Reasonable said:
I prefer that, actually. I know its expensive, but as an end consumer I'm of the opinion, based on what I've observed, that games running on an engine completely tuned to the concept tend to be superior to more generic games based on middleware engine.
I agree, but even in near future this can't happen anymore really. Unless you have something ready already and you have platform that you have used before. Every gen tends to make things differently and in every gen price of engine goes up. Eventually there have to be similar platforms(backwards) or nobody would make engines for those.
There are so many average FPS on U3 engine, for example, or games that built on the engine but end up buggy as a result - probably because at the end of the day the developer using a sourced engine is unlikely to really understand its guts as well as the engine's developers.
I know Ted Price from Insomniac has quoted on this a few times too (he's in the build your own engine camp). Epic are in the source it camp, but given they make a lot of money from sourcing the engine they develop themselves I'm not sure they can be seen as totally unbiased.
Sounds like really bad documentation problem... or some people just can't do it. Do you mean buggy as bugs or something like bad performance? Bugs happen all the time in the software and you have to have good metrics system to get rid of them in larger projects. So in other words that would be developers failing. And performance is always crappier on engine that is not in-house engine. I am quite sure that it isn't because developers don't understand how to use it. Its more like developers hands are tied to use it only in one way and that way might give bad performance in some cases.
(Btw, I am in that camp too. ^^)
@OT
I think Sony is betting way too much on PS3 and on its software. Even if PS3 would be 10 years on the market, it won't beat next gen consoles that go for graphics & stuff that has been the main selling points of PS3. If MS brings such new console in next few years, it would be like mortal blow for PS3. I am quite sure that it could handle 1080p with much better graphics. Very few *'hc player' would be able to resist it.
(*IMO console games are way more casual than real hard core games.)
