Gearbox president Randy Pitchford has said that technology-pushing shooter developers id Software and Crytek are "risking failure" in basing their strategies around "last generation timing".
Speaking to OXM, Pitchford said "anyone that built their strategies around the last generation timing, and is trying to employ those strategies today, is either being forced to adapt very quickly or is risking failure."
He added: "This is going to be the longest generation we've seen in the last few of them.
"Some people have invested a lot going to a place that's too far, and the customers aren't ready for that yet because they don't have the hardware for it," he told OXM.
Rage
Official trailer
0:41Fight the prowlers that be!
Rage
Official trailer
0:41Fight the prowlers that be!
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"I was thinking of Crytek, they couldn't find a market because they made a game [Crysis] that very few people could play. I'm not putting words in their mouth, I remember reading something publicly where they said they couldn't put this on consoles because of the hardware..."
It's not just Crytek who misjudged it, says Pitchford: "We see the id guys talking continuously about this, [with Rage] - 'well, Sony will have a Blu-Ray and I don't know what we'll do on the 360, maybe we'll have three DVD's... if the publisher will let us do that, maybe we'll errrrahh I dunno.'
"Because they're in this kind of "generation plus" mode, and like nobody knows what the generation beyond this one is going to look like," Pitchford concluded.
We can't argue with his thinking, really. id's invested a lot of time and money into id Tech 5 and while we don't think they'll be destroyed financially if it flops (it has the Zenimax cushion to lean on now) it's not going to be good news, is it?
He does have some very good points, but maybe that's why we have yet to see any mention of next gen, because one of the possible reasons developers are waiting is until the hardware that can cope with the tech they've produced becomes available?
Well, PCs are way ahead of the generation the consoles are stuck in. And alot of PC gamers have caught up since Crytek did their big blunder. So there's a market for the high end games - admittedly not a massive market if you miss out the consoles.
I realise the PC gamer isn't welcomed in these forums, so I'll go away now.
I think what they did with crysis was great. It pushed the industry way, way forward in terms of gfx and some great AI and physics. Sure it was a bitch to play for many, many people but who forced any1 to play at the highest detail? It still looked way better than pretty much everything else at lower detail and ran like a dream as well.
Now the big thing holding back the advance are the consoles. Sure devs could try and develop for PC separately but they never do and are stuck at the lowest common denominator and wont bother doing anything else.
i have absolutely no worries about ID getting thier games to run on the 360 or PS3. They managed to get Doom3 to run on the original xbox for frigs sake.
If anyones gonna be able to wring every last ounce out of it it'll be carmack and co.
I dont think Crytek should be blamed, the reasons are: 1. EA forced them to go gold early and the Crysis version that went to retail was the unoptimised version. 2. the preproduction 7800GTX Crytek were using to test Crysis was an insanely overclocked beast that apparently couldnt pass FCC rules in the US and im guessing they percieved it as the hardware that would be released by the time Crysis went to retail.
The other thing is we need developers to continue pushing the boundries otherwise the next gen games will just be rehashes of the the current ones with maybe higher resolutions and nothing else.
we need developers to continue pushing the boundries otherwise the next gen games will just be rehashes of the the current ones with maybe higher resolutions and nothing else.
Well, PCs are way ahead of the generation the consoles are stuck in. And alot of PC gamers have caught up since Crytek did their big blunder. So there's a market for the high end games - admittedly not a massive market if you miss out the consoles.
I realise the PC gamer isn't welcomed in these forums, so I'll go away now.
Precisely. Indeed, I would go so far as to argue that the cutting edge hardware being released on the PC, as well as the 6 and 8 core chips currently being designed, are so far ahead of the software being developed for games that there really isn't much of anything to push them. Just look at DX11 games; how many "true" DX11 games are there? "Dirt 2" is apparently going to be the first one to be released while the next "S.T.A.L.K.E.R." game has been delayed (and if history is anything to go by will likely still be bug ridden). The hardware is there. Software is playing catch-up.
Well, PCs are way ahead of the generation the consoles are stuck in. And alot of PC gamers have caught up since Crytek did their big blunder. So there's a market for the high end games - admittedly not a massive market if you miss out the consoles.
I realise the PC gamer isn't welcomed in these forums, so I'll go away now.
Precisely. Indeed, I would go so far as to argue that the cutting edge hardware being released on the PC, as well as the 6 and 8 core chips currently being designed, are so far ahead of the software being developed for games that there really isn't much of anything to push them. Just look at DX11 games; how many "true" DX11 games are there? "Dirt 2" is apparently going to be the first one to be released while the next "S.T.A.L.K.E.R." game has been delayed (and if history is anything to go by will likely still be bug ridden). The hardware is there. Software is playing catch-up.
Just out of interest KFD (and this is not asked in a sinister/fanbot/point to make kind of way) how much do you roughly spend on PC hardware. lmimmfn said the other day he did about 400 euros? every 2 years.
The consoles arent stopping the progression... The PS3 is yet to be maxxed out by any game, and the 360 could probably still do better as its effectivley a PC... The PC is obviously the best in terms of progression but consoles arent holding it back..
The consoles arent stopping the progression... The PS3 is yet to be maxxed out by any game, and the 360 could probably still do better as its effectivley a PC... The PC is obviously the best in terms of progression but consoles arent holding it back..
The consoles arent stopping the progression... The PS3 is yet to be maxxed out by any game, and the 360 could probably still do better as its effectivley a PC... The PC is obviously the best in terms of progression but consoles arent holding it back..
I'm sorry, my bulls**t meter doesn't go past 10. The PC has just had it's DirectX 11 platform released, but almost none of it's games are getting out of DirectX 9. The only DX10-exclusive game in existence has been published on Steam recently, made as an indie project by Futuremark for their first proper game project That's partly because of Windows XP, but also because the consoles can't go past the DX9 equivalent. GTA IV was unoptimised on PC and pig ugly because it was made entirely around console considerations.
Exactly what do you base anything you say on besides your own gut feelings?
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