Epic: 'If next-gen consoles aren't bleeding edge, Apple will beat them'

[Play4Fun]

zarx said:

Play4Fun said:

It's just that some of their comments lately regarding next gen consoles have been giving me the impression that Sony/MS/both are not targetting the kind of hardware they want and they've been trying to stir up the pot to pressure them into doing more.

 

It's in their best interest, I think, for MS and Sony to put in the most bleeding edge hardware they can. Remember how they pushed MS to go for 512mb RAM?

I get the impression it's more, this is what we want and this is what you will get if you give it. As a business I don't think it will matter much if the consoles aren't much more powerful than this gen, like I said they were massively successful selling their engine on current hardware that won't cange if the next hardware is not cutting edge. But as game designers and programmers they would be more than happy to get as much power as possible and at least some of the higher ups seem to abide by the theory that one of the primary motivators for moving to the next generation is the ability to show gamers things that were never possible before, that means power and games that utalise it. Or as the Wii showed new ways to control and interact with games. But considering that MS, Sony and Nintendo have already done that this generation with peripherals it is going to have to be pretty amazing to convince developers to move away from current install basses and for customers to fork over the cash for new consoles. And every generation in the past has come with a significant leap in power (and small leaps have never done well exept for the Wii, Xbox and GCN were slightly more powerful but not enough for totally different looking games, same for the N64, PS3, 3DO etc), it maybe the least imaganitive way of pushing a new generation from a hardware design perspective but it has been shown to work and short of some mind reading device I don't see another option.

So if manufacturers can't or won't do power or totally new controlls then they might as well stick with the current gen. But that means that iPads are going to be more powerful than dedicated consoles in a few years, as epic pointed out the iPad 3 already has a higher resolution and more RAM than current consoles. Whether Apple will make the neccessary moves to position that tech as a competitor to consoles (or whether they even need to) is another topic entirely.

It seem important to Epic that next gen hardware is super-powerful. It would ensure alot of demand for UE4 instead of devs just sticking with UE3 because it can do all they really need.

They want to dominate next gen with an engine that others can't keep up with like they did this gen. They don't want guys like Crytek  moving up the ladder even more.

Also, Ipad isn't a  threat to consoles hardware-wise or software -wise.