This is actually minorly at play with consoles as well.
Take for instance the Xbox. Consoles that can play include:
Xbox 1 v1
Xbox 1 v2
Xbox 1s
Xbox 1x
Xbox Series S
Xbox Series X
All 6 of these consoles run on different hardware, which behaves differently. All of them have their quirks. One example is that the XB1X does not handle read requests on recently updated data perfectly.
Further, each Xbox is still made of computer circuitry internally, which while standardized, still has some variation.
Additionally, each console is under a different use load. Some people play apex and that’s it, some are in parties, some are streaming music while playing. Thus, bottlenecking still occurs here.
Also, consoles can use a LOT of different audio profiles. Every conversion that must take place increases the time that file spends in memory.
This is actually the reason why pathfinders used to be so quiet. The file for footsteps couldn’t be loaded from solid state to volatile memory fast enough, especially with all the other data that needed read concurrently, such as his model, textures, and other data associated with the player.
Until the enhanced edition releases for the newest releases, the devs are sticking with a “best for both” style build that causes some performance loss on upper and lower age consoles.
*Disclaimer: this will void warranties, proceed at your own risk*
Something that might help, for you specifically, is to open the casing of your console, and thoroughly clean the air pathways of dust. The consoles thermally lock their read/write speed at high temperatures to prevent damage. This further decreases audio quality. If you are even braver, you can check the integrity of the thermal paste. The older the console is, the more likely this is an issue.
Lastly, if you utilize a bluetooth headset, know that you will lose a LOT of audio due to the awful quality of communication protocols in the Bluetooth standard. This is why PS4 and Xbox use custom comms profiles for their controllers, and why Apple created AirPlay.
They’ve already touched on that. Apex saw a large lull in player base, and their data showed that LTMs and alternate modes actually lowers the pools for both, and people get frustrated due to the subsequent match pool increase. That’s why Pathfinder’s town takeover was tied to the normal game mode.
Additionally, the datamining community has already confirmed the existence of several unfinished modes, which have been recipe ingredients development. From a game population standpoint, it would be better to release many modes at once, so that people have more incintive to return to/join the community. Releasing a single mode at a time would result in population shifts akin to an ltm, a spike then a fade. A cluster of modes added would see a much larger spike and retention, something that is much better from a profit standpoint.
