A Crytek engineer who recently seemingly claimed that the PlayStation 5 was the superior next-gen console appears to have retracted his statement. In a recent interview with Persian site Vigiato, Ali Salehi apparently argued that the PS5 is easier to program for than the Xbox Series X... but in a strange turn of events, Vigiato has now pulled said interview.
A number of Salehi's quotes were archived on ResetEra and by Tom's Guide after Twitter user @man4dead translated and posted them. Weirdly, man4dead has since deleted all tweets that referenced the interview, and is now saying that Salehi "doesn't confirm the content of the interview anymore due to personal reasons".
It's not entirely clear what's going on, but many seem to agree that Salehi probably said something that Crytek didn't want him to say. According to Tom's Guide, the engineer spoke about how the console's raw specs (Xbox Series X is technically superior) aren't necessarily the most important factor for developers.
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"As a programmer, I say PS5 is much better and I don't think you can find a programmer that could name one advantage that XSX has over PS5," one translated quote allegedly reads.
He also praised the PS5's ultra-fast SSD and said that it makes the PS5 "the easiest console they have ever coded on to reach its peak performance". He added that he thinks PS5 "is extremely simple and has so many abilities that make the devs so free".
With the PS5 and Xbox Series X specs having only just been shared by Sony and Microsoft, Salehi's comments would have marked the first time a developer had actually gone on record to claim that one console was "better" than the other.
Given neither next-gen machine is out yet, there's every chance that these comments could have led to Microsoft looking less favourably upon Crytek. It would make sense for Crytek to pull the interview in order to preserve a business relationship, in that case. Some have also speculated that Salehi's interview could have been in breach of some kind of non-disclosure agreement. For now, we have absolutely no idea what exactly went down, unfortunately.
Now that we know what exactly is going on under the hoods of the PS5 and Xbox Series X, there's been a lot more discussion around which is the superior console. Some have suggested that the PS5's incredibly fast SSD could end up making it the easier console to develop for despite the Xbox Series X's beefier specs, but we're obviously going to see some great games from both machines regardless... so let's just kick back and see what happens, eh?
Featured Image Credit: Microsoft/SonyTopics: PS5, Xbox Series X, PlayStation