http://gamesindustry.biz/content_page.php?aid=23503# He says Sony is still the one to beat. Epic makes Gears of War and also the Unreal Tournament games.

Seems wierd that Epic defends Sony, I thought that they were more Microsoft friendly.

Well, Unreal Tournament came to the PS2 for its first console drop I think. I could be wrong, but I thought the first console it came to was the PS2. Unreal Tourney 3 is coming to PS3, so they still have a working relationship with Sony. I think he was just pointing out how much criticism Sony is taking in everything they do. Like with Home a bunch of people saying it was just a copy when it's been in the works for years.

With the PS3 being as complicated as it is, Epic's middle-ware seems even more compelling on that platform. OTOH, Epic has a *lot* to lose if the Wii becomes the dominant platform.

Well, to a certain extent you have to consider the source ... Mark Rien (like Jon Carmack) has made his career based on the principle that greater processing power and prettier graphics makes for better games; with the games that have been released for various Unreal and Doom/Quake engines it is a very valid argument. I suspect that everyone (including Carmack and Rien) will agree that the days where you needed greater performance in order to produce better games are comming to an end ... Now, both the PS3 and the Wii will probably sell better than most consoles have through out the history of the industry and in the end represent valid strategies at this point in time ... The strategy of the Wii is that processing power is not currently the main limiting point in producing high quality videogames at the moment the input device is, and the strategy with the PS3 is that processing power is still the main limiting point ...

See, I'm on the other side. It's the whole equation, you are on one extreme where you think graphics aren't important at all, but it's not just the graphics. Consider Gears of War, which Epic makes. There is a lot more to that game than just the pretty graphics that could not be done on the Wii. Yes, Epic makes very graphics intensive, physics intensive, AI intensive games. So yes, they would have an interest in both 360 and PS3. I feel the opposite, consoles have been competing with PCs ever since the PC was capable of producing crisper graphics, more detail, and just larger and more encompassing games, precisely because PCs evolve quicker and have more capability.

hez sleeping with phil harrison....no juz joking

I agree and disagree, Gears of War of sells now and gets alot of attention because of the way it looks, while it is very gameplay wise it looks good as well, imagine if Gears of War was cel shaded instead do you think it would have sold as much or got that much attention? Me I bought the game cause it was fun the graphics had nothing to do with it I would have bought it if it has Mii's running around, the gameplay was fun.(It was too easy though)

We are going to disagree on this point repeatedly lol. I really think it is a choice for devs. More power is not limiting. How can it be? If your focus is to make a game that is ultra stylized that can doesn't take much to run how can you lose if the system you dev for has the ability to run it. Alacrist, I purchased the game because it was fun as well. And I really wouldn't have cared if it was cell shaded but it isn't and it is icing on the cake. If there were two versions of the game one with cell shaded and one with the graphics it has now, I would go for the one with better graphics. I am pretty sure most people would.

I never said that "graphics aren't important at all" but I do believe that they are no longer the primary limiting factor in producing good games ... World of Warcraft could not be played effectively by using a controller, there are simple too few buttons to bind to all of the actions; hypothetically speaking you could use the pointer to draw a "rune" on the screen, or use motions to bind all of the actions to motion controls. First person shooters are "clunky" on consoles because of how poorly the dual analogue system works but (even with the crappy games that use it) they feel far better using the Wiimote and nunchuck. I don't know whether all games will benefit from the Wiimote (I actually doubt it) but it is important that someone is finally trying to move out of the stone age of contolls ... As I've said before, I don't think the Wii could be successful by pushing graphical limits (too expensive for developers to take the risk) and if the system cost $400 (to expensive for users to take the risk) so it is nearly the ideal cost/performance set-up for what it is; we can argue endlessly about whether it should have had more power but it is kind of pointless at the moment. The only thing we can say is that on a worldwide basis there are more people who agree enough with the strategy of Nintendo to buy a $250 Wii than have agreed with Sony/Microsofts strategy to spend $600/$400 on a PS3/XBox 360.