Epic Exec Wants Consoles to Catch Up to PCs

[Bobbity]

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

Haha, very nice. Welcome to our forums, and hopefully you'll like them enough to stick around.

 

[Roserari]

Haha, very nice. Welcome to our forums, and hopefully you'll like them enough to stick around.

Thank you ^.^ And things are looking shiny around here

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.

My favorite example is Jak and Daxter. Jak 3 is visually very stunning but Jak 4 (that PSP game) is butt ugly in comparison. They tried to make it too ... euh, I can't find the right word so I'm going with "realistic" here.

 

[Not G. Ivingname]

The problem is, the highest of high end PC's are around $5000 and no console could ever afford to go near that price point. The developers of PC's can always push hardware and graphics in ways consoles couldn't dream of because high end PC's are used in fields that need that stuff that isn't just for video games.

 

[RA92]

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.

idTech spent around two years to optimize Rage so that the consoles could support huge environments and run at 60FPS. Optimizing a modern game for 6 year old hardware drives up cost as well. New DX11 features like tessellation and new texture compressing algorithms actually lower the hassle of making good-looking games. Just saying.

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.

I really never cared much for Epic's line of releases since UT2k4, but damn, I love them for the licensing terms of UDK and the constant stream of updates and documentations. Epic is going to turn into a darling for indie devs.

 

[Neonsilver]

The problem is, the highest of high end PC's are around $5000 and no console could ever afford to go near that price point. The developers of PC's can always push hardware and graphics in ways consoles couldn't dream of because high end PC's are used in fields that need that stuff that isn't just for video games.

Consoles don't have to compete with 5000$ high end PC's. I have a 3 years old laptop and my laptop has better hardware than a PS3.

 

[RA92]

The problem is, the highest of high end PC's are around $5000 and no console could ever afford to go near that price point.

$5000?

I think Epic and Ubisoft will be happy enough if Sony and MS aims at a $500 rig. [http://www.escapistmagazine.com/forums/read/9.272899-Want-to-build-a-PC-on-a-budget-Meet-the-500-gaming-rig#10531988]

 

[JWAN]

but...but movie bob said gaming consoles are dead.

then again hes a complete know-it-all-mightier-than-thou-douche-bag
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The problem is, the highest of high end PC's are around $5000 and no console could ever afford to go near that price point. The developers of PC's can always push hardware and graphics in ways consoles couldn't dream of because high end PC's are used in fields that need that stuff that isn't just for video games.

yea but the beauty is you dont need to spend 5k to get "The best", you can build one for $450-500 and be good for 6 years, if it starts chugging a bit upgrade it . for the PS3, assuming you bought the top of the line model you spent $600. I never really understood the PS3 myself because it CAN play games in 1080p but there still aren't many games that require it. Probably in the next console generation...

However I totally agree with your second point. I think its a damn good one. PC's are always evolving to bring the best to bear because they are only limited by time. Once you buy a console your stuck with what you have until you crack it or they come out with a new system. The way things are done now means that its almost impossible for a console to keep up with pc's because you cannot reach in and tweak them up a few notches without a hardware upgrade. Once you can update the hardware it ceases to be a classic version of a console and it becomes a PC.

 

[Something Amyss]

You know what I want? More time spent making good games that anyone can play, rather than working on bleeding edge hardware and perpetuating the obssession over graphics.

 

[Rad Party God]

They need RAM. Lots of RAM. Heck, any decent laptop has, at the very least, 2 gb of RAM and a regular console has 512 mb of RAM. It would be nice if they added extra Ram, like 4 or 8 gb, so that they can load as much game data as they can and make the new consoles less dependant on streaming data from the disc all the time. In theory, it would drastically reduce loading times, improve the performance of the games and prolong the life span of a console.

But that's just me, I don't know the how much it would cost such a thing.

 

[Chris Sandford]

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.

to be fair, People can fly was the developer of Bulletstorm. They were the ones who took much longer to make the pc version of the game.

 

[Laser Priest]

Well, good luck with that.

PC seems to have a pretty much constant lead.

 

[ImprovizoR]

Why bother? PC's are just going to shoot past consoles again in a matter of months. Why not simply make games for PC and forget all about consoles?

Microsoft and Sony make money on consoles and they want you to buy them. It doesn't mean it's a good idea to do that. Consoles are exactly what's killing gaming. Think about it. This motion control crap came from consoles, advertisements in games came from consoles, exclusive pre-orders and payed DLC came from consoles. Everything we hate about gaming today happened because this generation of consoles made gaming mainstream. And what's even worse, they are slowly preparing us for cloud gaming!

I can't even imagine what kind of shit they'll come up with for the next generation of consoles. But whatever it is it won't be good. Of course it will be advertized as the best thing since sliced bread and a lot of people will fall for that. Just so they can squeeze even more money out of people who are already paying too much. Most games are not worth $60 anyway, and you shouldn't have to pay to be able to play your games online (Xbox Live) when you already bought your multiplayer game for $60!

 

[Epona]

Everytime a new console is released it closes the gap between the previous gen consoles and PC's. Why is this even news?


Up Next: Fable creator Peter Molyneux went to the bathroom and had an opinion about seashells and toilet paper!

 

[koroem]

Why's he suddenly trying to lick our arses?

Epic - and much more specifically him - talk to and treat their PC customers like twats.

Pretty much this. Epic is so hypocritical. They left PC gaming with the terribleness that was UT3, to leg hump Microsoft with Gears. They now preach PC gaming is where it is at, yet still refuse to let go of their Xbox exclusive development.

On top of that, they create and license out the Unreal Engine, which is the bane of PC enthusiasts for its lack of anti-aliasing abilities and terrible texture streaming. But they have the balls to release one tech demo on PC to sell their engine, and try to disguise it as supporting the PC platform.

I don't buy it Epic. Actions speak louder than words.

 

[loc978]

As far as I'm concerned, I hope that the next console generation is nothing more than a set of software that you can plunk down onto any old hardware. If the PS4 was just a hard drive I could plug into my PC and boot off of when I want to play games on it, I'd be quite happy with it.

 

[JediMB]

People really have to stop paying attention to anything people from Epic say.

 

[synobal]

Go die in a fire epic, I don't care about you any more. You accused all PC gamers of being thieves, you know the gamers who bought your unreal games when you were just a tiny studio. Ya those gamers, so I don't care about your whining. If you're not happy with your console centric game design and it's hardware limits then perhaps you shouldn't of alienated your PC fan base.

 

[twm1709]

I'm not against hardware progress but people usually have problem seeing past the "I want prettier pictures!!" mentality.
Already game development costs has raised to a point where developers are reluctant to push new IPs in favor of the much safer sequels (which is also part of the reason we're getting so many CoD clones among others lately). Considering the economy lately, I wouldn't be surprised if games went past the $60 mark as a consequence too.