Why do game developers recommend new mid-range gpus over last-gen high-range gpus

[Hto005]

Hi, sorry for the titlegore but I thought it was quite fitting.

 

The official requirements for Battlefield 1 has been released and on the recommended section it says a GTX 1060 or RX 480 is good enough

https://www.origin.com/nor/en-us/store/battlefield/battlefield-1/standard-edition?referringsite=battlefield&_ga=1.218611033.1518759081.1462154907#requirements

 

Spoiler

Recommended Requirements

OS: 64-bit Windows 10 or later
Processor (AMD): AMD FX 8350 Wraith
Processor (Intel): Intel Core i7 4790 or equivalent
Memory: 16GB RAM
Graphics card (AMD): AMD Radeon™ RX 480 4GB
Graphics card (NVIDIA): NVIDIA GeForce® GTX 1060 3GB
DirectX: 11.1 Compatible video card or equivalent
Online Connection Requirements: 512 KBPS or faster Internet connection
Hard-drive space: 50GB

According to benchmarks the performance of the 1060 is equivalent to the performance of a 980

Pc gamer - RX 480 and GTX 1060 benchmark scores

And the RX 480 is equivalent to a R9 390

 

why wouldn't they recommend the GTX 980 and R9 390 instead?

[JorenBus]

Doesn't really matter anyway, since system requirements are kinda BS 95% of the time anyway.

As an example: my R9 280 (much, much slower than a R9 390 or RX 480) could run BF1 just fine everything high at 1080@60fps.

So it doesn't really matter.

[Mira Yurizaki]

To keep up with the times of course.

 

Besides, GTX 980s still go for $400+ new on the market. Why recommend a card that costs twice as much?

[SLAYR]

So people know what to buy new, most places now are running out of stock on the 900/300 series nvidia/amd cards, since they have been replaced by the 1000/400 series ones.

[PRTI]

Because its cheaper and newer...+ there requirements are BS anyway, just look at BF1

 

Minimum FX 6350 and i5 6600k

[ThinkWithPortals]

15 minutes ago, Hto005 said:

 

Because the R9 390/GTX 980 aren't going to be in stock for much longer, they're getting phased out off the market. The 1060/480 are not.