Crytek Boss: "Impossible" For New Consoles to Beat PCs

[Steven Bogos]

Crytek Boss: "Impossible" For New Consoles to Beat PCs

Crytek's Cevat Yerli says the next generation of consoles wont even come close to how well current PCs are able to run Crysis 3.

Cevat Yerli is the CEO of Crytek, most famous for its Far Cry and Crysis series. The German developer is no stranger to making bold statements about how his games push the limits of technology, and this time he has claimed that it is "impossible" for next-gen consoles to run Crysis 3 as well as gaming PCs that are currently available. Yerli has seen Microsoft and Sony's new machines first-hand, and believes that the cost restrictions of the consoles mean that gaming PCs are already leaps and bounds ahead in terms of power.

"Without breaking NDAs that are in place, realistically, from purely a price point perspective, it is impossible. It's impossible to package $2000-3000 into a mainstream, let's say $500 console. I'm not saying they are $500 consoles. They may launch a console at $2000, but the consumer pricing is usually much lower than that. So, given consumer pricing, and given the cost of production of a gamer PC and the amount of watt of power it needs, which is like a fridge, it's impossible."

Yerli says that console manufacturers are fighting a losing battle against PCs, due to the rapid evolution of PC technology and the falling costs of PC components since the Xbox 360 and PS3 launched. "It's very difficult to compete with that. People have these massive nuclear power plants standing in their rooms that will run your games really fast. It's hard to compete with," Yerli said, explaining that enthusiast gamers can build monster machines with multiple graphics cards that are "overclocked to infinity" in a way that just wasn't possible six or seven years ago.

CryEngine 3, the technology behind Crysis 3 was made next-gen ready by following the theory behind Moore's Law, which states that computer processors double in power roughly every two years. During this process, they discovered that whatever Sony and Microsoft put out could never beat a PC. "If you predict how hardware evolves at the current speed of evolution, and then take consumer pricing evolution, already two years ago you could see, whatever launches in 2013 or 2014 or 2015, will never beat a PC again."

The original Crysis was infamous for "melting PCs," demanding that you had a machine from the future to be able to run the game at full settings with a steady frame rate. Crysis 2 dialed that back a bit in order to make itself more accessible, but Yerli says due to feedback from the loudest group of fans, the enthusiast PC gamers, Crysis 3 will again return to its PC-melting status. "I made a joke at one point saying, 'we're going to melt PCs,' and I think we are going to melt PCs again."

Earlier this month, Star Citizen developer Chris Roberts made some similar comments to Yerli, claiming that next-gen consoles would lose their price and power advantage to PCs. [http://www.escapistmagazine.com/news/view/121826-Star-Citizen-Dev-Consoles-Will-Lose-Advantage-to-PCs]

Crysis 3 is out on February 19th for PC, Xbox 360 and PS3.

Source: Eurogamer [http://www.eurogamer.net/articles/2013-02-18-crysis-3-developer-crytek-on-why-its-impossible-for-next-gen-consoles-to-match-the-power-of-gaming-pcs]

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[Gearhead mk2]

Blah blah blah glorious pc gaming master race blah blah consoles suck blah graphics are everything blah blah blah.

That's all I'm hearing from this.

 

[The White Hunter]

Thats nice Mr Yerli but look at all the fucks I give:























See that?? Not a single one. Power and shiny graphics aren't everything and Crysis still has to prove itself as more than a £45 benchmarking tool.

 

[Eclipse Dragon]

I'm pretty sure PCs have always been more powerful than consoles, was he seriously worried the next gen would be any different? I think he needs to understand machine power has never been the selling point of consoles over PCs.

If next gen consoles are to "beat" PCs, it would be because consoles are more consumer friendly, standardized TV boxes that we can drop a flat fee on and never have to worry about upgrading. Of course that's pretty irrelevant these days also and seems to be a business model that current console devs are allergic to.

 

[Daystar Clarion]

News just in!

Birds fly, grass is green, the sun shines, and consoles can't hold a candle to PCs.

I love consoles, I own all the current gen stuff minus a Wii U, and I've got a mid/high end PC. I'll probably pick up next gen too, but I'm under no illusion that they'll have the visuals and framerate of a good PC build.

 

[Anathrax]

Bungie please, listen to these types of statements and follow them. I play shooters on a mouse and keyboard, many others do. DO NOT BE STUPID.

laiming that next-gen consoles would lose their price and power advantage to PCs.

They always have in my opinion.

 

[BrotherRool]

So wait, he's designing Crysis 3 to run on $2000-3000 PC's?

 

[Gearhead mk2]

snip

...please, oh please, be joking.

 

[WouldYouKindly]

It's true. The second I see consoles selling for 500 dollars, I'll just get a barebones gaming PC for the same price and upgrade it as required.

 

[omicron1]

My two cents: Once the lowest target spec is brought up to at least 2010 hardware, many things about even the PC versions of games will be allowed to improve. That 8-16 gb of memory is the difference between, say, a fully-dynamic open-world (Skyrim with no load screens!) and corridor shooters; or between Crysis 1's glorious open island maps and Crysis 2/3's wide hallways. And that's not to mention the benefits of manyfold faster CPUs (Physics? AI? No problem!). Even if the graphics are no match, to some extent the introduction of next generation consoles will be a huge aid even to PC gamers.
That is, once they stop buying exclusivity for everything.

 

[Doclector]

Lower pricing for PCs still doesn't change the accessibility issues or the fact that games companies are using the PC's variation and adaptability to pull some ridiculous bullshit with DRM and the like.

Sure, there have been rumours that next gen consoles will pull similiar shit, but until that's confirmed, consoles still have advantage of not being as open to such tactics.

Fact is, you know where you stand with a console. I buy a console game, I know it works for that console, if it requires anything else, it'll say on the box in plain english, and if it doesn't work, something is wrong with the game, or if other games don't work, something is wrong with the console. True, I don't really have much of an option to fix that myself, but if I could, PC gaming wouldn't be a problem anyway.

With PCs you have to have a certain understanding of it. You have to understand what graphics card is stronger than the other and be aware of your PC's full specs when buying a game, then there's issues that may be specific to certain components that have to be fixed either by replacing said component or messing around with the computer's settings, which sometimes isn't as easy as it may sound.

That said, I'm fully aware of the advantages of PCs. Mods have done some incredible things, there's a lot to be said for someone being able to design, create, and release a game all by themselves, and with kickstarter, even funding has become less of a barrier. This sort of openness has led to lower budget games that simply wouldn't be worth releasing on a console, especially in horror.

Not everyone, however, can get their head around PC's technical parts. Not everyone's even comfortable with it, it's not always about sheer technical knowledge, it's about being able to purchase a game with the confidence that it most likely works, not having to worry that it'll disagree with your particular setup.

People are always saying "Pc gaming is dead" "consoles will fall behind" but honestly, I think that there will always be consumers for both.

 

[Albino Boo]

So wait, he's designing Crysis 3 to run on $2000-3000 PC's?

They are designing Crysis 3 to run on a PC that is $2000-$3000 dollars now but will be $1000 in 6 months and $300 in year. That is the falling cost of PC components that they are talking about. Whereas a console stays roughly the same price through out its life time.

 

[mateushac]

I don't know whether Crysis 3 coming back to its "pc melting" origins is a good thing or a bad one. I can predict my 3 year old machine having its ass thoroughly kicked by it just like my old one got kicked by the original Crysis.

 

[Shadow-Phoenix]

Thats nice Mr Yerli but look at all the fucks I give:
























See that?? Not a single one. Power and shiny graphics aren't everything and Crysis still has to prove itself as more than a £45 benchmarking tool.

^This^

How this article and it's worthless nonsensical information makes me feel in general:

 

[Anathrax]

snip

...please, oh please, be joking.

Clearing up time. I don't really care what Crytek does or the quality of their PC ports. I don't care if they dream of burning all consoles in the world. As long as a company still sees the good in PC gaming, I take a small liking to them.

TL;DRFor something this short?) BUNGIE PLAN A PC PORT OF DESTINY NAOW.

 

[Shoggoth2588]

PCs far out-striped consoles this generation...and last generation...and the generation before that. This just feels like old news to me. While we're on the subject though, what percentage of those PC games (that aren't exclusive) will be built from the ground up to be optimize PC settings before mods?

Honestly though, my laptop can't run WoW and chugs to the point that playing Minecraft is virtually impossible so PC gaming never really became a thing for me.

 

[AstaresPanda]

Lets be honest, PC's will always be better in terms of graphics, so he is right. (yes graphics are not everything but it helps)

PC games tend to have a longer life span and more replay value. Then along with community mods. PC's overall are just more cost effective in the long run. Pc games tend to be cheaper also, plus Steam sales.

But thats me.

 

[fix-the-spade]

So wait, he's designing Crysis 3 to run on $2000-3000 PC's?

Well, of course.

The alternative is ending up with Crysis 2 and it's hilariously bad path finding, murky textures and a general step back in every way from it's predecessor. It's much easier to scale a game down for consoles (see BF3, Half Life 2) than it is to go the other way (Borderlands, Dead Space). Plus the hardware on consoles is well beyond it's sell by date now, even games released eighteen months ago were beyond the 360's hardware limits.

Also, it won't be a $2000 PC in a couple of years time, my £400 PC can max out Crysis now, tech marches on.

 

[Slash2x]

Lets be honest, PC's will always be better in terms of graphics, so he is right. (yes graphics are not everything but it helps)

PC games tend to have a longer life span and more replay value. Then along with community mods. PC's overall are just more cost effective in the long run. Pc games tend to be cheaper also, plus Steam sales.

But thats me.

^^ 0.0 I was Getting ready for my post and you made me go, oh yeah Steam....


So yeah have to agree with him on this one. Crysis 2 looked and played like crap on the PC because it was geared toward the console release. Checkpoints and graphical downgrades made it feel like I was playing a different game from a different company. I had to check and see if the game was really from Crytek after the first level. Not a bad game just not the Crysis I was looking for....