Unreal Engine 4 to be mainly targeted towards consoles, world oddly ambivalent

[Miktar]

http://kotaku.com/367219/unreal-engine-4-targeting-consoles-not-pcs


Yeah, the Unreal Engine was once synonomous with cutting-edge PC graphics tech. Once. But in the future? With Unreal Engine 4.0? Well, it's going to be geared towards consoles, not the PC. So says Epic boss Tim Sweeney:

[DeMoN]

What is the world coming to. More companies are are starting not to support PC and that is starting to worry me. Companies like NVidia and ATI must also be a bit worried.

[Azimuth]

Nah. The Xbox uses an ATI GPU, and the PS3 an Nvidia GPU. :P

[Necro101]

Epic does like to send mixed signals don't they? First it was Cliff Bleszinski saying that consoles are were it's at and then Mark Rein calls him an idiot for that. Epic then joins the PC gaming alliance and then following up on that in an interview with TH Tim Sweeney says, and I quote, "PCs are good for anything, just not games".

In my opinion while Epic does create some good games and engines the company seems to be full of idiots.

[Chevron]

Nah. The Xbox uses an ATI GPU, and the PS3 an Nvidia GPU. :P

The wii also uses an Ati GPU.

[Mic]

Maybe it's just me, but are more and more companies only looking towards consoles? Now I'm no pc fanboy but this sucks :(

[Necro101]

Maybe it's just me, but are more and more companies only looking towards consoles? Now I'm no pc fanboy but this sucks :(

It does suck doesn't it? My PC gives me a different experience then what I get on consoles. Sins of a Solar Empire, Medieval II as well as graphical masterpieces such as Crysis. I love consoles as well but I would still like to have awesome gaming on both.

Still I'm confident that the PC is not going anywhere, however the entire concept of companies just seeming to abandon the PC fills me with sadness. :(

[Soppy]

I am not worried. If a game works for the 360 it will work on a windows PC, the great evil known as MS will see to that.

[Cleric]

I am not worried. If a game works for the 360 it will work on a windows PC, the great evil known as MS will see to that.

Have you even played Gears of War on PC?

Edit: Perhaps Halo 2 would have been a better example

[Mic]

In the mean time small developers aiming only for pc might make it big... hey.... this could be a blessing to those small developers who can't be seen through all those big names.

[groen]

Have you even played Gears of War on PC?

i did... best game ive played in years. Awesome GFX, great control system, great story, great sound... what more can i say.


Oh yes, but on topic... the real reason behing dev teams moving away from pc, is because they have become lazy and ****ing greedy. More hardware configs means more dev time, = more money.

Money money money.

[Ruandre]

I think it's great because the engine will have even more appeal for other developers which will result in a wider range of games using the Unreal engine.

[Mic]

I think it's great because the engine will have even more appeal for other developers which will result in a wider range of games using the Unreal engine.

But then most of those games will come out on consoles, and even though the price of consoles (Xbox) are going down, the price of games are rising.

[Necro101]

But then most of those games will come out on consoles, and even though the price of consoles (Xbox) are going down, the price of games are rising.

Yeah, paying R700 for some ps3 games is rather ridiculous.

[Mic]

Yeah, paying R700 for some ps3 games is rather ridiculous.

It will take me a year to save up and buy a console + 1 game!!
Maybe I should get a job?

[Cleric]

Yeah, paying R700 for some ps3 games is rather ridiculous.

I just saw at take2 that most of the new wii games are R670. Shenanigans!

(damned exchange rate, price of oil, and general economic volitily/turmoil. So inconsiderate)

[CaptainCrunch]

I'm sure many people would be excited by the prospect of seeing an Unreal Championship 3...

[Necro101]

I'm sure many people would be excited by the prospect of seeing an Unreal Championship 3...

I, for one, am not. Unreal tournament 3 was a step back in many ways when compared to Unreal tournament 2004. I'm quite sure the company has not lost it's touch as they did come out with the fantastic Gears of War. However the more I read up on interviews with the top people in Epic (Cliff Bleszinski, Mark Rein, Tim Sweeny) the more I'm convinced that they are a bunch of morons.

[Cleric]

I, for one, am not. Unreal tournament 3 was a step back in many ways when compared to Unreal tournament 2004.

For me, it was more of a sideways step. Complete waste of money (and over-priced to boot)



However the more I read up on interviews with the top people in Epic (Cliff Bleszinski, Mark Rein, Tim Sweeny) the more I'm convinced that they are a bunch of morons.

QFE. You have had a great start Necro. Glad to have you on the forums. We don't get many decent additions like you these days.

[Mic]

Cleric is right, you've made a good first impression, I'm still trying to fix mine.

[Necro101]

Thanks for the vote of confidence. I guess it stems from the fact that I am not new to forums, actually I belong to some forums that the word flame-fest describes them perfectly. I guess a lot of people who come to the NAG forums are immature twelve year olds that have an internet connection and picked up thier first issue of NAG (my apologies to the non immature twelve year olds).

[GOTNA]

Damn Im not even twelve. But on topic I have an xbox(my dad and brother hates me for that) and I only have 3 UE3 games and they look damn fine. But when I checked it on my dads computer which is better than my xbox360. It couldn't run it on full graphics. I think the UE3 is better on the xbox360. But thats just me not knowing too much about all tech stuff. But then I compared the two Dark messiah games(PC and 360) the pc one looked alot better ,and thats the source engine.

[Necro101]

But then I compared the two Dark messiah games(PC and 360) the pc one looked alot better ,and thats the source engine.

That's mainly due to bad coding and the fact that the Source engine in Dark Messiah loves to munch RAM, and in the 512 MB Xbox 360 that could be a problem.

[Azimuth]

I, for one, am not. Unreal tournament 3 was a step back in many ways when compared to Unreal tournament 2004.

Elaborate?

[Necro101]

Elaborate?

Well step to the side would be more appropriate. Don't get me wrong I don't think that Unreal 3 is a bad game, the combat, multiplayer, graphics and production values are all top notch, even the new game mode is pretty nice (although it can be as tough as nails). However it just seems to be slightly less then I was expecting.

The change from Unreal Tournament to Unreal 2003 was quite large, from 2003 to 2004 was basically just a spit and polish. Unreal 3 just does not feel different enough. If you loved the previous three (and there were three no matter how Epic tries to spin it) you will most likely love it and if that was what Epic was trying to do then they managed to accomplish it.

I guess I just moved on, Team Fortress 2 and Call of Duty 4 are my main focus now. I still pop in Unreal 3 every now and then. It was just, in my opinion, a slight disappointment, however I still consider it to be an AA game.

[Azimuth]

Oh, fair enough. Agreed on all counts.

[Cleric]

Well step to the side would be more appropriate.
Didn't I say that?


I guess I just moved on, Team Fortress 2 and Call of Duty 4 are my main focus now. I still pop in Unreal 3 every now and then. It was just, in my opinion, a slight disappointment, however I still consider it to be an AA game.

I feel exactly the same

[EdvanStraaten]

Sweeney: The Unreal engine is really tied to a console cycle. We will continue to improve Unreal Engine 3 and add significant new features through the end of this console cycle. So, it is normal to expect that we will add new stuff in 2011 and 2012. We're shipping Gears of War now; we're just showing the next bunch of major tech upgrades such as soft-body physics, destructible environments and crowds. There is a long life ahead for Unreal Engine 3. Version 4 will exclusively target the next console generation, Microsoft's successor for the Xbox 360, Sony's successor for the Playstation 3 - and if Nintendo ships a machine with similar hardware specs, then that also. PCs will follow after that.

Also, we continuously work on transitions, when we go through large portions of the engine. We completely throw out parts and create large subsystems from the ground up, while we are reusing some things that are still valid.

You know I don't see what all the fuss is about, I think a few people replied without reading the actual article. There will be a version of the UE 4.0 on the PC, it will just not be the top priority, which makes sense since the market for console games are bigger than that of PC games. This is not a new thing, the ID tech 5 engine was developed with the Xbox 360 as it main development platform, which is basically what Epic will be doing. It makes sense that you don't need graphics engines that are using cutting edge technology when the bulk of the consoles are always falling further and further behind when it comes to graphics hardware, and that is for what most engines will be developed.

The fact remains that you can't have full blown DirectX 10 games on your Xbox 360, and most of those games will get ported to the PC, usually these games doesn't look much better than they do on the consoles. It makes sense in so many ways. That the guys at Epic games are a bunch of arseholes, well that I do believe. The whole Silicon Knights debacle just shows that. Nuff said.

[Falafel]

Yeah, paying R700 for some ps3 games is rather ridiculous.

If you can't afford all the latest games, why not wait a few months till the price goes down? You people really need to stop complaining. The price for Gears of War when it came out for the PC was the same price of the Xbox 360 game at that same time. Its not that big a deal. Its what I do.

[cr@zydude]

i agree console prices are a bit high but they come down after a while

[James Donaldson]

Everyone is going on about Unreal Engine 4 being mainly for consoles, but what about UE3 -how many Unreal Engine 3 games have been made primarily for PC?

Personally, I don't like the look of UE3 games. I'd say Call of Duty 4's engine results in the best looking game -but that's me.

[EdvanStraaten]

I think when Tim Sweeney started with the design of the UE3, the next generation consoles were on the horizon, and the development kits weren't out yet at that time. As soon as the Xbox 360 and PS3 development kits became available Epic ported the engine to those consoles and changed the engine so it would take advantage of the consoles technology (But still there remains a strong PC legacy in there). The main idea with the UE4 is that it is designed from the ground up for consoles, and then after that it will be ported to the PC. So don't expect a fully blown DirectX10. Expect a DirectX9 engine with added DirectX10 features, like the current UE3 on the PC (Vista).

[samwise]

Although this is quite sad news, I think that the fact that Valve just released Steamworks definitely sheds some positive light on this issue. Therefore I'm not giving up hope yet but I'm pretty sure that we'll see some big changes in the PC market in a couple of years. I'm agreeing that smaller developers will start becoming competitive in the market, which is definitely a good thing as they'll probably offer original titles.

[BlackMage]

Source engine FTW

[EdvanStraaten]

The funny thing is that the games industry as it is now with all the major developers focusing on consoles gives the indie developers to really innovate on the technology side. One of these days you could see more and more indie developed game engines that will be cutting edge, the main reason for this is the fact that big engine developers (ID, Epic) doesn't want to really endorse the PC (Where the cutting edge in possibilities are still at).

[Mic]

Look... we agree on something --->


The funny thing is that the games industry as it is now with all the major developers focusing on consoles gives the indie developers to really innovate on the technology side. One of these days you could see more and more indie developed game engines that will be cutting edge, the main reason for this is the fact that big engine developers (ID, Epic) doesn't want to really endorse the PC (Where the cutting edge in possibilities are still at).


In the mean time small developers aiming only for pc might make it big... hey.... this could be a blessing to those small developers who can't be seen through all those big names.

[FTB_Screamer]

I say let them stick the UT4 engine up their asses, IMHO most of the games based on the UT3 engine does not look good, textures seem low quality, and they then try to hide it with HDR, and then AA never works. I've just played Splinter Cell double agent for the first time and it does not look as good as Chaos Theory, which used the previous UT engine.

[Shinigami636]

http://i182.photobucket.com/albums/x2/Shinigami636/Unreal_Engine_Comparison.jpg

Hehe, I just needed to post this...

[Toi]

^^ Nice thanks man.

What seems to be the problem FTB? My double agent looks great, so does the other countless games that I have that uses the Unreal 3 engine. In fact, it's my favorite graphics engine one at the moment so I'm very excited about the new one.