Gaijin explains why War Thunder is skipping Xbox One

Gaijin Entertainment used gamescom to confirm that it'll be bringing War Thunder, a free-to-play aerial combat MMOG, to PS4 in time for launch. The developers have now discussed why they decided not to bring the game to Xbox One.

In an interview with Edge developers Anton Yudintsev and Kiril Yudsintsev outlined why they chose PS4.

"Well the main thing is you need a lot of people in the game for online gaming to make your game successful," said Yudintsev. "And Sony allows us to make cross-platform games for PS4 and they allow us to make simultaneous updates. We have a digital agreement; we can make simultaneous updates on PC and PS4. That means there will be a lot of players playing from day one."

He added: "PS4 is so powerful, and the architecture is similar to PC, so it’s much easier to maintain simultaneous updates."

When it comes to Xbox One Yudintsev cited the fact that Microsoft hasn't yet decided how they'll handle online free-to-play games and self-publishing. "They need to stop talking and start basically doing something."

The developers make it very clear that the decision is about Microsoft's policies rather than the respective power of the next-gen consoles. Xbox One will not allow cross-platform play, which was a deal-breaker for Gaijin. However, they did tell Edge that the PS4 is "obviously" more powerful than Xbox One.

Yudintsev said: "GPU, like 40 per cent more powerful. DDR5 is basically 50 per cent more powerful than DDR3, but the memory write is bigger on Xbox One so it depends on what you’re doing."

War Thunder is targeted for a launch day release on PS4.