Dishonored Dev: “Technology is not really the bottleneck”, PS3/Xbox 360 not maxed out

"It's a bit intriguing that some developers still manage to extract juice out of these ancient HD consoles. Games like Halo 4 and The Last of Us look spectacular, so there has to be a reason how these first-party developers keep surprising people when it comes to visual fidelity."

[Chuk5]

Agreed.
I believe a great art design can take a game a long way over raw power. Look at how great the mario galaxy games were, both in visuals and gameplay. They were ruining on a system that had far less horse power than the 360 or ps3.

I mean, yes a new gen inevitably needs to arrive, but I find people like crytek are just "graphics over gameplay" minded and constantly bemoan the inadequacies of current consoles.

[dedicatedtogamers]

Current gen consoles are focusing too heavily on graphics. I'd happily take a game with 2009-2010-quality graphics in exchange for bigger multiplayer maps, more players per match (64p Battlefield 3, anyone?), more advanced enemy AI, etc.

Nowadays it seems like all that stuff is actually getting WORSE in favor of squeezing out a bit more graphical improvement.

At least, on console games.

[Perjoss]

One of the best games I've played this year, FTL has a 2D graphics style. Graphics certainly do not make the game.

[attilayavuzer]

But they make a large part of it.

And I'll take better graphics over unnecessary multiplayer upgrades any day.

[dedicatedtogamers]

@Perjoss

FTL is sick! I kickstarted that.

[Pintheshadows]

Borderlands 2 is a good example of how a distinct visual style can make a game look top notch even this deep into a generation.

[turgore]

Not really. The game looks last gen, similar to this the game called XIII

[JasonKCK]

The style of games like Borderlands and Darksiders look better than ultra realistic on a big screen plasma. Realistic games tend to look bland. Cell shaded games also seem to have better AA and framerate. In my experience anyway.

[TheTwelve]

Borderlands doesn't look top notch to me. I also don't think they're trying to look that way --- it has it's own style. ---12

[LocutusEstBorg]

Wrong. Console games DO look like crap. Muddy god-awful textures, crappy *x640 resolutions upscaled to 1920x1080, no anti-aliasing and low framerate and are non-existent problems on PC.

If a console wasn't maxed out, all these problems wouldn't exist. They don't have the computational power and RAM to run quality graphics.

I challenge this guy to make a single console game that runs at true 1980x1080 at 60FPS with 4xAA. A console cannot even run Counter-Strike 1.6 at that resolution.

The biggest problem for me is no AA automataically makes a game look like shit.

[ziggurcat]

"It's a bit intriguing that some developers still manage to extract juice out of these ancient HD consoles. Games like Halo 4 and The Last of Us look spectacular, so there has to be a reason how these first-party developers keep surprising people when it comes to visual fidelity."

well, bethesda are really bad devs, so...

[Karooo]

Bethesda is publisher here.

[Locksus]

Why the disagrees? Is Bethesda not the publisher after all? Have I missed something?

[Dovahkiin]

@Locksus

People don't always like facts, here at n4g.

[wastedcells]

Bethesda is publisher but they own the developer.

[LocutusEstBorg]

There is nothing intruiging about any of those games. They all have shitty low quality textures, run at some joke of a resolution upscaled to 1920x1080 and have no AA.

If you want to see how bad they really are, connect the PS3 to a Dell U3011 monitor not a low quality TV (yes all TVs are low quality regardless of cost).

[Saturne3]

Its bethesda makes open world games not linear ones.

And still their games look great despise of that.

[DivineAssault]

i hope this game ends up good.. I like the sword play..

[AngelicIceDiamond]

Yeah, I agree. Lately it seems like devs are trying to make games that are on par or somewhat to the PC counterpart. which, in allot of cases is impossible. If devs focus on unique engines that shine on consoles, only then we can see power being displayed on platforms this late in the gen.

Its all up to the devs at this point, imagination is a powerful thing.

[whiteyjuice]

Skyrim looks like a turd on the consoles compared to a decent PC. This article is crap. If the consoles didn't exist, PC graphics would be even better than they are now.

[NoFanboyRequired]

Doubt that. People arent even getting the full potential out of their PCs because the platform is very open. Look at how long it took for PC's to actually run crysis.

[vortis]

They were running Crysis since 2007...how long did it take Crytek to remove content and squeeze Crysis down to fit on consoles?

[SnakeCQC]

those who want a pc gaming will buy a pc while those who want a more social gaming experience go for consoles. Theres nothing wrong with eith so quit complaining and neither holds back the other its just lazy devs who crap out on ports

[attilayavuzer]

I finally got around to putting together a gaming rig that can max out all my games...I seriously don't see what the big deal is. Outside of some mods for a few select games (Crysis, GTA), there really isn't that huge of a difference outside of the frame rate increase.

[seanpitt23]

sorry but the difference between pc and consoles playing BF3 is a massive difference. They are maxed out..... If they wasnt then bf3 would be simlar to the pc version ie 64 PLAYERS

[NoFanboyRequired]

For one, PC WAS the main platform. I bet it would look a hell of a lot better than it does if the game was an exclusive to either one of the consoles.

[soundslike]

He wasn't denying that. In fact he CLEARLY mentions it.

“The photo-realism graphics race eats up a lot of hardware bandwidth for what could be used for interesting, different features and styles of gameplay."

Thus BF3 is obviously the type of game he's referring to when referencing photo realism. Take that and compare it to Borderlands 2 or Viva Pinata, then you'll know what people are talking about here.

[aquamala]

If console graphics are not maxed out why haven't games this year look better than last year? What more proof do you need?

[Locksus]

Not every developer wants to invest a whole lot into the graphics department to max out the current consoles.

[NoFanboyRequired]

Halo 4
The last of us
beyond: two souls
uncharted 3

All those games look better than anything that is multiplatform on consoles.

[lategamer]

Halo 4 looks better than Halo 3.

Uncharted 3 and Last of Us looks better than Uncharted 2.

God of War: A looks better than God of War 3.

Skyrim shits all over Fallout and Oblivion.

Games coming out like Bioshock Infinity, GTA V, etc. look better than previous titles.

What more proof do YOU need?

[shutUpAndTakeMyMoney]

Planetside 2.

[vortis]

Hmm, kind of a crappy article.

He's basically saying what everyone already knows: Xbox 360 and PS3 are maxed out when it comes to improving graphics fidelity.

He's just saying that instead of improving graphic fidelity to use a different art-style (i.e., cel-shading, sprites, line-art, etc,. etc.)

Like The Unfinished Swan is a cool looking game but it doesn't push graphics and it's good looking thanks to its art-style. But that's not the same as console hardware not being maxed out.

Just look at the mess Bethesda ran into with the PS3's RAM and the DLC for Skyrim. They bit off waaaay more than they could chew. They'll probably have to do a lot of re-working to get everything to fit right.

And there's a reason why Borderlands 2 on consoles isn't utilizing PhysX like on PC...if the consoles aren't maxed why don't we get more physics-based content and more particle-effect based content like what the UE4 can produce?

Exactly.

[ChunkyLover53]

I have to disagree with the article a bit, obviously developers have hit the wall with what they can do with current hardware. Even the best looking games suffer from frame rate issues, pop in, draw in and other graphical hiccups.

Sure you can disguise games with art styles like the ones in Borderlands, but the current tech isn't "wowing" anyone at this point.

Don't get me wrong, I'm not saying we aren't getting great games, but there isn't the hype or the "wow" factor anymore, I don't really hear people saying "Did you see that game!". I really haven't heard anyone blown away from graphics on consoles since the E3 that Rage won a bunch of awards for graphical prowess.

[MysticStrummer]

"I really haven't heard anyone blown away from graphics on consoles since the E3 that Rage won a bunch of awards for graphical prowess."

Anyone who was blown away by how Rage looked on consoles should be ignored on the subject of graphics anyway.

[ChunkyLover53]

Rage won a lot of awards for graphics, I thought that even though the game was a letdown in the story department, the graphics didn't disappoint.

Everything had a unique look and no environments were used twice, plus it ran at a smooth 60fps, which is very important.

I still think its the best looking game on consoles.

[TheGamingArt]

This statement is coming from the wrong company....

[wastedcells]

Stop comparing PC to consoles people. It's silly. PCs change every month, consoles stay the same for a whole generation. There is no way to compete with pc. Problem for pc is most developers don't make games to fully take advantage of the latest pc hardware because the public can barely keep up. Plus pc games sales are minuscule compared to console sales.

[Linsolv]

LOL THAT'S A LIE.

Diablo III was the fastest-selling game in history. World of Warcraft was until recently the most played game on the planet (and may still be, but they're hemorrhaging players). The Sims 2 sold more copies than any Call of Duty title. Minecraft singlehandedly put one of the biggest new names in game development, Mojang, on the map. Battlefield 3 sold 20% of it's units in the first week on PC (5 million sales week 1; 2.3 on Xbox, 1.7 on PS3), only the revenue went directly to EA because it was distributed by EA through EA's distribution service, as opposed to a measly 20-30% of retail value like most games.

Starcraft 1 was stocking new units on the shelves for more than 15 years, and created an entire television genre in Korea.

PC gaming is a market that is hard to break into because they know what they want and they don't like it when people don't give it to them. But it's a very lucrative market if you work for it.

But on to the other hilariously wrong things you said:

PC graphics have not made any significant jump in the last 4 years. It's been small, incremental changes. It speaks to the state of the industry that my mid-range graphics card (6850, retails for $130) can play almost any game on the highest settings. I haven't yet found a game that makes me dip below Medium settings.

My PC hasn't changed since I built it the first time last July. The only changes I've made were buying a controller so I could play poorly-ported games and what games I wanted to play at the time.

[wastedcells]

Take things to serious much lol.

[deletingthis34675334]

Lawl you are delusional, just like most console kids on the internet. Most PC sales don't count in the statistics as they are digital. Steam, GoG, etc. are never reported to NPD sales charts.

[Linsolv]

Technology isn't the bottleneck because people keep finding ways to make old technology work better.

In a similar way, Twitter's character limit isn't the reason that novels aren't written on Twitter, because people keep finding new ways to make Twitter posts that are funnier.

[DialgaMarine]

While I partially agree with the statement, this is still a Besthesda developer. They've done nothing but prove that they don't know sh*t about the PS3's architecture, so this statement means nothing coming from them. I'm waiting until Last of Us comes out to decide whether or not PS3 has been maxed out or until Naughty Dog/ Sony Santa Monica say it has.

[lategamer]

Bethesda is not the developer. How many times do people have to mention that? Arkane Studios is the developer.

[nihonlight]

Guilty by association.

[Sykoticz]

Here is me hoping that what this article is trying to say is " No sh!tty ports for any platforms from us guys " But we will soon see.

I disagree with this article its just silly. I mean i would like to be able to keep on playing this gen for as long as i could but when i play on my pc and see nicer effects and smooth-ness in fps and i go "why defuq am i playing my console still"

[Tontus]

Well I think God of War: Ascension will represent the pinnacle of what's possible on current generation consoles since the PS3 is the most powerful console this generation. What's the best looking game on PS2? God of War II, the PSP? God of War: Ghost of Sparta, the PS3? So far God of War III is still easily the best looking game and God of War: Ascension is going to top it.

The Last of Us doesn't look anything special imo, it has really bad image quality with jaggies everywhere, most of the textures are really low quality, the foliage looks mostly terrible and the lighting looks flat. People should watch the demo in full-screen at 720p, it's better than most games but it's not great. It doesn't really look any better than Uncharted 3 which at times looked amazing but unfortunately it looked like crap too often, rushed development.

I think Gears of War: Judgment, Forza: Horizon and Halo 4 look bloody incredible on Xbox 360, they all impress me more than The Last of Us but nothing will come close to God of War: Ascension, that's going to have the technical brilliance matched with beautiful artwork that Sony Santa Monica are the masters at creating.