PS4 & Xbox 720: final hardware specs still a mystery, says DICE

Battlefield 4 is being developed on alpha hardware and target specs, according to DICE executive producer Patrick Bach. He claims that no one knows what the final PS4 and Xbox 720 specs are.

Speaking with CVG, Bach said, "I don't know if anyone has the next-gen hardware to be honest - really. There are versions of it, but does anyone have the final hardware? Do we really know what the final hardware will be?

"There are specs and alpha hardware, but nobody knows exactly what it will be. The only thing I can say about what we're building is that we've set the bar with what we can do and we can scale it down to 360 and PS3."

Bach added that the Battlefield 4 trailer released at GDC isn't to be taken at face value, and doesn't reflect the final game's standards, " What you saw is pre-alpha - it's not the final game or anything. We are lacking a lot of optimisation. Without going into detail about what it could look like on a lower spec machine or a higher spec machine, we will have the scalability to bring the most out of any piece of hardware".

Instead, Bach advised fans to view the video as a target of what DICE want Battlefield 4 to look like running on your rig of choice. He added that of course, the studio needs to be realistic about what can be run on current hardware, and next-generation rigs as well.

Bach concluded, "We've seen visual targets that are pre-rendered or running on machines that are designed for showing off technology - this is the game. [Single-player producer] Tobias was playing the game in the Frostbite engine with the content that we're using to build the game."

Earlier this week Bach said that we've passed the point where Frostbite 3 visuals alone are impressive. Check out what he had to say here.

What's your view?