Unreal Creator Proclaims PCs are Not For Gaming 705
An anonymous reader writes "TG Daily is running an interesting interview with EPIC founder and Unreal creator Tim Sweeney. Sweeney is anyway very clear about his views on the gaming industry, but it is surprising how sharply he criticizes the PC industry for transforming the PC into a useless gaming machine. He's especially unhappy with Intel, which he says has integrated graphics chipsets that 'just don't work'."
Printer Friendly Version (Score:3, Informative)
TFA Clarification (Score:5, Informative)
Re:I'm not worried, because... (Score:3, Informative)
Keyboard and Mouse (Score:5, Informative)
Re:I'm not worried, because... (Score:5, Informative)
Re:If the consolers will get off their high horses (Score:5, Informative)
Hmm?
Unreal Tournament 3 on PS3 can be played with mouse and keyboard just fine.
Re:Keyboard and Mouse (Score:5, Informative)
I cant speak for the 360 (I just dont know), but the PS3 already supports mouse/keyboards fully. It uses USB interfaces, so there's no difficulty finding a mouse or keyboard to hook up to it. If you want to go wild, you can buy an expensive bluetooth keyboard for it and save a port. Game support might be running a bit lower. I dont know about CoD4, but UT3 fully supports playing with the mouse/keyboard on the PS3. You have to set it up, but it's not a hard process and can be googled.
Im not sure what more people are looking for with this "I demand full support NAO!" thing.
Re:I'm not worried, because... (Score:2, Informative)
Re:Unreal Tourniment is a game? (Score:4, Informative)
Sooo... in the grand scheme of things, Sweeney has found himself a free pass out of the creative side of game development.
Re:I'm not worried, because... (Score:4, Informative)
I guess I am using the PC as a games console, but it's a games console with cheap games, decent controls and no software restrictions, and I can reboot into Linux. For me, that is a much better deal than the 360. I suppose another advantage would be that I could replace the parts myself if they failed, whereas if I had a games console I would have to send it back to the manufacturer (red ring of death?). However, this has not happened yet.
Re:Weird 64 bit comments (Score:3, Informative)
It would've broken all the old drivers, yes, but they did that anyways. Regular applications would be unaffected, because x86-64 processors can run 32-bit programs just fine.
Re:I'm not worried, because... (Score:3, Informative)
Most importantly though is that the Console market is more willing to pay a higher price, and things are usually priced at what the market will bear rather than what it's worth based on the entertainment it provides or the cost of manufacturing.
Re:for those 1337 3D games (Score:3, Informative)
Not only will it be coming to the console, it will contain 50% more stuff.
http://kotaku.com/gaming/cry-on/crytek-says-crysis-for-consoles-possible-284534.php [kotaku.com]
http://www.ps3fanboy.com/2008/03/03/rumor-crysis-for-ps3-looking-probable-will-be-an-almost-50-n/ [ps3fanboy.com]
Proof that (Score:3, Informative)
How the hell is it Intel and the PC's manufacturer's fault for integrated graphics, when most PC's are for business use, where they, at best, play card games on. People won't pay for power they don't need.
The market for insanely fast, high-end games seems to have shrunk in favour of casual games, MMOs, and "gameplay" games. Instead of working on graphics engines, the hotspot for innovation seems to be game play and game experience. Examples abound: Wii Sports, Bio Shock, Mass Effect, World in Conflict, the endless stream of "war games" like Gears of War and Call of Duty, etc.
None of these games can be played with Integrated graphics; WoW will run max ~10-15 fps on X3100 Integrated graphics, and will probably degrade without aftermarket cooling. Almost all sales people at Best Buy or even at the Apple Store are very clear about what models are meant for games, and which ones aren't. Yet Tim claims that poor, blind, customers are being sold PC's that won't play games. I guess he's never heard of a "2 week return policy"?
I think Doom 3 killed the market -- after that experience, people don't want to buy the same old 10 year old game with new graphics and some minor gameplay improvements.
For example, if you improve the graphics (a bit) AND the gameplay AND change the setting or genre, you may have a winner... The current graphics champ, Crysis, has done fairly well [1up.com], selling 1 million [kotaku.com] through the end of January, despite early reports that it was flunking as bad as UT3. Gears of War 2 is hotly anticipated and I bet will slam UT3's sales despite being on the same engine. I haven't heard what UT3's sales are, last I saw it was 1.2 million [gamespy.com] for PS3 + PC combined, which seems to indicate PC sales sucked.
Re:I'm not worried, because... (Score:2, Informative)
I hear this little meme bandied about a lot, and I've found it to be utter bullshit. Unless I'm missing something, I'm far more comfortable sitting at my PC desk, playing a game than sitting on my couch, slouched over playing a game. I don't know how you or others trying to perpetuate this meme play games, but when I play, it's pretty intense. Sitting on the couch slouched over isn't exactly the best posture for competitive gaming.
I suspect people like you, who prefer the slouched couch approach are casual players who basically suck at any competitive gaming event. Which is fine... I'm not bashing you for it. But the fact remains that a console is neither the environment for competitive gaming nor does it have the input methods for it.
Gaming for me is competitive. That's the whole point of games, really... compete against something or someone. If you're playing just to "relax" and you don't care about winning... well that's great. Not everyone does that.
The PC is fundamentally flawed by inconsistent drivers, latency, incompatibility, and simply by being a moving target. How fast is a PC? What graphics chipset does a PC have? A developer has to make the game tweakable, so that it works on everyone's PC and the people with the lithium-cooled turbofan graphics card can stop moaning that it doesn't play at 15241x19841 in 64 bit colour. Alternately, they could just focus it and optimise it for the same graphics chip everywhere and get the absolute best out of it.
Oh please. This is complete horseshit. Inconsistent drivers? Rarely is there a driver problem with STABLE drivers. If you're using beta drivers or tweaked drivers, of course you're going to have problem... and that's the POWER of the PC vs the Console. If you want your shit to run faster and are willing to take instability as a price, YOU CAN. Can't do that on a console, you're stuck with what they give you. Latency? WTF does that even mean in this context? Consoles and PCs run over the same internet connection. Incompatibility? With what?
A moving target, huh? You say it like it's a bad thing. The 2007 PC vs the console... consoles are supposedly superior graphics wise... except there's few games out for the console compared to the PC, so you have a faster graphics system but no games to play on it (Xbox 360 does have some decent ones). As time goes on, more games come out for the console, but the PCs start to catch up graphics-wise. A couple years into the release of the console, the PCs start to surpass the console in graphics and CPU power... there's some games out for the console now, but the PC can play them too and they look better on the PC, since high resolution monitors are the norm. The current crop of console games are still being developed for standard def TVs or at best 720p. Sure they display in 1080i and 1080p, but they look like shit compared to the same game on a 1920x1200 monitor.
Fast forward another couple years... the consoles have fallen WAY behind in graphics and CPU power. Can't upgrade the consoles, so you're stuck with 2nd and 3rd generation games... the PCs have console emulators... they are playing your console games AND PC games at this point... now you're stuck. The new console comes out next year, prepare to drop close to a grand on the new gaming consoles and accessories. About the same you would have paid upgrading your PC to play the latest and greatest over the past 4 - 5 years. Now you start the cycle all over again - how much will the NEXT generation console cost after that? Over a grand?
Yes, the PC is a moving target, and it's an asset not a detriment. You can choose what kind of gaming experience you want (and can afford) with a PC. Can't do that with a console. Gotta spend $600 for the latest and greatest or you get NOTHING. With a PC, you can spend $60 for something adequate, or spend $600 for the latest and greatest... your choice.
Re:I'm not worried, because... (Score:5, Informative)
Re:I'm not worried, because... (Score:3, Informative)
The entire thing is abstracted away from the architecture, the code really doesn't give a damn if it's running on PowerPC in a 360 or an x86 in a PC. The changes needing to be made are usually very small relative to the entire project (UI tweaks, save games etc).