The Xbox One will push software to new extremes. Games will look, feel, and hopefully play better when the next-generation hardware launches Nov. 22, but not every nagging issue associated with the medium will be squashed through additional RAM and hard drive space. Albert Penello, Microsoft's director of product planning, confirmed to Rev3Games’ Adam Sessler that the Xbox One will continue to have loading screens.
“You know, I think it’s going to depend on the game,” Penello said when asked about the removal of in-game loading. “I’m sure there will still be loading screens, when you have these massive worlds and you’re loading a lot of data. But it’s really up to the developer.”
Some games are better than others at hiding the times that the console just needs to think, but Penello does hope that we’ll see a future where massive worlds can be traversed without awkward loading times.
“If you look at games like Grand Theft Auto that have these huge open worlds, you very rarely encounter hiccups and loading screens. I think developers are getting more sophisticated, technology’s more sophisticated, and we’re putting things in the hardware to make it easier,” he continued. “I would like to see it, if not go away, at least be significantly reduced.”
Rockstar has been able to deliver almost seamless experiences on the Xbox 360 and PlayStation 3, so it should be interesting to see what the developer can accomplish once it gets some time with the new hardware under its belt.
