On Monday, we ran a rumor that Assetto Corsa would possibly be announced for the Sony PlayStation 4 at E3 this year, based solely on one developer’s tweet where he mentioned he’d be in Los Angeles right around the time E3 was taking place. We also included a picture of a stack of PS4 dev kits sitting inside the Kunos office, as well as Giovanni Romagnoli’s linkedin account where he mentioned that he had played an integral role in converting Assetto Corsa’s graphics engine so the game could run on PS4 hardware.
This was the reaction the article received on other sites where it was linked:
“Ridiculous,” says one user. “No reason to start working out the most crazy theories,” says another user. “That’s PretendRaceCars for you, they love to exaggerate everything” and “That’s a ridiculous thing to draw out of one tweet” say two longtime haters.
Eat your words, gentlemen:
I don’t think it’s the right call. Assetto Corsa is an incredible driving simulator, but there are virtually no game elements to it. Console players were underwhelmed by Project CARS once the bugs were mostly worked out, and that’s a game that has a full, working career mode, proper online functionality, as well as a whole host of things that Assetto Corsa doesn’t have, like night racing, rain, and the ability to select your livery in multiplayer. PC driving game enthusiasts are able to look past the shortcomings of AC because the physics are just so damn good, justifying the expensive toy steering wheels and hardware upgrades, but console gamers won’t because they are an entirely separate audience who collectively want something totally different. They want a game to compliment the killer driving physics, and AC neither offers that currently nor plans to in the future.
The bottom line is that if you have a desire to play no-nonsense, hardcore racing sims, chances are you already own a PC and Assetto Corsa. I can’t see it doing well critically because there’s not much to keep people playing past the initial “oh wow, this game has really good physics” period, , I can’t imagine it’ll be very popular online either.
Regardless, it’ll be interesting to see how the small Kunos team balances a project of this magnitude.
maybe i should just get it on PS4, atleast then i have a chance taht it wont crash non stop.
2 months now i havn’t been able to play because of an Fmod error. constant crashes.
apparently it’s a “minor audio bug” according to kunos.
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Perhaps, if Kunos take the adventure seriously, we can actually see the game fully realizing its potential beyond the outstanding physics. Maybe we can actually see Next Gen graphics coupled with a proper career. Could be great for the PC crowd.
I really enjoy the game and hope this console foray can be positive. If not, at least we still have the good ole game base to play with.
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That’s weird. I never have stability issues with AC. Are your audio drivers updated?
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I have yet to see one title that went to console that somehow benefit PC version, infact very often other way around, I am surprised Kunos managed to get there highly modifiable PC game past sony\microsoft , as they hate PC versions that have mods over the console, helps highlight how irrelevant consoles are becoming.
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Yeah, so irrelevant that a sim racer is being ported over. A decade ago this would’ve been unthinkable.
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More because of the perception of console players being young and dumb and wont take to sims or learning, theres no reason why sims couldnt of been on consoles earlier tech wise,all the gmotor titles for example could of easily made it to ps3 or earlier, as far as I can see only benefit is more money for kunos, but it aint gonna change console player attitudes to sims IMO, if some do get the sim itch they will prob make the jump to PC so thats a plus too i guess.
Also I really cant see ho AC wont be stripped back, rocking a I5 OC to 4.2 im constantly maxing that out with AI and physics, which aint good on a product whos selling point is physics.
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Remember, overhead is taking ~ half of your relative compute performance. A bad port to console won’t exhibit the potential uplift, a good one will though.
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Eh, the porting process need not be overly expensive. Kunos isn’t wasting time with closed shortcut APIs on the PC to start with, which means making their engine run efficiently on console hardware will be considerably easier.
An important fact that is often overlooked: preparing the engine for console will directly benefit their eventual move to dx12. The programming between DX12 and even the ps4 (let alone xbox one) is vastly more similar than dx11. It’s going to take years to see the fruits of their labors truly realized cross-platform but the benefits are not in a single direction. They can use the experience and time spent porting for all platforms long-term. Almost everyone disregards the key factor of having an x86-based ecosystem, merely because some studios have decided to do the absolute minimum necessary to push out titles. Hopefully Kunos will be thinking long-term with their efforts.
If they tweak AI further (sounds like they will) and fluff up the career mode (I really don’t see what exactly makes their career mode particularly bad, it’s just a bit simple at this time), then the more casual players can have something to do.
I’m not sure what people are looking for in a career mode anyways. A sense of progression? Seems like you either force people to unlock or you let them run wild like project cars.
The fans of visual modification titles/upgrades aren’t going to find what they want, that’s for sure.
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