[gambiting]

I work in a games studio in the engine team that integrates new versions of our engines and SDKs for PS4/X1 for our projects - basically when an update comes out you look at the section that's relevant to you and see how it integrates with your flow. So graphics programmers are interested how the GPU pipeline is changing, gameplay programmers are interested what are some new improvements in scripting, console programmers want to know if there is anything new we now have to use to remain compliant with Sony/MS requirements....really, very rarely people read the whole thing fully. You read what you need and then try to work from there. Usually a small team integrates a new version of the engine into the project and if there are any problems then relevant people try to help - and if it's deemed stable it's merged into the main branch.