Epic Exec Wants Consoles to Catch Up to PCs

[Logan Westbrook]

Epic Exec Wants Consoles to Catch Up to PCs

​

The PC is a window into the future of gaming, says the Epic VP.

Epic's Mark Rein wants console manufactures to add a lot more power to the next generation of consoles. He thinks that gaming PCs have "shot past" consoles, and hopes to see the gap close a little when the next wave of hardware arrives.

Rein hoped that the "Samaritan [http://www.escapistmagazine.com/news/view/108359-Gorgeous-Next-Gen-Unreal-Tech-Demo-Would-Make-an-Amazing-Game]" demo, which appeared at GDC this year running - supposedly in real time - on a very high-powered PC, would give console manufacturers something to aim for. If they aimed to get that level of detail on a console, they did, he said, they would be competitive with what a reasonably priced PC would be capable of in around 18 months. Of course, implicit in that is the idea that high-end PC gaming will have moved on again, but Rein doesn't seem to think that that's necessarily a bad thing.

"Don't forget every game that's ultimately built is built on a PC. PCs are always going to be the tools through which all games get made," he said. "With the PC you can simulate the future; you can put enough hardware in a PC to show you what a future console will look like."

In terms of raw power, PCs are always going to have to the edge over consoles; a console is a fixed platform with a lifespan of several years, while the PC is constantly changing, with new hardware coming out all the time. Some new hardware in consoles would be nice; as Ubisoft said last week [http://www.escapistmagazine.com/news/view/111493-Brains-More-Important-Than-Looks-For-Future-of-Games-Says-Ubisoft-Exec], developers are starting to bang their heads on the ceiling. But whether Sony and Microsoft will go all out and cram as much power as possible into the next PlayStation and Xbox models remains to be seen. I wouldn't be all that surprised if they showed a little restraint, not only to keep manufacturing costs down, but to keep game development relatively affordable too.

Source: Eurogamer [http://www.eurogamer.net/articles/2011-07-08-rein-pc-gaming-has-shot-by-consoles]


Permalink

 

[vivster]

well....duh?

"gaming PCs have "shot past" consoles"... the second the consoles came out...

 

[Canadish]

Developers and publishers are always complaining about the time/cost of making games these days, and I don't see another graphical overhaul helping with that issue.

It's just going to drive prices up, for a graphical increase I don't think many of us feel is needed.

 

[KAPTAINmORGANnWo4life]

It's like going from HD to 3D: Sure it's nicer, but is the extra prettiness really worth the extra cost?

 

[draythefingerless]

Developers and publishers are always complaining about the time/cost of making games these days, and I don't see another graphical overhaul helping with that issue.

It's just going to drive prices up, for a graphical increase I don't think many of us feel is needed.

not quite. the major investment now will be processing power, not graphical capabilities. what this can do is actually lift many constraints when making a game. so, you like your thousand men battles in Shogun 2? How about hundreds of thousands in a battle? or maybe you want your Battlefield game to have 256 players like mag. sure. processing power allows devs to not constraint their own game so much. as for graphical capabilities, i think for now you wont see much increase as youve seen in the past decade.

 

[Canadish]

Developers and publishers are always complaining about the time/cost of making games these days, and I don't see another graphical overhaul helping with that issue.

It's just going to drive prices up, for a graphical increase I don't think many of us feel is needed.

not quite. the major investment now will be processing power, not graphical capabilities. what this can do is actually lift many constraints when making a game. so, you like your thousand men battles in Shogun 2? How about hundreds of thousands in a battle? or maybe you want your Battlefield game to have 256 players like mag. sure. processing power allows devs to not constraint their own game so much. as for graphical capabilities, i think for now you wont see much increase as youve seen in the past decade.

You know, I thought that straight after I hit post.
And that would be a fair point. Still don't think it would justify needing to buy a new machine. On top of that, the current ones are fragile enough as it is, I dread to think at how quickly the next gen consoles would brake/overheat.
It only takes a warm day to Red Ring a 360.

 

[FredTheUndead]

And Activision Execs want money to rain from the sky, but that's not going to happen either.

 

[Hitman Dread]

I HUGELY disagree. What the industry needs now is finding ways to lower the cost of making games, not new ways to increase production cost. Lower cost is good for everyone, lower prices for the gamer, more room to take risk for the developer, and less at stake for the publisher.

 

[MikailCaboose]

How exactly will this work? The reason why PC's are ahead is that you can replace the inner-workings. Need a new graphical chipset? Well buy it and (permitting it fits) pop it in! I don't see that being possible with home consoles. Eventually the same effect will happen, and they'll be behind top-line PC's again.

 

[MercurySteam]

It only takes a warm day to Red Ring a 360.

Maybe if your console is console was six years old. The new Jasper/Vejle chipsets only RRoD when something goes seriously wrong, which has effectively phased out random Red Rings and makes the 360 as reliable as any other console. Knocking the console about with a spinning disc inside it however.....

 

[Woodsey]

Why's he suddenly trying to lick our arses?

Epic - and much more specifically him - talk to and treat their PC customers like twats. Bulletstorm was supposedly their big fucking push on the platform, and yet this was a game with GfWL, forced mouse smoothing (in an FPS of all fucking things) and a demo that was released over a month after the game itself was.

 

[Waaghpowa]

whether Sony and Microsoft will go all out and cram as much power as possible into the next PlayStation and Xbox models remains to be seen.

I doubt they will, like you said, they may show restraint on account of the losses they took with the current generation. Not just money, but it's difficult to make the kind of powerful tech I have in my rig small enough to fit in a little box. My PC weighs about about as much as a small child and stands about 2.5 feet tall. One of the appeals with consoles is that they're small and relatively cheap, go all out on the technical power and all that is gone.

 

[Roserari]

I honestly think that it's about time that all developers need to realize that graphical ceilings aren't the end of a console's lifespan. We've only caught glimpses, really, of what games could be like this generation without having to dazzle us with pretty pictures. It's time that they stopped dangling those shiny keys in fro ... in f ... oooooooooooooooh shiny. What? Where was I? Oh yeah! Developers, start focusing more on the gaming experience. Uncharted 2 raised the bar significantly with how games need to be evolving. (I mean, hot dang what a hootnanny it was to be inside of a falling building, killing bad guys and watching everything go do ... did I just say hot dang? Wait ... did I just say Hootnanny? ;_; WHAT IS HAPPENING TO MEEEEEEEEEEE?) And to my knowledge, nobody has ever gone beyond that bar since Uncharted 2. Maybe Uncharted 3 will, who knows, but I'd like to see others try as well. (I could be horribly wrong, but just the fact that I'm having a hard time coming up with a gaming experience beyond U2 should say enough, shouldn't it?)

And just as a PS here: Stylized graphics, like in Prince of Persia, are coo' too.

PPS: Hope that this is a satisfactory first post ^^

PPPS: As in, first post on the forums. Not as in "FIRST" xD

 

[Booze Zombie]

Just give it more processing power to generate bigger worlds, I don't care about the detail so long as it isn't like... Crayola level.

 

[Lordmarkus]

Why's he suddenly trying to lick our arses?

Epic - and much more specifically him - talk to and treat their PC customers like twats. Bulletstorm was supposedly their big fucking push on the platform, and yet this was a game with GfWL, forced mouse smoothing (in an FPS of all fucking things) and a demo that was released over a month after the game itself was.

Finally someone that thinks alike. I had his words ringing in my ears when I booted the Bulletstorm demo back in March. "It will be super-awesome on PC aswell as on consoles". Well, fuckwit, you don't make a super-awesome PC-game where said game is almost unbearable to play with a mouse and keyboard. You know, the control device we usually like to use when playing PC-games. Especially FPSs.

 

[Bobbity]

I agree that the new wave of consoles is due soon, although I wouldn't mind waiting a few more years, but why do we all assume that Microsoft and Sony will be behind them? New console gens cost companies *millions* for the first few years after they come out, and both companies are already making tidy profits on their current machines. Why would they risk a new gen?

Is it not impossible that EA and Activision could be behind the next generation? Of course, they're making tidy profits as of now too, but they're the only companies who might have a serious interest in the next generation.

I don't think that this will necessarily happen, but I find it somewhat weird that everyone would assume that Sony and Microsoft (and Nintendo, now that they're back) will be solely behind the next generation of consoles.

 

[Irridium]

Developers and publishers are always complaining about the time/cost of making games these days, and I don't see another graphical overhaul helping with that issue.

It's just going to drive prices up, for a graphical increase I don't think many of us feel is needed.

not quite. the major investment now will be processing power, not graphical capabilities. what this can do is actually lift many constraints when making a game. so, you like your thousand men battles in Shogun 2? How about hundreds of thousands in a battle? or maybe you want your Battlefield game to have 256 players like mag. sure. processing power allows devs to not constraint their own game so much. as for graphical capabilities, i think for now you wont see much increase as youve seen in the past decade.

If things happen how the Epic guy wants them to happen, the major investment will still be graphical capabilities, which would cause costs to rise.

But it probably won't. I hope it won't, at least.

 

[SoopaSte123]

I honestly think that it's about time that all developers need to realize that graphical ceilings aren't the end of a console's lifespan. We've only caught glimpses, really, of what games could be like this generation without having to dazzle us with pretty pictures. It's time that they stopped dangling those shiny keys in fro ... in f ... oooooooooooooooh shiny. What? Where was I? Oh yeah! Developers, start focusing more on the gaming experience. Uncharted 2 raised the bar significantly with how games need to be evolving. (I mean, hot dang what a hootnanny it was to be inside of a falling building, killing bad guys and watching everything go do ... did I just say hot dang? Wait ... did I just say Hootnanny? ;_; WHAT IS HAPPENING TO MEEEEEEEEEEE?) And to my knowledge, nobody has ever gone beyond that bar since Uncharted 2. Maybe Uncharted 3 will, who knows, but I'd like to see others try as well. (I could be horribly wrong, but just the fact that I'm having a hard time coming up with a gaming experience beyond U2 should say enough, shouldn't it?)

And just as a PS here: Stylized graphics, like in Prince of Persia, are coo' too.

PPS: Hope that this is a satisfactory first post ^^

PPPS: As in, first post on the forums. Not as in "FIRST" xD

And look at that, your first post is good enough to be quoted!

You're exactly right. High end graphics are not important to me at all. Looking nice, yes, that's important, but that's different. Stylized graphics can offer the same (if not better) visual impressiveness that high end graphics can. My favorite examples? Okami. The Sly Cooper games (I love me some cell shading). Minecraft (my old roommate who is usually ONLY concerned with graphics was even impressed with how beautiful it could look).

And yes, new gameplay ideas are far more important to me than graphics. I hope Sony and Microsoft save us some money and don't worry as much about the graphics.