The technical director for Criterion (Burnout Paradise) wants to put a stop to a persistent cliché in development: The idea that some game or project is maxing out a console’s capabilities.
Such a claim is “proof that you’re not the best,” Richard Parr said to Eurogamer. “It means you’re out of ideas.”
The line of reasoning – those who are truly pushing the boundaries of game development are discovering more and different things to do, not finding their options limited and shrinking. I agree. The capabilities of a console can be measured objectively in, say, polygons, framerate, etc. But the totality of a game experience? How do you honestly get to a point where you say “Well, that game is right at the limit”?
Criterion senior engineer Alex Fry chimed in: “You always find new ways to do things, the constraints lift. Not just with a new console generation but with every game you do… The constraints go away because you learn. While it’s nice to say you’ve maxed something out, there’s not really any point.”
Criterion: Nobody’s Maxed Out a PS3/360 [Eurogamer]
Timothy Zeven
June 14, 2009 at 2:26 PM
I agree 100%.
Report PermalinkJay
June 14, 2009 at 5:33 PM
Yeah so STFU MGS4 fanboys & Final Fantasy freaks. Go & swallow those false accusations your developer lovers are feeding you.
Report PermalinkRidley200
June 14, 2009 at 5:58 PM
Uh, not sure about FF, but i know MGS pretty much “maxed out” in terms of space. Obviously not graphics wise or anything else, but Kojima would’ve had a hard time fitting anything else on the disc (such as better textures). So you could count that as “maxing”, since they really couldn’t add any more to it.
Report Permalinkwepoo
June 14, 2009 at 8:45 PM
Sure, I suppose, but anyone can just fill their Blue Ray up with videos.
Report PermalinkNicholas
June 14, 2009 at 5:50 PM
Totally agree, how many dev’s said they max’d the ps2 before the likes of BLACK and, incidently, later burnout games came along? This means they were wrong, pointless, and humiliated.
Report PermalinkMic
June 14, 2009 at 10:55 PM
There is a difference between maxing a console and maxing a console efficiently.
Report PermalinkJay
June 15, 2009 at 11:55 PM
Amen.
Like this developer is saying. You may have maxed the capacity of say a Blu-Ray disc – but that doesn’t mean the PS3 is running at the maximum is can, so hard and so much that what you’re seeing is like heaven graphics & the game is PERFECT and no faults whatsoever.
It just means. You stuffed things up cause you have no more room to add to the game. Whether its good or not – you did NOT max the console. Big difference there.
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