Ubisoft: console makers are 'pressuring them' into 30FPS for PC

Ubisoft had a few of its staff visit a school to explain their work, with some truly interesting things revealed about the company who thinks 60FPS 'looks weird'. Someone asked the Ubisoft employees "what the hell happened with Watch Dogs", to which the Ubisoft employee, who was the 'Online Programmer' said that just before they release a game, they have to send a copy to console manufacturers, who tell them what to keep in the game, and what to take out.

But it gets better: the Game Architect said that they always try to aim for 60FPS, but due to "limitations", they have been settling at 30FPS for their latest games. He continued, saying that console makers are pressuring them into doing the same thing on PC. The Game Architect continued, saying that Ubisoft reuses as much code as possible, which could explain the similarities between a few of their games.

Someone else asked if the company was "aware of the negative responses of the recent decision to lock your games into 30FPS. If so, what do you think about that?". The Game Architect said that on consoles, and especially for something like Assassin's Creed: Unity, they have to choose between graphic fidelity and smoothness. 'timois', who made the thread on Reddit, said that "he implied that MS is making them lock the framerate on PC too".

If we end up seeing Ubisoft locking their games at 30FPS on the PC, we're going to see a really big backlash from consumers. I seriously can't see the company doing this, but after all of their biggest games being locked at 30FPS on consoles, and the company saying ridiculous things like 60FPS 'looks weird', I wouldn't put anything past them at this point.

You can read my thoughts on it here, or listen to my beautiful Australian accent raging about it in our latest video podcast.