its a chocie the dev is going to have to make.  if dx12 does make it easy and quick to port a game from pc to xbox then that could be cheaper then making a pc and ps4 game at the same time.  

XB1 and ps4 have different API's anyway so why does it matter. Also with DX12 there is cross development across XB1 and PC. Not to mention that MSFT is allowing free upgrades for all Windows 7 and 8 users including pirates, I don't think number of customers should be a problem.

Sounds like this dev is trying to warm people up to parity and holding back the XB1 version of games.
#XB1NOPARITY

Even if they fully utilized DX12 on the X1 it would still need to be the PS4 version being held back to achieve parity ^^...

(Or is this a joke? I can't tell.)

It's more of a sarcastic truth. Parity is about one version getting held back and not getting the best possible game.

This article makes little sense, switching your xbox build to a differnt graphics API will not affect the PS4 build in the slightest. Unless your diverting man power to make the upgrade, but for most big devs this is not a thing.

Huh? We already have different apis. Windows/xbone and ps4. Even better for devs if Windows and xbone grow even closer now with dx12. So for multiplatform games there should be even less work. Add to this that devs are used to get familiar with different sdks and architectures in console development.
Perhaps I'm missing something, though.

That's utter nonsense. Last gen, devs had to create versions that were pretty different for PC, X360 and PS3 (more in the last, of course). In the previous gen, things were even worse. Porting is even easier between PS4/X1/PC thanks to their mature API.

And of course, with most games relying on Unreal, CryEngine and other multiplatform development solutions, this is even more ridiculous.

99% of the users don't even know how the game was made and simply don't care. If visuals were that important, everybody would be gaming on PCs with Titans and CoD wouldn't sell 20M.

Despite that, DX12 brings almost none performance improvements for X1. The new API tries to remove mainly the draw call limit on PC graphics and optimize the use of CPUs, like Mantle. None of these improvements will help X1, because it already has a "close to the metal" API and isn't suffering with ny of these issues.

Can someone shed some light on this? I thought developers are already dealing with 2 different APIs for both consoles. Are they so similar that it is easy to port or is DX12 just so extremely different und impossible to port?

Is the bolded part sarcastic too? Because i'd actually (mostly) agree with that statement, which is why i can sympathize with PS4 owners that get upset about it. At least i can with those that don't then credit it to some kind of conspiracy :p

I believe developers should give both version the same amount of attention, even if it means one ends up being 'better'. Within reason, anyway.