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PC Gaming 'a Generation Ahead' of Consoles, Says Crytek Boss
Crytek co-founder Cevat Yerli spoke recently about the growing gap between modern PCs and consoles like the PS3 and Xbox 360, saying that the desire to develop for multiple platforms is hampering creative expression. "PC is easily a generation ahead right now. With 360 and PS3, we believe the quality of the games beyond Crysis 2 and other CryEngine developments will be pretty much limited to what their creative expressions is, what the content is. You won't be able to squeeze more juice from these rocks." One reason this trend persists is because of the perception that PC game sales are not high enough for most developers to focus on that platform. Rock, Paper, Shotgun says this indicates a need for the disclosure of digital distribution sales numbers, which could dispel that myth. Yerli's comments come alongside news of Crytek's announcement of a new military-based shooter called Warface.
I haven't seen anything innovative done on a PC that couldn't have been done on a PS2. Crysis 2 is innovative? Oh please. Two extra bullet-points on the back of a box do not make a game "innovative". Portal: innovative. Tower of Goo: innovative. Minecraft: innovative. What do they have in common? They could run on hardware that is 10 years old.
I think the Mr. Crytek fails to see past his own problems: that the shiny that his company specializes in does very little to make a game special.
Those who can, do. Those who can't, sue.
a new military-based shooter called Warface
Sorry, facebook will insist that you change it's name.
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as long as the developers target the consoles and PC then you only have to match the specs of that console generation.
Most of the really good Wii titles don't even use the Wii motion controls for anything more than a gimmick, though. Frequently, shaking could have been replaced with a simple button press (and that would have been far more accurate--I'm looking at you, New Super Mario Bros. Wii) Pointing at the screen gets quite a bit of use, at least since it's got a fairly obvious application (aiming in a FPS.)
The accelerometers were a gimmick, and I think that Nintendo knows it. It worked out for them--they did a good amount of business while in competition with two other giants. What I think Nintendo has proven in this generation is that 2D side-scrollers (or 2.5D or whatever) aren't dead and are actually quite popular, as long as the controls and gameplay are good.
I don't see much of a need to go HD, other than to finally get rid of the last holdout for analog input on my TV.
I would say the main problem with the Wii is its library. And this comes from somebody who owns one. I really don't care about its graphics, but there just isn't much that interests me on the platform. I have 7 Wii games, while I have 42 or so PS3 games and 17 360 games. Granted, there are a few games that I'm interested in, but it's only 3 or so. So much of the library is dedicated to shovelware games and kid stuff.
I think the culprit behind this is that publishers want to make multiplatform games to maximize returns. It's easy to match the 360 and PS3 games, as they're of like performance. The Wii? Not so much (due to both the hardware limitations and the different default control scheme). Exclusives for it would be better, but exclusives aren't what make the most money these days. So developers make the big games for the 360 and PS3, but give the Wii spin-offs or other budget titles that just aren't as good. Case in point: the 360 and PS3 got Resident Evil 5. The Wii? Umbrella Chronicles and a re-release of RE4.
Of course, none of this matters to Nintendo, as the Wii is basically a license to print money. It's great for those who were never really into gaming before this generation, but the "traditional" gaming segment is more or less left out.
(Or maybe I need to look harder?)
If you can't convince them, convict them.
PC is easily a generation ahead right now.
Wii showed that graphical output isn't the only thing that defines a hardware generation. In the seventh generation, while Microsoft and Sony were moving their output forward by a generation, Nintendo moved its input forward by a generation by bundling a Bluetooth handheld pointing device with the console. It took the other guys years to come up with Kinect and Move to match the Wii Remote.
But the major consoles are still ahead of PCs in how many simultaneous players a game will usually support. This is in part because consoles are ahead in what monitor size their makers can encourage their users to connect. Sure, using a TV as a monitor has been easy since HDTV became common starting in 2006, but home theater PCs are still a rarity for some reason. Is it usability, or is it a plain old path-dependent Catch-22?
To understand the poor coding, you must understand the game industry and the choices they make. I'll explain using analogies that everyone can understand.
Example 1: Your task is to build a house. You can make your own brick, cut your own lumber, pour your own concrete foundation using concrete that you mixed, do your own plumbing, etc. The quality of your house is based on however much time you feel like spending to do it yourself. Obviously this would take far far too long, so you opt to use materials already created. You buy all the ingredients. Obviously some may not be up to your standard, but the loss of quality is relatively low compared to the vast amount of time you will save. You've given up a little and gained a lot.
Example 2: Your task is to build a house. You have three days to do it. The previous house, using the components you purchased, took several weeks to build. Your only solution is to use modular components. AKA, bed room. Living room. Kitchen. Bathroom. Assemble with a crane, connect together on a foundation, voila. A house. The quality suffers quite a bit using this pre-built solution, but you got the job done on time. It was the only way you could do it. You gave up a lot to get the job done on time.
Example 3: Your employer now realizes you can build houses in three days, and that there's a high demand for your house building services because you did such a good job in example one. Still, your employer thinks you can build it a little faster. Two days to build the house now. They know people won't care about the quality because once they've bought it, they've paid for it. As long as it still meets the most basic definition of a house and doesn't endanger the lives of the people living in it, it's suitable for sale. Your only option is to make a house factory and simply air lift the house in once complete. You don't even have time to secure the thing to the damn foundation.
So we've gone from perfect house to shitty house that will slide off its foundation in a strong wind. This is how the game industry is. They HAVE to use shitty tools and shitty coding to slop things out the door as fast as they can, because the marketing team has promised Call of Duty Black Ops 2 and 3 to be out by February and won't even tell the developers this until January 25th. Guess what department the executives are in?
Job? I don't have time to get a job! Who will sit around and bitch about being broke and unemployed then?
Think a lot of people are missing the point here.
They are talking about hardware, not what the current PC games compare to their console counter parts.
See, this is the problem. PC are capable of so more, yet we get a dumbed down console port instead of a game tailored to the extra stuff modern PC's can bring you.
Most PS3 & 360 games are barely 720p, usually less. Crappy AA on them, etc.
Modern PC can do the 1080p, max AA and not break a sweet. And not break your bank. Get a Nvidia 460 1gb card for $200 and you got yourself a nice card that kicks ass.
And yes, I'm a gamer. Been so for 30+ years. I prefer my PC for gaming (even got me 3D Vision, which rocks), but I do have a Xbox 360 (jtag'd), a Wii (softmodded) and will have a PS3 whenever I get enough money for it (ya, and I'll hack it also, because that's how i roll).
It's funny, because I remember when arcade games were the better graphics systems, and computers & consoles tried to be that good. Then the computers surpassed both the consoles & arcade games. And we, the computer gamers have been paying for it ever since.
(sorry, when the PS3 & 360 game out, their graphics weren't really on par with computers, they were already behind, and it's a bigger gap now).
Be seeing you...
Hasn't someone told you that here on slashdot we only understand car analogies? Get out of here, and take your damned houses with you!
Seven puppies were harmed during the making of this post.
SLASHDOT TRANSLATION:
Example 1: Your task is to build a car. You can make your own frame, cut your own windows, pour your own plastic bumpers that you mixed, do your own drivetrain, etc. The quality of your car is based on however much time you feel like spending to do it yourself. Obviously this would take far far too long, so you opt to use materials already created. You buy all the components. Obviously some may not be up to your standard, but the loss of quality is relatively low compared to the vast amount of time you will save. You've given up a little and gained a lot.
Example 2: Your task is to build a car. You have three days to do it. The previous car, using the components you purchased, took several weeks to build. Your only solution is to use modular components. AKA, Engine. Interior. Axles. Rims w/ the Rubber already on them. Assemble with a crane, connect together using screws, voila. A car. The quality suffers quite a bit using this pre-built solution, but you got the job done on time. It was the only way you could do it. You gave up a lot to get the job done on time.
Example 3: Your employer now realizes you can build cars in three days, and that there's a high demand for your car building services because you did such a good job in example one. Still, your employer thinks you can build it a little faster. Two days to build the car now. They know people won't care about the quality because once they've bought it, they've paid for it. As long as it still meets the most basic definition of a car and doesn't endanger the lives of the people driving in it, it's suitable for sale. Your only option is to make a car factory and simply ship the car in once complete. You don't even have time to test drive the thing to the 10 Kilometers.
That was a car analogy. It was just a really sloppy one, because he was working under a deadline.
http://xkcd.com/756//
Disney didn't make your TV so the subsidiary doesn't care that Kill Bill is out on DVD. Contrast this with the Wii, where it matters not who made the game, it is known to its users as a "Wii Game", and thus has a direct association with Nintendo's brand and image. You play it on a Wii, it says "Nintendo" on the packaging... you get my drift.
Nintendo's kid-friendly image is a huge part of their business strategy, they automatically win all the overprotective parents who are terrified of the Xbox and its filth-laden Live service, where everyone and everything is a "nigger" and/or "faggot" according to its prominent users. I can't speak of the PS3 since I don't have one, but I would speculate that the it is not much different, due to being marketed to the same adult / hardcore crowd as the Xbox. Hell, there was a (shitty) game on the old Xbox where victory resulted in a "Girls-Gone-Wild" style clip being presented as your reward. You'll never see vodka-doused tits on a Nintendo console, that's for sure!
-Billco, Fnarg.com
Just look at the newest games and how badly they perform on supposedly "powerful" machines.
That is wrong. At the default (mainstream) settings virtually all games play well on the current level of gaming computers. Although I will concede that there have been some console ports that perform so poorly that you wonder whether they are running under a console emulator. But that is not representative of all PC games.
The people who complain about poor performance are those who insist on pushing all the game settings up to maximum. The reason they have the adjustable settings in PC games is for those people who spend stupid amounts of money on their systems, to extend the shelf life of the game by future-proofing it, and to make pretty screenshots to help sell the game.
People often use your argument as a reason for why console gaming is better, but that it because console games don't have the option of increasing the video settings to maximum. They are fixed at the mainstream level. And often the default mainstream settings on a PC game will still look better than the console versions.
Finally, if you decide to revisit an old game in a few years time, your console game won't age as well as a PC game because you will be able to use all the maximum settings on your upgraded PC. That comparison is assuming your PS4 or XBOX 720 will actually run the old software.
I am sick and tired of nerds calling their PCs rigs and referring to their IT workplaces as a windows "shop" or linux "shop". You guys are not blue collar workers and you would be laughed out of any bar that had real blue collar workers in it.
rig - noun - apparatus for some purpose; equipment; outfit; gear: a hi-fi rig; Bring your rod and reel and all the rest of your fishing rig.
Thank you for confirming that you have some irrational hatred of PC gaming and that your opinions on the subject are therefore irrelevant.
Read Pynchon.
I don't see first person shooters as immersive at all. I feel like I'm playing a floating camera with a gun attached. I prefer third person shooters for a number of reasons, 1) They don't give me dizziness and headache from the camera movement 2) They give me a much better idea of the relative position of my character compared to everything else, and doesn't make it feel like the character is floating when he climbs ladders or whatnot 3) They allow the character to have much better movements as you can see in more then one direction 4) They allow you to have more game-play mechanics like interesting melee combat.
Third person shooters can also be made competently with PC controls in mind, for instance Global Agenda is a great Team Fortressish shooter that's third person and designed for PC and I find it much nicer to play then Team Fortress 2.
There is a lot of truth to this.
I worked on an EA title once. Everything was going fine until one of the higher ups panicked, afraid that we weren't going to meet our launch date, and took charge. The first matter of business was to reduce the bug count. This was accomplished by simply not reporting any new bugs (save for bugs that would cause us to fail cert). A lot of the cert bugs were silly things that most users wouldn't notice or care about, but they took precedent over everything else. Under my producer's instructions, I regularly packaged numerous bug fixes into single changelists, since we were only permitted to submit changelists pertaining to specific bugs (and had to cite them). I also successfully petitioned to get a few non-cert bugs fixed for the more serious issues.
The crazy thing is in the month leading up to cert, I had very little to do. I wasn't allowed to fix anything. I had about two dozen changelists that they simply wouldn't let me submit - regardless of how simple or safe the bug fixes were, or how serious the bug was. I held onto them, but they never made it into any patches either. They simply did not care about the quality of the game. It was all about getting it out the door.