Epic Getting Unreal Engine 4 Ready for Next-Gen

[Logan Frederick]

Epic Getting Unreal Engine 4 Ready for Next-Gen

Various Epic executives have talked about the next console-centric version of the Unreal Engine.

During Microsoft's game technology conference Gamefest, Epic Games President Mike Capps told a panel that the next iteration of the Unreal Engine would have a "console focus" in the future.

"We've got Unreal [Engine] 4 in production right now," commented Capps. "It's going to be in the next console generation - our rough guess is 2012 [to] 2018."

Lead Programmer Tim Sweeney supported Capps' statements in an interview with TGDaily [http://www.tgdaily.com/content/view/36436/118/1/1/].

Sweeney said, "Version 4 will exclusively target the next console generation, Microsoft's successor for the Xbox 360, Sony's successor for the PlayStation 3 - and if Nintendo ships a machine with similar hardware specs, then that also. PCs will follow after that."

Many PC gamers worry that the growing interest in console engines will leave computer players behind technologically. Epic Vice President Mark Rein doesn't see this trend as dangerous to PC enthusiasts or developers.

"You're able to buy a PC that's as powerful as the Xbox 360 long before the 360 generation is finished. So people, calm down," said Rein to CVG [http://www.escapistmagazine.com/news/view/83399]. "If we give conflicting views and say things that are negative, it's because we care about it and we want it to be strong, and we're going to work to make it strong. Relax, take a breath... PC gaming will be fine."

Source: Gamasutra [http://www.gamasutra.com/php-bin/news_index.php?story=19562]

Permalink

 

[Joeshie]

Rein, no matter how much PR spin you put on it, it's abundantly clear that you guys don't give a shit about PC gaming anymore. Just do everyone a favor by coming out and saying, "We love money too much so we are abandoning the PC market in favor of consoles".

 

[Andraste]

I have a hard time blaming any developer who creates games for consoles over PC these days. With piracy so common and so easily accomplished on PC, it's hard to make real money on PC. Consoles are a safer bet. They are a business - it's not that they love money too much, they love money. That's kind of what a business is. And I daresay the pirating gamer base abandoned the developers long before the developers abandoned them.

It's cause and effect; if there are 150% more people playing a game online as copies of a game are sold, devs are going to think twice and a third time - as they should - about making further games available on PC.

 

[ElArabDeMagnifico]

I STILL don't see what this PC gaming business is all about, obviously the new engine is going to cater to the next console, just like all the last ones every other generation - and with this whole "abandoning PC gaming to make more money" shit doesn't make sense either since they would be cheating themselves out of half the market. Consoles worldwide sales only lead by 2 billion - 11 billion for PC gaming, and 13 billion for console gaming (worldwide of course) - so cheating yourself out of the other billions of dollars sounds...well...you know...STUPID.

I mean what the hell is this "PC's will follow later"? That makes no sense, either you make the engine or you don't. Unless they are talking about optimization, and whatever, it's not like PC's won't be allowed into the next generation or some shit.

 

[Joeshie]

I have a hard time blaming any developer who creates games for consoles over PC these days. With piracy so common and so easily accomplished on PC, it's hard to make real money on PC. Consoles are a safer bet. They are a business - it's not that they love money too much, they love money. That's kind of what a business is. And I daresay the pirating gamer base abandoned the developers long before the developers abandoned them.

It's cause and effect; if there are 150% more people playing a game online as copies of a game are sold, devs are going to think twice and a third time - as they should - about making further games available on PC.

True, but that doesn't mean I have to be happy about it. Appealing to the casual market is financially safe for Nintendo, but many people aren't happy about that. Making more derivative sequels is financially safe, but that doesn't mean people are happy about that.

The problem with Epic is this. They got their start with PC gamers and we loved them (years ago). They provided free content and had strong community support. Once they released their big console game, Gears of War, the focus was almost entirely put on consoles. Then they pulled stunts that pissed off long-time Epic fans. CliffyB came out and said, "We like money more than our long-time fans, so PC gaming is taking a back seat so that we can entertain 14 year olds and frat boys". They released GoW on PC with loads of bugs and an online service that required the terrible GFWL. Then they released UT3 with it's overly-console interface and blamed the poor sales on piracy, despite the fact that similar PC games like CoD4 and the Orange Box sold well enough on the PC. It wasn't because their game was bad or that it was released in a period that saw one of the high points in the FPS genre, no it was all the dirty PC gamers fault. All the while Rein keeps saying, "No really, we love you guys!", at which point he just sounds like a politician.

I realize that once you smell the green, your long-time fans will often take a back seat. However, that doesn't mean that we can't help but feel betrayed by them, one of our most loved PC developers back in the day.

 

[irrelevantnugget]

Rein, no matter how much PR spin you put on it, it's abundantly clear that you guys don't give a shit about PC gaming anymore. Just do everyone a favor by coming out and saying, "We love money too much so we are abandoning the PC market in favor of consoles".

This.

Epic is just alienating their original fans, picking the stable market of console-tards over their (decreasing in amount) loyal PC gamers; I'm not speaking console gamers in general, just the kids who want to play 'manly games', then act 'manly' because they can do bloody stuff and... stuff.

I miss the days of Epic Pinball and Unreal 1, you know... when games were still about having fun, not acting tough. If only Rein and CliffyB would stop being so damn arrogant. They've even surpassed Sony on my asshole-o-meter, and that's one impressive achievement.

PS: Gears of War for PC was one of the worst ports I have ever come across. It took me 8 hours to get it installed, another 6 hours to get rid of choppy framerate, and then there's that GFWL thing that deletes your savegames when under certain circumstances (read: not connected to the internet)

 

[ElArabDeMagnifico]

The piracy thing is a bloody joke, a scapegoat, and an excuse, if pirates have been fucking the game industry this long then PC gaming would be dead by now. If stardock can make money without DRM and secuROM etc. etc. - then any other developer can put a CD key on the game and let those who are really into pirating do all the cracking and hacking and have the buggy product.

If piracy encourages developers to do anything then it's to go multiplatform, not just "abandon PC fans" - who also have wallets with cash in them.

 

[ElArabDeMagnifico]

PS: Gears of War for PC was one of the worst ports I have ever come across. It took me 8 hours to get it installed, another 6 hours to get rid of choppy framerate, and then there's that GFWL thing that deletes your savegames when under certain circumstances (read: not connected to the internet)

Ya know what's worse? IT STILL HAD 360 BUTTONS ON IT'S UI! When a port of a game that's been out for a whole damn year comes out and still has 360 buttons on the interface you know they didn't give a shit.

THEN, cliffy b. comes out claiming that the PC gaming industry is dead because their half-assed port with some extra levels didn't sell as much as the same game that's been out for A WHOLE YEAR.

but it must have been the pirates. PC gamers don't care about "quality" or probably own multiple platforms or anything...right?

 

[huntedannoyed]

Too bad the worlds going to end in 2012. I was looking forward to the next console generation.

 

[Skrapt]

I really couldn't care less about these developers now, yes piracy is a problem...

but it isn't a scapegoat for you releasing crap games

Release a bad game (read: bad port) and it will not sell, cater to 5% of the high end gamers market and it will not sell. Piracy is not the problem here.

 

[Asehujiko]

Sooo... Releasing a shitty port that has a non-functional save feature, clunky controls, laggy online service, extra content that is a repetition of old content, no modding tools(as blizzard and valve have demonstrated, the thing that keeps pc games floating) and a horrible framerate on systems that can run a maxed out crysis at 40-45 fps for a game that has been out for more then a year is less of a problem for sales then piracy?

Stardock, Valve and Blizzard have demonstrated that you can sell on a pc as good as or even better then consoles and they don't use any drm at all. Piracy is only a problem for lazy console ports that were not worth buying in the first place.

And then there's Starforce which wrecks the disk drives of legal costumers but does not harm the people it is aimed at: pirates.