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

Slimebeast on 11 March 2012
happydolphin said:
Slimebeast said:
So much hate towards Epic in here, which I think is awkward coming from a core gaming community. Epic is with us, not against us. Everything companies say is not cynical. What if they just like to get powerful consoles to allow them to make what they're most passionate about, advanced graphics?

There are PCs for that you know. If they want it on consoles, there must be other, much more important reasons than "We want to be able to make games with high-end graphics". It likely has something to do with such a passion so as to want to bringing bleeding-edge to the masses, or some kind of corporate agenda (which I doubt).

Either way, bringing bleeding-edge HW to gen 8 is not business-wise for any of the big 3, especially not MS, who could be left out of the multiplatform loop and get graphics for the lowest common denominator, rendering their bleeding-edge lead nearly without return.

PC's mean nothing for multiplatform games. Bioshock PC looks the same as Bioshock on PS3. Crysis 2 on PC looks the same as Crysis 2 on PS3. BF3 on PC looks the same as BF3 on PS3, the only major differences are resolution, texture sharpness and crisper lighting and shadows´while polygons, architecture, mipmaps, base textures etc are the same between PC and console version. You need strong consoles as a common lowest dominator because all multiplatform games are designed around consoles, not PC.



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happydolphin on 11 March 2012
Slimebeast said:

PC's mean nothing for multiplatform games. Bioshock PC looks the same as Bioshock on PS3. Crysis 2 on PC looks the same as Crysis 2 on PS3. BF3 on PC looks the same as BF3 on PS3, the only major differences are resolution, texture sharpness and crisper lighting and shadows´while polygons, architecture, mipmaps, base textures etc are the same between PC and console version. You need strong consoles as a common lowest dominator because all multiplatform games are designed around consoles, not PC.

You were so vague, so I allowed myself to work off the premise of PC exclusives. And if it really was about being able to create bleeding-edge graphics, that's what they would do. But obviously it's about more than that, as I said. I stand by my point.



zarx on 11 March 2012
scottie said:
zarx said:
scottie said:
Yes, lets all trust Epic games ( a company that not only requires consoles to be technologically advanced to make money, but has also shown its complete inability to understand the gaming market) on what the next consoles should do.


Wait what? 

In terms of sales they are the most successful independent developer of this generation, they made $23 million by selling a $5.99 game on a platform where everyone else was saying that you couldn't be sell a game for more than $0.99. Not to mention the fact that they have the most popular game engine license arround.

Because if that is the kind of success that an inability to understand the market brings I got to stop trying to understand things. 


I can't believe you're actually claiming this. They have no idea how to respond to the current gaming market. They will have some successes, sure, because they have a lot of talented people working there. But they are directionless and lost.

 

"We don't make games for the Wii because we don't see a market for the kinds of games we make – let's be honest,”

 

This is not the first time they have stated that all a console needs to succeed is to be like the PS3. This is a console that sent a company from 75% market share to 28% in a single generation. If the PS4 is as bleeding edge as the PS3 was, there will not be a PS5. The PS3 only survived because, at the start of its lifetime, even for the first 2 years, all the game developers assumed it would dominate and thus made games for it. Sony was also in a much better financial situation then.

 

Nintendo aren't making a bleeding edge console, Sony cant. All that leaves is MS making a bleeding edge console, and accepting that all their multiplat games will be made for the PS4+Wii U and ported. How exactly would that help them against Apple?

 

Epic games cannot understand that people do not care about graphics. They honestly believe that nearly our entire choice is made based on polygon count, instead of gameplay.

But they were right about the Wii you can count the number of 3rd party games that broke 1 million in the genres Epic make on one hand. And most of those are COD games the biggest non Nintendo brand in gaming, the others are all parts of major brands as well or had Nintendo advertising. They lost very little by avoiding the wii.

As for wanting consoles to be like the PS3 nothing could be further from the truth. They are some of the biggest MS fanboys arround, you know the one that went for cutting edge tech and massively increased their market share. While also maintaining a developer freindly enviroment and a market that buys the kinds of games they want to make.

Finally they are a tech company founded by two programers of course they care about graphics, and a large section of the audiance cares about graphics as well. And it's not like they are bad game designers I mean after they "perfected" the 3rd person cover system almost everyone copied them, they have one of the best regarded iOS games and their Gears of War games are all multimillion sellers on just one platform the best indicator that they are doing something right. Now you might not like what they do but you cennot argue that they have been successful in a time where many othr 3rd party developers went under or sold out to big publishers Epic have gone from strength to strength buying and starting new studios the world over they are going from strength to strength.

So again if that is what you call screwing up more studios need to start.



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Slimebeast on 11 March 2012
happydolphin said:
Slimebeast said:

PC's mean nothing for multiplatform games. Bioshock PC looks the same as Bioshock on PS3. Crysis 2 on PC looks the same as Crysis 2 on PS3. BF3 on PC looks the same as BF3 on PS3, the only major differences are resolution, texture sharpness and crisper lighting and shadows´while polygons, architecture, mipmaps, base textures etc are the same between PC and console version. You need strong consoles as a common lowest dominator because all multiplatform games are designed around consoles, not PC.

You were so vague, so I allowed myself to work off the premise of PC exclusives. And if it really was about being able to create bleeding-edge graphics, that's what they would do. But obviously it's about more than that, as I said. I stand by my point.

Maybe Epic dreams of being able to make cutting edge graphics in a realistic economical environment? That's how I see next gen. I know that you can get the occasional cutting edge PC exclusive like Crysis and Witcher 2 but I'm dreaming of next gen versions of Elder Scrolls, Assassin's Creed, Red Dead, Grand Theft Auto, Fallout, Battlefield and Dragon Age that are designed from the ground for hardware that is 10 times stronger than the PS360.



VGKing on 11 March 2012
greenmedic88 said:
VGKing said:

Battery life is an issue. The new iPad will have similar battery life to a PS Vita when playing graphically intensive games.
With a new iPad release each year, battery life can only go down. The iPad3 is already getting fatter instead of thinner. This is because this was necessary to maintain similar battery life to the iPad 2 despite the big increase in power.

Read the reviews on the new iPad before finishing that thought and then wait for the lab battery performance tests. The battery life is unprecedented. Apple had to increase the thickness of the back case by about .6mm to accomodate the new cell, but it is no exaggeration to say that it has the best battery life of any comparable device.

By all indications, Apple will continue to maintain a target 10 hour battery life regardless of what spec updates future iPads have.

Comparing the iPad to the PSV is a bad match up. After a good two plus weeks of using the PSV for everything from downloading files via WiFi, web browsing, light gaming, watching video, the works; there is no comparison. There's no reason to believe that if the battery tests were limited to playing graphically intensive games only that the results would be any different unless you're suggesting that the PSV magically manages battery life better than other devices when running at 100%. 


First of all, I'm not the one who started the comparisons and since someone already did and this is in the Gaming Discussion section, let's keep the comparisons to the gaming portion of the iPad and the Vita. That 10-hour battery life is just for web browsing and video/music playing. Playing a game like Infinity Blade II will lower the battery lfe considerably.



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happydolphin on 11 March 2012
RolStoppable said:
happydolphin said:
Slimebeast said:
So much hate towards Epic in here, which I think is awkward coming from a core gaming community. Epic is with us, not against us. Everything companies say is not cynical. What if they just like to get powerful consoles to allow them to make what they're most passionate about, advanced graphics?

There are PCs for that you know. If they want it on consoles, there must be other, much more important reasons than "We want to be able to make games with high-end graphics". It likely has something to do with such a passion so as to want to bringing bleeding-edge to the masses, or some kind of corporate agenda (which I doubt).

Either way, bringing bleeding-edge HW to gen 8 is not business-wise for any of the big 3, especially not MS, who could be left out of the multiplatform loop and get graphics for the lowest common denominator, rendering their bleeding-edge lead nearly without return.

Epic wants to sell their Unreal Engine 4. The Unreal Engine 3 was so widespread this generation, because game development became more expensive and licensing an engine was more cost- and time-effective than building one's own engine. If eighth generation consoles aren't bleeding edge, less developers will need the Unreal Engine 4, because they can simply optimize their existing engines for sufficient results. Therefore, Epic is going to lose out on a lot of money.

If that's the case though, couldn't they just suit UE4 to regular cutting-edge and continue to be relevant? Why the bleeding edge? There must be more going on here.



Play4Fun on 11 March 2012
RolStoppable said:
happydolphin said:
RolStoppable said:

Epic wants to sell their Unreal Engine 4. The Unreal Engine 3 was so widespread this generation, because game development became more expensive and licensing an engine was more cost- and time-effective than building one's own engine. If eighth generation consoles aren't bleeding edge, less developers will need the Unreal Engine 4, because they can simply optimize their existing engines for sufficient results. Therefore, Epic is going to lose out on a lot of money.

If that's the case though, couldn't they just suit UE4 to regular cutting-edge and continue to be relevant? Why the bleeding edge? There must be more going on here.

Bleeding edge and cutting edge is the same thing. I had already typed the below two paragraphs, so I just leave them there. It's mostly a repeat of what I said before though.

The business model of selling an engine like the UE to other developers is built around the fact that creating an own engine would be too costly, couldn't be done in time or both. Since the AAA PC game market is diminishing with more and more developers opting for home consoles, Epic consequently becomes more dependent on the console business as well. Epic spends years on their engines, based on what they expect the next standard in graphics to be.

Now if all three console manufacturers opt for marginal improvements over the current HD consoles, then where does this leave Epic? Hardly anyone will need their bleeding edge Unreal Engine 4, because they can simply optimize their existing game engines and all the money that Epic spent in the last six or so years on their engine will hardly pay off.

OMG.

ROL agrees with me on something!



Joelcool7 on 11 March 2012

I've gotta say while Infinity Blade looks great it definitely is not the same experience Epic could have produced on PS3. When I say memory I am talking largely hard drive. A Xbox with a 500gig hard drive would enable it to actually carry games. With the I-pad how many full games could it carry? Many games could be 50-gigs each if they are high end next generation titles. I doubt I-pad 6 could carry more then four or five games best case scenerio. Now you can say store on Cloud and stream won't work as well. You need to have constant internet access and it will go through bandwidth like theirs no tomorrow.

Then their is a price within two years console hardware will be more affordable then the latest iOS device. Consumers will have very little incentive to go with an I-pad as the primary gaming device if they acquire one for gaming chances are they will already have a console.

Not to mention as said earlier. It will take a few years for I-pad to catch up if it can and when it does how many I-pad owners will have the latest I-pad capable of playing Epics latest game? Market share will be to small for full blown high quality console titles to come to I-pad.

In the end their will always be a market for high quality big budget console games. I-pad is incapable of out performing the consoles in that aspect.

Nintendo realized last generation that future proofing is not necessary. Consumers will buy their hardware as long as they have the software to support it. Microsoft realized they don't need to be ground breaking bleeding edge. 360 was great but certainly not future proof in the aspect it would remain bleeding edge a whole generation. PS3 which was bleeding edge reached its full potential in 2010 I believe according to EA and other publishers who had begun saying they had reached the hardware limitations.

Fact is going with some killer specs that is a bit better then what can be done on PC today is enough. EA has made statements that the WiiU is capable of running their latest games that is enough for me. Next Box is supposed to be 6x the power of PS3 we are good.

No need for 10x the power. I was satisfied with my 360 this generation barely ever used my cutting edge PS3. Heck Wii still got tons of play due to its software alone.

Real gamers care more about the software, even cutting edge visuals come second to good game play.



-JC7

"In God We Trust - In Games We Play " - Joel Reimer

 

crissindahouse on 11 March 2012

screens are going to be bigger and bigger because people want to have a greater cinema feeling. i don't think apple will kill consoles because of an phone or tablet...

maybe apple could kill handhelds with that (i don't believe this but more than normal consoles) but i don't believe people who love to play on a big screen playing core games or casula games where you have to move in your room want stop it because of small screens and without kinect or something like that.

 

Edit: ohh ok the thread is 3 days old and i'm a little bit late, no clue what the discussion was here haha



happydolphin on 11 March 2012
RolStoppable said:
happydolphin said:

If that's the case though, couldn't they just suit UE4 to regular cutting-edge and continue to be relevant? Why the bleeding edge? There must be more going on here.

Bleeding edge and cutting edge is the same thing. I had already typed the below two paragraphs, so I just leave them there. It's mostly a repeat of what I said before though.

The business model of selling an engine like the UE to other developers is built around the fact that creating an own engine would be too costly, couldn't be done in time or both. Since the AAA PC game market is diminishing with more and more developers opting for home consoles, Epic consequently becomes more dependent on the console business as well. Epic spends years on their engines, based on what they expect the next standard in graphics to be.

Now if all three console manufacturers opt for marginal improvements over the current HD consoles, then where does this leave Epic? Hardly anyone will need their bleeding edge Unreal Engine 4, because they can simply optimize their existing game engines and all the money that Epic spent in the last six or so years on their engine will hardly pay off.

Rol, bleeding edge is above cutting edge so much so that you bleed. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bleeding_edge_technology

Anyways, for the rest, the only reason I can think of is as someone mentioned before: overshooting (so lost investment), but that devs would not pay for the next version of UE by customizing UE3 is going a little far and borderline illegal.