these next generation consoles, as well as the current generation PS3 and Xbox 360 as well as PC at some point next year.

It’s refreshing to head a developer as esteemed as Mikami describe them this way, and gives us confidence that the next generation is going to be excellent, with plenty of incredible titles on both machines, without too much of a compromise when it comes to multiplatform games. Hopefully this means we won’t be seeing a similar situation to Skyrim on PS3.

UPDATE: Edge have posted the full article online, providing more context and further quotes from other developers.

Comcept’s Keiji Inafune also agrees – “I don’t think there’s a major difference between them,” he says “If you get down to the tiny details then maybe each is better at one thing than the other, but it doesn’t really impact the way you make a game. It’s not like PS4 or Xbox One are particularly hard to develop for. Quite the opposite: you can make whatever you want on either one, and that should be enough for anyone.”

So, it seems as though it’s relatively easy to port these games, and there’s no worry of having to downgrade a version of the game to have it on the other platform. It seems that it’s really down to each company’s strategy and connections with developers then, rather than what’s in the box. Edge points out that there’s still quite a lot unknown about Microsoft’s Xbox One policies, particularly in regard to updating games.

Source: Edge