I forget where I read this, maybe it was on Reddit, but I recall someone saying that NVIDIA is screwed because consoles will heavily be using compute and since it's AMD hardware they're running, asynchronous compute. The belief is since the PS4 and XB1 are now more or less PCs, developers are going to use all the technologies advantageous to AMD hardware and when they port the games over, said advantages will come over. This is doubly true now that Vulkan and DirectX 12 are touted to offer "console-like control" over the hardware.

Let me tell you why it doesn't matter what developers do on consoles. Well, as a disclaimer, just this part.

For one, despite their similarities in architecture hardware-wise, the XB1 and PS4 are still about as different on the software side as consoles can be. XB1 is the quintessential "gaming PC", while the PS4 is something of a FreeBSD gaming box. Not to mention, the PS4 uses APIs that are in-house to Sony themselves. AMD offered them Mantle, but developers for Sony mentioned that the PS4 already has an API ready in that regard. Going back to the XB1 though, even though it technically runs on Windows (on Windows), the actual games themselves don't run in what you'd call a full Windows environment. i.e., the same one you and I use (assuming you use Windows).

To put it simply, consoles have much closer access and can tap into the potential power of their hardware. Their environments are also custom made to provide a balance of what they offer and avenues to tap into said performance. Windows and other full blown operating systems have layers upon layers of abstraction to make them more universal and accepting of general apps. And no, Vulkan and DirectX 12 don't really expose anything more. They just allow for more control over software based resources. An application using either Vulkan or DirectX 12 cannot directly address GPU memory, cannot directly control GPU execution units, and overall, cannot directly control the hardware itself. To do so would be a terrible breach of contract as I expect the OS to protect applications from accessing my hardware directly. At the end of the day, the application not only has to go through the API, but the API has to go through the device drivers, which has to go through the firmware.

The second point I want to make is that PC gaming is a minefield for compatibility, issues, and other hiccups. A console is a well known, well analyzed system. Especially almost three years into it, Sony and Microsoft and its developers know how to work out the console should a problem arises. And if they want to test out something, they can make a best guess easily as to if it's feasible or not. A random person's PC? Not so much. You may be running AMD hardware, but maybe you're not running the right drivers. Maybe you're not running the right OS with the right patch. Maybe your computer just has that gremlin in it that just won't make that thing work. And then there's the other stick in the mud, they have to make sure the games work on other compatible hardware too.

So while certain aspects of console gaming development do carry over to PC gaming, if it's anything specific to the console, it's not going to make it to the drawing board when developing the PC version.