Space game Elite: Dangerous is confirmed for PC and Mac. But will it ever come to console?

Frontier chief David Braben indicated that Elite will one day come to console - specifically PlayStation 4 and Xbox One - at the Develop conference last week. In fact, he told Eurogamer in an interview "we would be stupid not to".

"I've just got to watch out," he smiled. "I don't want to do something that constitutes an announcement, but we would be stupid not to support other platforms, including console."

Elite: Dangerous, Braben pointed out, is built using the same engine Frontier used to create Xbox One launch title Zoo Tycoon.

"We've done lots and lots of games over time," he said. "We've done first-party Sony games. We've done first party Microsoft games. On console. So yes, we'd be stupid not to think about it.

"But the point is, we're very focused on delivering a great PC game. We will then do the game on Mac and during that time we will be looking at other platforms as well.

"We're a public company and announcements have to be properly made. But it's obviously something we're bearing in mind."

Braben said he was convinced both the PS4 and the Xbox One were capable of realising Frontier's vision for Elite: Dangerous, which has been built to run on a wide variety of PCs.

"The PC is a funny platform," he said. "It's not really a platform. It's a whole range of platforms flying in loose formation.

"You compare a laptop with an uber dev PC, with someone's PC which has had such a lot of rubbish installed on it that it's got all sorts of broken drivers, and the game is expected to run on each of those. There is so much variation. So it's really hard to put on the outside of a box what the minimum spec is.

"We're putting a lot of effort in to put in a lot of controls so the player has control over what's coming out. We're going through some wonderful effects internally that look truly beautiful, and we're saying, that slows the frame rate a bit, doesn't it? And we say yes, but we don't mind, because it looks so beautiful. But what we're going to do is attach it to this part of the detail slider. Or we'll call it out as a tick box.

"One of the beauties with console is we can then hand tune it to be just right. This is why we put all these options in."

Elite: Dangerous also supports virtual reality headset the Oculus Rift - and Braben pointed out that the PS4 has its own VR headset, Project Morpheus.

Whatever the case, Elite: Dangerous is unlikely to launch on console this year. Frontier's launch plan involved releasing on PC during the 2014 calendar year (the beta launches at the end of July). Then a Mac version will be released approximately three months later. Perhaps we will see Elite: Dangerous on console at some point in 2015.