We Can Still Do More With Xbox 360, Says Bleszinski

[samsonguy920]

When I first started playing Epic's games, they were about pushing the envelope of PC gaming, much as Crytek did when they started their games. Anymore now, it seems Epic just wants to make console games for consoles that are beginning to fall behind in graphics quality, and doing nothing for the PC crowd. It is like Cliff and the others are in their safe envelope and they don't feel like challenging themselves anymore. They just want to make one more Gears of War game, and then any third party stuff that comes along.
This statement by Cliff only supports this, and frankly, it just causes me to think, 'Why bother with anything Epic anymore?'
Even with Id forgetting a few points to the PC version of RAGE, at least that company is still pushing the boundaries and challenging themselves. Yes, I went there, and we should, too. I've seen playthroughs of Rage, and it looks like a solid and fun game. I've seen playthroughs of the latest Epic games, and they are mediocre at best. Which can still sell games, but it doesn't improve your brand name and help draw in new customers. That is bad for business.

 

[AceAngel]

Code magic? Time? Effort?

Once again, this shows me that once you make 'lead' of your studio, you start losing the touch with your peers and coworkers.

Normal Maps (10 year method from Doom3) still have issues in current tech. They're muddy, require high runtimes, and aren't as 'optimized' as they could be. Infact, you're spending entire full days just to make a normal map work in your game engine.

C.B. is kidding himself. Put him infront of the PC screen, and tell him to create a clone copy of Marcus Fenix, and even he would come away swearing like a sailor. The amount of effort to make one character nowadays is ridiculous, both art and gameplay department.

Plus, the ridiculous amount of outsourcing that is occurring in the industry is heinous to say the least.

And Code? Does he realize that the Unreal engine runs on it's own code most of the time, as in not industry standard? They have 3 different codes for gameplay, all horribly documented. And their internal support for languages like C+ is below average.

Meh, whatever. I guess they do have all the 'fancy' tools in their studios to make stuff happen, although it's funny how they dropped out half of them in the last 5 years, and went (in some cases) with FREE software because they offered better support.

 

[samsonguy920]

Why do people care so much about how a game looks?

Of course, I'm not gonna say that graphics should be completely ignored, but I'm quite happy with how most games look today.

Graphics should never be completely ignored, however neither should someone skimp when they have the talent to provide a unique quality to the game. Epic embracing the 360 when it is already behind the times and saying it is enough for them, frankly smells like a smell of death coming from a company that used to push the boundaries of game graphic design with their Unreal engine. They were what drove graphics card companies to improve their hardware when people were wondering what a graphics card even was. It kinda breaks my heart now that Epic doesn't want to push that boundary anymore. Which is really bad considering their main profits were from licensing of the Unreal engine. Now they just seem satisfied with making so-so games and thinking, 'Maybe sometime we'll make a new engine.'
I don't ask for ultra-awesome graphics in a game, but that doesn't stop me from playing Crysis. That is because that is a fun game, and I enjoy the work that is put into a game of that caliber. At the time it was made, nothing could run it at its highest setting except the best home-brewed overclocked systems.
A games company should always challenge itself to make that one more step with each game they make. It doesn't have to be about graphics, but these days anything put into a game with the something extra is going to demand something extra from the system it runs on. The 360 has already reached its limit of accepting any more challenges(Some might say it reached that limit when it was first released, the RROD being its white flag of surrender), and Epic saying they are content with staying with the 360 just means they are content with not challenging themselves anymore. You know another word for that? It is called retirement.

Time to retire, Epic. You guys obviously aren't up for anything new.

 

[Supramaan]

Imo i have no idea why microsoft are still workin on the xbox my old skool chuncky george forman grill looking ps3 still rapes my new kinnect in every single way. ps3 ftw

 

[Rednog]

NO, BAD CLIFFY BAD.
Seriously these tricks they are using to extend the life of consoles is really screwing over the PC crowd, and this needs to stop now.
I'm sorry but I don't need a tiny field of view in my games because the game was ported over and the consoles can't support more than like a 50 field of view. And this is only going to become more and more apparent as PC tech moves by leaps and bounds and the tripple A titles that are huge like Skyrim and whatnot are going to look worse and play worse on the PC because of this nonsense.
The biggest kicker is that if devs actually go by this, they are going to waste a lot of time and energy by learning all these techniques and when a new console comes out and they realize they don't need it anymore they are going to have to spend more time working on learning the new tech and kicking themselves for wasting time on cramming in the old tech.

 

[AceAngel]

Why do people care so much about how a game looks?

Of course, I'm not gonna say that graphics should be completely ignored, but I'm quite happy with how most games look today.

Sad thing is, the current tech is still muddy at best, the amount of time guys spend 'fixing' stuff to accommodate a game engine is head-spinning.

If you ever enter the game industry, Unreal Engine is the perfect example of a game engine that was created with such rigid set of tools, that it 'what not to do'. The reason alot of money is being thrown at graphics is for the 'fixing' not to make it look better.

Hell, most guys joke on hey call themselves the sad panda squad when they have to work with UE3.

COD is another example of this, hell, most artist's have a chip with COD, because every single 'standard' naming conventions for the images/textures is given it's own 'new' name. Naming conventions which are already being used for other things.

The only example of a game that was done right (in terms of development) was Brink, where everything from the outsourcing, to engine was synchronized perfectly. The only problem was, lack of testing.

So yeah, not so much graphics as "We still haven't mastered 10 year old tech, which came from Doom 3, and have to spend loads of cash fixing it".

 

[Frostbite3789]

Or hey, novel idea, you could develop for the PC.

 

[vxicepickxv]

hehe, maximizing consul ability's to make quality games, now THERE'S a lost art, best of luck to em though

How about making sure a file could fit in a predefined amount of space, because it's expensive?

That's a lost art too. That art died when HDD manufacturing when to China, and the CD came out for installing game data.

 

[Lunar Templar]

hehe, maximizing consul ability's to make quality games, now THERE'S a lost art, best of luck to em though

How about making sure a file could fit in a predefined amount of space, because it's expensive?

That's a lost art too. That art died when HDD manufacturing when to China, and the CD came out for installing game data.

i kinda lump that in the above post, since that's a required skill imo for making the most of older hardware

 

[FortheLegion]

Why do people care so much about how a game looks?

It's funny that you ask that seeing that the character in your avatar is blind.

I'm not looking forward to having to upgrade to a new console so the longer this generation lasts the better.

 

[Zer_]

I wonder when the PS3 will reach this stage...

Well, considering the fact that they are already offloading a bunch of graphical calculations onto the CELL due to the PS3's bad GPU, they're already there.

 

[Tireseas_v1legacy]

I expect the next generation for MS's XBox system will be more of a hardware upgrade than anything else. Literally, you will take all the memory from the current system (which is conveniently removable *Hint, hint*) and slap it onto your new machine with a more powerful processor and graphics capabilities. Everybody wins: gamers keep their profiles, game saves, gamerscores, etc. while getting a serious hardware upgrade for newer games; MS's XBox R&D finally can justify their removable memory design for something other than getting your box repaired/replaced; and developers get a new set of limitations to play with for the 360.

 

[Waaghpowa]

I don't recall any dev saying this kind of thing for the PS2 or Gamecube. Sounds like they're getting pressured by Microsoft in an attempt to extend the life of the Xbox.

 

[harvz]

god damn, have you actually looked at the latest 360 games?
the fov is usually so low, the texture quality is usually horrible...lighting...my guess is that m$ isn't ready to get their new system out until after the wii 2 (it's still hard enough calling it a wii with a straight face) that they need to prolong the 360.

after BF3, which was average on 360 and looks amazing on pc (considering getting it again, just for pc) i will be doing the bulk of my gaming purchases on pc...wait a second, my steam list consists of 51 games and ive had it for 6 months as opposed to my 360 which i had for 4 years...

 

[Waaghpowa]

I don't recall any dev saying this kind of thing for the PS2 or Gamecube. Sounds like they're getting pressured by Microsoft in an attempt to extend the life of the Xbox.

... Wierd... They've all but announced that they are working on the Xbox loop... which will apparently run Windows 9 and is projected to launch in 2013...

Source: http://www.xbitlabs.com/news/multimedia/display/20111107232643_Microsoft_Xbox_Loop_to_Feature_ARM_Processor_Windows_9_Core_Report.html

They're using ARM processors? As in the ones they use in cell phones and DS's? Not impressed, if this is true, then it's as I suspected. The next gen console wont be much better, if at all to the current ones. I also suspect it's to fix the cost issue that both Microsoft and Sony faced when selling their console. And 2013 is still a ways off, so my comment stands.

 

[Waaghpowa]

Anyone remember this?
http://n4g.com/news/12934/epic-fought-for-an-xbox-360-with-512mb-memory

HAHAHAHAHA 256 megs? My cell phone has 1 gig of ram, and the Xbox was going to have 256?

 

[Keith Reedy]

I am fine with the consoles lasting for a few more years, getting new hardware costs everyone money. From the company all the way down to the gamer. Then the developers have to re-learn alot of stuff they haven't mastered yet. The graphics are not as impressive as they could be yes but if you think BattleField 3 and Skyrim look bad I'm afraid you have the problem there not the hardware. I would be happy if they dropped down the graphical fidelity of most games to give better ai and more people on the screen.