More praise for the PS4’s hardware, this time from Ubisoft

Developers are really digging the PlayStation 4's hardware architecture. The latest to speak up about Sony's new console is Ubisoft Montreal CEO Yannis Mallat which called the PS4 a "really pleasant surprise." Mallat's comments come not long after Epic Games VP Mark Rein referred to the PS4 as a "really perfect gaming PC."

Mallet believes the transition to a new console will be "less complex" than in the past, partially because of Sony's decision to use "off-the-shelf" PC parts. "From what we can talk about, which is the PlayStation 4, it's been a radical change from those guys," he told CVG.

"I'll tell you an anecdote: When I was the producer on Prince of Persia: Sands of Time we managed to get our hands on a very good programmer who's still on the Assassin's Creed core team," he elaborated. "One day on his desk he had a black book all written in Japanese, and I was like, 'what is that?' It was the documentation support for coding for PS2. 'That's why I wanted to have Japanese lessons,' he said – to understand and make the most out of the machine."

"That day I understood how complex it was to develop on PlayStation 2. So we were eager to find out what the PlayStation 3 would be in terms of architecture, and it was pretty much the same but more complex."

"PlayStation 4 really comes as a pleasant surprise because indeed it's a very familiar architecture," Mallet said, making Ubisoft's decision to develop its next-gen games early on high-end PCs seem all the smarter. "I think it's paying off for us deciding to develop on high-end PCs early. It's a less complex transition."

I'm no expert on hardware, but judging by the praise and the number of developers — both AAA and indie — that have hopped on the PS4 bandwagon, I'd say Sony made the right decision in switching to more of a PC architecture.