No, because one scenario is sustainable to produce an exceptional game while the other isn't.
Consoles completely handicap the technical capabilities of the game's design. PC does not. PC's can be upgraded within months or a year, piecemeal. A console has to wait years to do so, in a single batch.
And the fact that instead of working on adding back cut game features, they will be wasting time on the impossible task of trying to make this game look decent on PS4/Xbox, likely delaying the development of DLC's and actual content additions to the game by months if not almost a year, is particularly what sucks with the greedy move to try to fit this game into old gen console markets.
Actually you're wrong about that, it's quite the opposite or even balanced if you kind of think about it.
This is a good time to be a designer because the framework used to develop consoles has morphed considerably since the old days.
Now, coding for consoles and developing for consoles is much more similar to developing for PCs. It isn’t exactly the same, mind you, but it’s significantly closer than it used to be.
There are some fundamental differences.
When designing for a console, you are working with finite hardware capabilities and concrete specs. Sure, this is more limiting than the PC’s adjustable capabilities. But it also makes it easier for the designers.
You are building a game within very specific parameters. You don’t have to compensate for differences in video cards or processors. Every Xbox One is, from a game design standpoint, exactly the same.
The variance comes from the different console options. Designing for PS4 is different than designing for Xbox One. Typically, especially with bigger games, the workforce is separated into dedicated, console-specific teams.
You’d be assigned to the PS4 team, or the windows 10/Xbox One team. On smaller development teams, everyone might be porting to a couple of different systems.
For the PC the primary difficulty of designing games for the computer is working around all the hardware variables. The goal is to design great gameplay, certainly, but you want it to look great and run smoothly too. To do that, you have to keep these different specs in mind as you’re building.
The video card, the sound card, the processor, etc. can vary substantially from the low-end tech gamer to the high-end tech side of your audience. The game has to play well across the whole spectrum.
There are other factors you’d want to consider when it comes to game design. It might surprise you to learn that the differences diminish the further down this rabbit hole you go. Factors like budget, timeline, the difficulty of the work, and team size are all worthwhile considerations.
But there isn’t a “PC way” to do it and a “console way” to do it. These elements are all determined by the scope of the game being designed.
If you have a big MMO game, even a AAA game with a big budget and a large team, it could take several years. If you have a shooter, it might only take up to two years.
Think Call of Duty–sure, we see a new one every year, but it’s two separate studios, taking two years apiece to build a game, with a staggered release strategy.
The bigger the team, the more people available to work on different elements concurrently. The smaller the team, the more everyone will have on his or her plate, and the more challenging it will be (assuming game size stays the same).
Smaller games will take less time, and they are a more manageable place to start your game developing career.
As far as coding language goes, for AAA games the standard is typically C++ regardless of the intended port. In smaller games, you’ll see greater variety, like java or flash.
All of these factors, like difficulty and budget and team size, depend almost entirely on the game and the developer. It isn’t specifically tied to consoles or PCs.
