Epic: 'If next-gen consoles aren't bleeding edge, Apple will beat them'

Meeting with Epic's always well-spoken VP Mark Rein at GDC this week, CVG highlighted the growing concern among gamers that next-gen consoles could turn out to be technically underwhelming - especially with Wii U's reportedly modest specs and the next Xbox rumoured to be utilising a year-old graphics card.

[Shok]

Didn't know Epic was this stupid.

[gypsygib]

I'm happy Epic is pushing Sony, MS and (hopefully) Nintendo to make next-gen consoles as powerful as possible. Gamers win by having the corps subsidize our purchase.

Remember, if it wasn't for Epic, 360 would have likely failed this gen right after the RROD fiasco, as every PS3 game would have looked and ran noticeably better.

[dp277407]

Im thinking he means Gears of War came out early enough to make people want a 360 even with the risk of rrod or we could let him tell us.

[SuperLupe]

Yep next gen kicked off with Gears. RROD or not you had to be a part of it.

[gypsygib]

@ dp277407 & SuperLupe

I'm talking bout how Epic convinced MS to make 360 more powerful by upping the RAM from 256 to 512...because Gears didn't look particularly next-gen at 256.

The whole point of the article is that Epic is trying to convince Console makers to up the power by showing them what can be done with high specs (Smaritan Demo), and I'm saying that's good because it allowed or greatly contributed to 360 being where it is today.

If 360 was noticeably less powerful and relied on multiplats as much as it does, PS3 would have dominated again = less competition to push the envelope = gamers lose.

[sikbeta]

@gypsygib

No, it's not, Epic is riding Apple's d*** because they want to license the f*** out of their Engines and put them everywhere, they don't care if the games on I-devices are s*** or not, as long as they can make money from the UE, bleeding edge tech on new consoles will make more devs go out of business, raise prices and less variety of games, it's not working, PS1 and PS2 werent successful for being the most powerful consoles, same with the wii

Also, those who are expecting a massive bump in HW like we saw this gen are delusional, that's what made Sony from being number 1, to being in last place and with no chance to catch up against the competition

Face it, people want flashy stuff with colored s****, that's why Apple is so big, that's why kinect is so succesful, it has nothing to do with Specs or HW, casuals want gimmicks and what's hot at the moment, nothing else

[Machioto]

@sikbeta What you said reminded me of this.

Can someone tell me power wise how the ipad 3 stacks up compared to ps vita,I know the ipad has a higher res screen but two less cpu cores and the same amount of GPUs but they are not based on the rumored powervr series 6.

[ChrisW]

However, with Sony and MS using current AMD (6000 series?) graphics technology... by the time their next-gen consoles are released, they will already be a generation or two late in graphics.

So if Apple takes that into consideration, they'll have the definite advantage.

[SilentNegotiator]

If they try to make them "bleeding edge", Apple will ABSOLUTELY beat them. Was the Wii "bleeding edge" in power? Was the ps2? Nope, but they WERE the most successful consoles of all time.

Gamers aren't going to "jump ship" to a buttonless tablet.

"especially with....the next Xbox rumoured to be utilising a year-old graphics card"
-
Uhhh, what do they expect? Graphics Cards from the future? Consoles have "outdated" cards out of the gate. That's just the way that it is. They have to be marketably affordable. It's that simple. It's quite sad to see people blubber about even 5 year old consoles having old cards; do you want to buy new hardware every, what, 3 years, then?

"The "Next gen" consoles will already be outdated when they release because AMD/Nvidia will have a slightly more powerful series of card out...MEH MEH MEH MEH MEEEEH"

Epic only cares because they care about how THEIR games sell on the consoles, and the more flash, the better for them. The big three, however, actually have to worry about hardware sales and more than one token game series like Gears selling.

[Kos-Mos]

Good graphics do NOT make a game good tiny.

[LeShin]

@silentnegotiator wish I could get you a drink for talking so much sense, but a bubble will have to do :-)

I've said it before and I'll keep saying it....touchscreen controls just don't work for most games! I have a really good smartphone and I've bought ONE game in a 6 month period.

....and don't get me started on how much an Ipad costs compared to a console! Buying a ipad strictly for gaming just seems like a very stupid idea

[debian_zac]

@SilentNegotiator

if i can buy ram at the consumer rate of ~50 for 8GBs of it, than for each GB of ram I'm paying ~6.75 USD.

Now all i'm saying is that 2GB isn't gonna cause consoles prices to sky rocket because for each system they are only investing 12.50 USD at the consumer rate. Which current systems only have 512MB of ram so thats increasing the available ram on the system by x4 the amount without breaking the bank. NO way in hell could M$ or Sony find a way to justify that 2 GBs for more ram would cause the systems price to increase by 100 or 200 USD. Now the only thing really holding back consoles would be the Bus systems on the MBs and hopefully M$ doesn't do what they did this gen are try to cut costs with cheaper and poorer quality parts.

Source of prices : http://www.newegg.com/Store...

All i'm saying is the systems have decent processing power, albet weak but sufficient GPUs. But the problem is the lack for ram to store textures, general game data, models.

[Anon1974]

@SuperLupe "Yep next gen kicked off with Gears."
Exactly. I remember that awe I felt when Gears game out. This was next gen, I said. This raises the bar. I expected to see the bar raised from that point on. But it didn't happen. At least not on that console. On another console, I saw the graphical bar raised again and again.

Not every developer can push the hardware, otherwise every game would look like Gears or Uncharted or Battlefield or the Witcher. That's why next gen, it doesn't matter what the specs are. We aren't going to see a graphical revolution overnight. If it were that easy, we would have seen it already.

@SilentNegotiator "Gamers aren't going to "jump ship" to a buttonless tablet."
I wouldn't discount the touch screen so soon. Obviously Nintendo thinks there's something there, and you can't deny that it's much more precise to touch the screen exactly where you want as opposed to using a thumbstick. A touchscreen used with buttons would bring the precision of a mouse with the buttons of a controller. Any PC gamer will tell you how limiting a controller is compared to mouse input - and as a developer myself I can tell you, for some games the touchscreen interface will let you do far more things than a controller. It's not for every game, but to simply write it off as "gamers need buttons"...that's not always the case.

[MaxXAttaxX]

Oh wait, they're not.

[Dude420]

"Exactly. I remember that awe I felt when Gears game out. This was next gen, I said. This raises the bar. I expected to see the bar raised from that point on. But it didn't happen. At least not on that console. On another console, I saw the graphical bar raised again and again."

Wow, who cares, even if the PS3 apparently raised the bar, that didn't stop the Xbox from getting better looking games. There's a huge difference between Gears 1 and 3. Forza 4's graphics were vastly improved and there seems to be a pretty significant difference between Halo Reach and 4, but we'll see.

The point is, the Xbox still has juice left in it and some devs do their best to ensure that there's a high quality in the visuals. This is a result of competition. Even though the PS3 can produce amazing looking console games, I was amazed that the Xbox can still improve as well.

[nveenio]

The iPad will not take over handheld gaming. That's like saying that Macs will take over PC gaming. It's not happening. I will be buying an iPad 3, but only because I'm a software developer, and so I need to have one for work. Will I play games on it? Sure. But it won't replace my PS3, let alone my PS4, and definitely not my PC (preferred multi-plat of choice).

Epic has an interest in as many platforms as possible. It makes their engine look really great when you can use it to develop every platform in parallel. Just because their Epic doesn't mean they're not blowing smoke.

[Perjoss]

Even the mention of Apple or Wii when talking about bleeding edge gaming is quite silly. Apple and Nintendo devices are not aimed at gamers at all. YES there is the odd hardcore title on the Wii but they make up about 5% of its library.

You only have to look at sales charts to see that stuff like Wii Sports and Wii Fit ridiculously outsell stuff like Resident Evil and Xenoblade Chronicles.

[pangitkqb]

I enjoy the bleeding edge of technology. It's expensive, it requires many sacrifices to be made, but the experiences are incredible. I'll never forget the first time I put Oblivion on my PS3 after years of playing on my PS2. It was mind blowing.

And games have only gotten better since then.

[MysticStrummer]

"Yep next gen kicked off with Gears. RROD or not you had to be a part of it."

Not me. I knew I wanted a PS3 but thought Gears might make me want a 360 also. That didn't happen. It's not a bad game by any means, but it didn't make me regret waiting to jump into the next generation.

OT - No. No they won't. Apple makes good products, and games made for smart phones and other touchscreen devices have their place, but nothing they have beats what I get from my PS3.

[F7U12]

And the proof of what he's saying is sitting right here next to me, it's my gaming PC. A console just couldn't offer me the experience that I was looking for. This is the experience that I was looking for and it's only going to get better when nextgen hits.

http://img689.imageshack.us...

[ikkokucrisis]

I don't know if it's good to side with Apple Mark,

Apple releases a new product every year and Epic based console/PC games already take 2+ years to make so...

[SilentNegotiator]

"@SilentNegotiator "Gamers aren't going to "jump ship" to a buttonless tablet."
I wouldn't discount the touch screen so soon. Obviously Nintendo thinks "

Nope, nuh-uh, stop, halt, freeze, hail....

What part of "buttonless" do you not understand?

[Angainor7]

you are the stupid my friend... you know the things better than the company that created the Unreal Engine? for christ's sake... go to sleep...

[MeridianHope]

I'm a big Apple fan (had a Mac since the 80s, iPods, iPhones, picking up an iPad soon), and even I think it's a little crazy to say Apple will beat next-gen consoles.

Why? Because Apple (as far as we know) isn't making a console. As much as I think Apple and the Mac and the iPad are awesome, I do not for one second think they are viable replacements for a console or gaming PC.

The only thing I think the iPhone / iPad *are* viable replacements for would be handheld game devices (like the DS or PSP/Vita), but that all depends on the type of mobile gamer you are. The DS or PSP/Vita are still definitely going to have their market because they will be capable of gaming functions the iDevices simply can't match - the Vita especially.

Until Apple unveils a console of their own (one that's not a joke like the ill-fated Pippin was), this is a nonsense statement. I think the iPad and other iDevices are great, but they simply do not compete with consoles in any significant way.

[TheGamingArt]

I couldn't agree more with MeridianHope

[dredgewalker]

@Meridian

I agree with everything that you've said. Even if Apple decides to make a console you can be sure to pay premium prices for the peripherals and accessories for their console since they will never allow 3rd party manufacturers. I also think that it will be pirated easily seeing how many jailbroken ipads/iphones are out there.

[FrankDrebin]

If you don't think Epic is making a point here then you are lacking some commonsense and intelligence. Sorry but true.

Maybe some of you don't realize it but the latest iPad (3, hd, whatever you want to call it) has more memory that the 360 and the Ps3. The graphics capabilities are very close to those of the consoles. With the rate that Apple releases updates it wouldn't take long for Apple to catch up and possibly surpass them. It only makes sense if you understand specs and stats.

Now listen, I'm not saying that Apple products are the best gaming machines on the planet. I'm not saying that at all. I have iPads and all that stuff and rarely play games on them. It isn't my personal cup of tea.

One thing to remember is this, EPIC knows the market. They know technology. They know it a heck of a lot better than you! Give them some credit!

[MeridianHope]

If the point is "the iPad tech will surpass that of next-gen consoles unless they are bleeding edge" then yeah, ok sure... But saying "if next-gen consoles aren't bleeding edge, Apple will beat them" is kind of dumb. That's like saying "if next-gen consoles don't do the dishes, the Whirlpool Gold Series dishwasher will beat them" - it doesn't matter.

If the iPad tech is better than next-gen consoles, does that mean a significant number of people will abandon consoles and start playing exclusively on their iPads? No. Absolutely not. Why? Because even if the iPad tech is better, the *experience* will be better on the consoles because they're designed primarily for that purpose and have the inputs for it, the iPad doesn't and Apple has shown no signs of changing in that regard.

[jeeves86]

Specs don't mean anything. People who tout Apple over Android have long said this - Apps and games make the machine, as well as the ease of use. Or if you're into that sort of thing, customization.

If Apple were to allow a bluetooth controller to be paired up with their devices, then I could see the next gen consoles taking a hit. As it stands, I can't see the market for dedicated gaming consoles dying down anytime soon.

[FrankDrebin]

Actually specs do mean a lot. Since you don't think so it only shows how much you know! haha Good try Jeeves86

[HunterRose]

Frank- If you think specs are the end all be all of a devices potential, then it shows how little you know.

The original Xbox had better specs than any other console at the time. And which console won that particular generation? Could it be the PS2, since it's still selling consoles today (which is 5 years after the Xbox was discontinued)?

And just so you know, having a holier-than-thou attitude when you're obviously wrong makes it worse.

[MeridianHope]

@jeeves86

Apple already "allows" bluetooth controllers to be paired with the iDevices - but because they don't sell any themselves or bundle them, it's unlikely to gain enough momentum to topple the console market (and arguably wouldn't even if it *were* bundled).

The iPad is great, it's more than enough for the casual gamer or even the serious gamer that has another dedicated gaming console or PC. But is it positioned to be a serious gamers primary gaming device? Absolutely not.

Anyhow, just for your edification, here's a couple links to info about OnLive supporting bluetooth controllers on the iPad for gaming with the OnLive service. Very impressive looking stuff, but again, as much as I like the iPad, if I were really going to do something like this I'd prefer it on my big screen TV, not a 10" iPad screen, no matter how much better resolution it may have.

http://www.macrumors.com/20...

http://www.onlive.com/corpo...