When a game developer works on a game for a particular console, they get a “dev kit.” These are computers that are specced out to perform similar to the retail version of the console. One would assume that the games being shown off at E3 were running on dev kits but you’d be wrong.

It turns out that eye-witness reports from the floor at E3 say that not only were Xbox One games not running on dev kits but PCs that were likely far more powerful than the XB1.

This story started coming to light on Wednesday when Julian Ringall of USgamer tweeted the following:

Then, a little later, photos of the Xbox One demo units being worked on hit the web.

Now, if Microsoft ran their E3 demos on dev kits or on comparable hardware, this wouldn’t be a story. Most games at E3 run on PCs anyway because dev kits aren’t consoles but PCs designed to simulate a console. Most PlayStation 4 games, for example, ran on the actual dev kit units. The problem is how different these Xbox One demo units are from the specs of the actual console.

The first picture above clearly shows that the Xbox One kit is running Windows 7 while the Xbox One will be running a Windows 8 kernel as one of the console’s three operating systems. It’s probably not a good sign for Windows 8 that Microsoft didn’t have enough faith to use it as the operating system for their E3 demo units.

What may be a big deal is the hardware the units are running. Reports say that the demo units were running NVIDIA’s new GTX 780 graphics card. The Xbox One’s specs suggest that the closest equivalent graphics card is the AMD Radeon HD 7790. The 780 is the second highest card on the NVIDIA totem pole while the 7790 is more of a mid-range card. Basically, the 780 would blow the 7790 out of the water. Hell, I’d take a 780 over my 7900 series AMD graphics card.

While this rather large gap between the graphics power of the demo and actual consoles isn’t likely to make a difference when it comes to directly marketing the games, it will make a difference in the reports we see from E3. We’ll be getting video, pictures and reports about how amazing games look on the Xbox One but it will all be an exaggeration of the actual capabilities of the XB1. A more powerful graphics setup will result in Xbox One demos having a higher graphical fidelity, including better textures, particle physics and rendering, better shadow detail, among other things, and a smoother framerate.

I’m a little worried about the long-term effects of Microsoft using an overpowered machine to show off its games. We’re going to be reading previews of games based on how the XB1 games looked and played at E3 for a while. The only way that previews aren’t based on these demos is if developers and publishers hold events to preview the games for the press in the future on units more representative of the performance of the actual Xbox One console. Basically, you shouldn’t believe everything the press saw at E3.

Source: Cinema Blend