It's very disappointing that Epic is not putting more effort into the PC. I think fucking over the PC community is what hurt them with UTIII. I guess their only interested in making money with their game engine. Who can blame them though? UE3 is making them a fortune with the consoles this gen.

homernoy

@Glass_bomb: lol. I don't think you are going to hear that, the average consumer knows their games aren't "hardcore".

SAKY

@doubtful: Damn my eyes... yes you are correct we are! :P

Time for me to hit the sack.

TurtleSoup

@doubtful: Well personally I wouldn't mind better AA, draw distance and more dynamic destructibility, but you're right. Who knows how much further they can go with this generation of consoles? I don't think anyone would have foreseen 256 players fighting on the same map this gen until just 10 days ago.

FP_slomo788

@TurtleSoup:

Gah I hate this fanboyism distorting stuff... (or is it just good marketing!?)

I think you mistook my rebuttal of that sentiment as support for it. Take a gander at what I wrote again keeping in mind the italicized portion at the beginning of my comment was quoting geo1378.

I think you'll find we're in agreement.

doubtful

Won't the next gen consoles have raytracing?
Certainly by 2018!

vincevl

Haha, when I loaded this page, the Unreal logo was replaced with a screenshot of Scrabulous; Just as I was thinking of ShaderModel5 (DX11) stuff.

fixed it with ctrl+F5.

somarix

Essentially, Ninten"do" what Sony and Microsoft don't.

If the others don't concentrate on visuals the next time around, you can bet Nintendo will.

Gestahl

@Windowlicker: Well you can now it's just not as practical :P

Next generation some games will start to or even at least start to use a representation that could be and tesselate it instead.

TurtleSoup

@His_Shadow7: Your list does not help proving your point. Some games still looked shitty (Jericho) and some others are far from "bad" (Crysis). Others tried to push gameplay and suffered (Lair, Alone in the Dark) for not being good enough in other departments, proving that graphics do matter. What you basically showed is that there are bad games this gen. Surprise? The shittiest systems had bad games, and it's too simplistic to blame graphics on the existence of those bad games. Looking good does not decide whether or not a game will be good, I'll give you that. But having a good-looking good game is always awesome. Playing MGS4 I couldn't stop being wowed by the graphics, although it would have been fantastic even on PS2. LBP is also a good example of how a graphics can make an awesome game even better. So if graphics can be improved by the hardware next gen (not to mention other departments like AI, physics and such), then by all means may it be.

FP_slomo788

Somebody wake me when realtime raytracing is here on consoles. Thats'll be the next generation as far as I'm concerned. At this moment we're still texturing too much and modelling not nearly enough.

Windowlicker

@SAKY: This is what concerns me, what if in 10 years people start complaining that their games aren't as hardcore as they used to be. "I wish games were more hardcore like Wii Fit" isn't a sentence I want to hear, but would definitely not be surprised if I heard it ten years from now.

Glass_bomb

@Kyouryuu: last time I was blown away? COD2 and Kameo on the XBOX360. :) Before the Pc players dog me....take ionto account I have never had access into a high end PC.

SAKY

@doubtful: Gah I hate this fanboyism distorting stuff... (or is it just good marketing!?)

The GPU in the 360 kicks the PS3's ass period. No matter what I do to program the GPU on the PS3 it is just not as powerful as the one in the 360.

But in terms of what is more a powerful _machine_ - as in CPU's, SPU's all counted in is still open for debate.

If a game 'looks' better on the PS3 its because its only on the PS3 and they have great artists compared to the 360 title you are using as reference or something went wrong - or the PS3 version came out later giving the team time to add extra polish...

TurtleSoup

I'm just not interested in a next, next generation line of consoles. Not if every 5 or 6 years, another new just is just gonna come out. That's A LOT of waste.

Esnel Pla

@Glass_bomb: Most consumers wouldn't know a good game if it bit them in the ass. The problem, I think, is that the "core" players are now a much smaller fraction of the market. The need to appeal to "core" is not as great as it was say 10-12 years ago. So now Nintendo is trying to come down to the level of "most consumers" and as much as the core player feels neglected, Nintendo doesn't care as much because they are still making money hand over fist for the first time in a long time.

SAKY

I've been preaching the 2012 date for the next Xbox for many, many months. I think I just got my official proof. Take THAT FUD producers!!!

DARTH_TIGRIS

@lenandude: I just want more bloom and more depth of field. No, seriously i cant get enough. Somebody hit me.

smuckers is good

@Glass_bomb: I can sympathise with that... I mean there is some really cool tech they can develop to get perfect augmented reality and motion tracking and image recognition systems to please their current beloved casual gaming boom.

But I would prefer as a hard core gamer for many years stuff I would see as real revolutions such as devoting advances towards goals such as truely impressive AI on a grand scale and dynamic non scripted evolving world technology that produces appealing deep and engaging results.

TurtleSoup

Geez. I don't even want to think that far ahead. But, good for Epic to get their engine all warm and ready for next-gen.

sascha23

@phloog: that bloody shark filled ocean is found in the great blue ocean. I think that Nintendo can meet MS and SONY on their level but from a stance that it is a small fraction of the overall market. Anything can happen.

great post.

SAKY

@geo1378:

We usually see a new game console every 5 years, if we dont see one till 2012 then thats a 7-8 year life span, not sure if that will happen, especially with xbox 360 since its already falling behind sonys best stuff graphically.

I don't really see the 360 falling behind the PS3 graphically. Care to provide any examples?

And I have to disagree that either Microsoft or Sony are eager to push out a new system. They are both investing heavily in their systems beyond gaming. Live!, Home, and all of their respective media features are meant to help extend the life of the consoles.

Perhaps a better way of looking at it would be to ask what features do you want the next generation MS console to deliver that the 360 currently isn't? (Yeah, yeah, we all want reliability and a quiet console, but that's not really a 'feature;' it should be a given.)

I can't think of anything. The 360 and PS3 deliver everything I need for gaming now and in the foreseeable future. I doubt we're going to see a dramatic increase in consumer television resolution beyond 1080p and most of use don't even have digital surround sound systems now. It will be 2012 in the blink of an eye and I doubt a whole lot of the landscape will have changed dramatically.

doubtful

@TheLegendof_Erick: Nintendo is a business. They want to make money, not please constantly aging, nostalgic fans. Just look at E3.

Anarchist_Gamer

Dude I cannot even imagine how amazing Unreal Engine 4 will look.

lenandude

While people are talking about whether or not Nintendo's next console could compete with the 360, the question of whether or not the PS4 or Xbox 720 would be significant leaps is completely unaddressed.

I think graphics are going to matter vastly less in next-next-gen than they do now. We've reached a plateau where most gamers would probably agree graphics are adequate for most art styles. The visual appeal rests more on the competence of art direction than the hardware at this point.

PC graphics have slowed down quite a bit. You don't see gamers running out to buy Unreal Tournament 3 because UT2004 is adequate for the vast majority. Even feature length CGI movies (Shrek, Wall-E, Kung Fu Panda, etc) have settled into a look that is satisfactory for most - not completely realistic, but not primitive either. When was the last time the graphics of a video game completely blew you away? Was it the quantity of polygons, or was it the style?

With the rising cost of development and the shrinking audience (180 million PS2s are in the wild, whereas current consoles are struggling to get about 10 million in this economy), I believe the days of a graphics-first approach are at an end.

Kyouryuu

@Placentasaurus: The real thing with the next generation of consoles is the ambigous thing that the 'graphics card' becomes.

The crazy multicore with unison of CPU and GPU direction we going basically means it will become the developers choice what they spend the compute power on.

It won't be a simple case of X percent of this machines power is devoted to graphics - developers will be able to decide what percentage of compute power goes where even more.

It could lead to a large visual disparity - ie a 'simple' FPS with fantastic graphics, or a game with _really_ complicated AI and acceptable graphics.

Most likely though are tendency to put graphics first will probably mean most games of any type will aspire to look like the prettiest FPS - although those with simple art styles such as toon shading may be an exception.

TurtleSoup

@Sasquatch: I still buy games carefully and thanks to demos and the occassional rent, I haven't really wasted money. I like to own my games.

But half of my point is, how many games will each developer even be capable of releasing that look "next gen" on PS4? It takes forever and a day to make games for PS3/360. We'll be seeing a lot less releases. Factor in less games released/year + higher development costs, and I fear games could actually cost $90 each.

So yeah, maybe next gen will be when I jump on the Gamefly wagon.

karasu is my homeboy

@jrghoull:

If you think that innovation = ((waggle that could be substituted with a more viable button press)) then subject should ((go in the corner and shut up and think about what he/she has done))

Seriously man, if you think this year's E3 was any indication of innovation, then you should seriously think about your fanboyism. In fact, think about any of the games on the Wii that aren't mini game compilations or something that didn't cost 10 bucks to make. What's that? SMG? Zelda? That's about it, we've got those, Okami which is a port, No More Heroes which is obscure to everybody that isn't "Hardcore" and that's about it.

Nintendo has abandoned the so-called "core" gamers in favor of people with more money and less brains

WAAAAAAAAAAVE RAAAAAAAAAACERRRRR

Glass_bomb

@KingBroly: Lost Odyssey, Mirror's Edge. You don't know what you're talking about. Engine =/= color you can use.

@KroKan: 1. Yes it does, 2. Even if it doesn't Lost Odyssey does and that's colorful. Other colorful games do as well, but there's two to disprove the "engine = colors" perception.

karasu is my homeboy

@His_Shadow7: I apologise for spamming lots but I can't sleep!

Basically what we got with this generation is PC Doom 3 level graphics on consoles done in HD with more bloom and depth of field period.

TurtleSoup

@quen: Emulation...

They don't really need to... a faster PowerPC chip or multiple ones... a shader capable graphics card is a superset of the fixed function type one in the Wii... you can emulate a Wii on a 360 quite well...

TurtleSoup

Wow. I'll be in my thirties by then.

I wonder if that's how long I'll have to wait for Unreal 3?

sir_carrot

While were talking about the power of the next generation of consoles, I have to say I don't think that they'll get much more powerful, or, if they do, most of the games won't become drastically more advanced. It's already incredibly expensive to make videogames for the current consoles (less so for the wii), so I can't imagine how expensive it would be to make a game that takes full advantage of hardware capable of movie CG level graphics. I think the graphics will mostly stay the same, but framerates will be higher for more games, and companies will start focusing more on gameplay than graphics.

Placentasaurus

@FP_slomo788: Haze looked fairly good visually, but was lacking in gameplay.

Crysis looked good visually, but was a little diluted.

Clive Barker's Jericho looked impressive at times but sucked

Lair looked really good visually, but due to poor design choices failed critically.

Alone in the dark looked good visually, but wasn't very good in the gameplay department.

Army of Two looked alright, but wasn't all there.

Assassins Creed looked pretty good for the scope of the environments, but was very repetitive.

The Darkness looked good, but could have been better gameplay wise.

His_Shadow7

@karasu is my homeboy: Agreed. Nintendo's argument makes sense in this regard. Graphics can only improve so much. The graphics that can be achieved now are still impressive. I don't see how there can be any significant improvements.

Silent Predator

Nintendo will just use the U3 engine for it's next console.

TheHun

@His_Shadow7: What game looked good but was bad?

FP_slomo788

@TheLegendof_Erick: I think Nintendo should have gone with an ATI Radeon 9800 style Shader 2.0 graphics chip and then the graphical difference between the Wii and the other consoles would have not been very noticable at all...

TurtleSoup

@phatnacky: Um, I don't know if you've noticed recently, but Nintendo seem to be making quite a large amount of money while selling twice as many consoles as everyone else?

Not the situation Sega were noted for in the Dreamcast days - and not a situation that would prompt most companies to throw in the towel or drop some of their profitable operations.

@smuckers is good: IMO they won't use that camera, it's a crap concept and won't work.

@phloog: Yes but you can still make some predictions. Nintendo's next console has to have HD, for instance, because by that time it will be absolutely expected in consumer devices (not just by geeks and early adopters). That means they need to go for something several times more powerful than Wii. Like others, I figure they are planning to stay one generation behind the ~$1k range launch cost that the other two have been following, making their next system similar to 360 in power.

My other guess is that they'll want to keep backward compatibility (with Wii not necessarily GC). Question is whether they will do this in hardware or software. For something similar to PS3/60 I would think they can do the CPU emulation in software, though I don't know about GPU emulation, anyone have an opinion on that?

Anyway these are just guesses. I agree Nintendo probably doesn't care too much about power of the new system but there are certain limitations that would suggest it does need to be similar to PS3/60.

quen

@mfwahwah:

They'll have the engine ready well before then. Those estimates are when they're predicting the "next generation" will arrive. I think 2012 is a safe bet for when we'll see all 3 companies with a new console showing. Even if Sony decides to keep selling the PS3 to 2016 or so. From what I've read, the engine likely won't be capable of running smoothly on the current gen consoles.

LittleBigPlaneteer

@stryker1800: You know there are quite few engines now with fantastic shader tools that could allow artists to create more defining looks for their games but err... they all end up creating the same overly plastic bumped mapped ones in general... either that or we just get one post process shader across the scene that makes it overly bloomed and grey or toon like...

We need more experienced shader artists - which means they have to be technically proficient as well. It will become less of an issue as the cross over with movies becomes more prominent.

Also the way the lighting and shadowing systems work in engines can force a defined 'look' - such as how they compose multiple lights into different passes, shadowing techniques (Unreal Engine 3 deferred shadowing type stuff) etc

TurtleSoup

I'm hoping Nintendo realizes their one mistake this generation was power under the hood. With the amount of ca$h they've made this gen lets hope they put it all to good use. 1080 Zelda/Metroid would make me cry

TheLegendof_Erick

idk..., are they willing to support 5 GCN's duck taped together?

Ryūko

@stryker1800:
Correct! I think that's why it's taken so long for the developers to get their heads around it and why most just haven't bothered and use the underpowered GPU. I do wonder if that's why Sony constantly refer to it as the Reality Synthesizer or RSX, it was more intended to add some shine and effects to the graphics that is put out by the processor. It may in theory open up new physics capabilities through its shared memory but i'm no expert in this.

Oh and back to the OP: Did anyone doubt that once UE3 was out the door that they would move straight to UE4? Non news for me.

duckncover

@geo1378: That wasn't my point though geo. My point was that the ratio of bad titles to good titles this generation is sad. There are really good titles that look good visually, don't get me wrong, but there are more bad titles that look good as well.

I never stated in my comment that games made 5-10 years ago are better than games now. I don't know how you would deduce that from my post, but please stand corrected.

His_Shadow7

Does it really take that long (2018) to make a game engine? And what if they finish it by 2012, but can't put it to use for 6 more years o.O

mfwahwah

"and if Nintendo ships a machine with similar hardware specs, then that also."

Nice one Mike Capps. LOL

DigitalHero

PC last? Ouch.

There was a time when the PC was way out in front, but there's no money there now. Even if the latest generation of graphics cards could smash consoles.

hahnchen

Gears of War 4 will probably be Epic's first game on the engine. =P

DigitalHero

We usually see a new game console every 5 years, if we dont see one till 2012 then thats a 7-8 year life span, not sure if that will happen, especially with xbox 360 since its already falling behind sonys best stuff graphically.

Fact - nintendo will NOT release a console in the same power level as the next playstation or xbox. I see them releasing a follow up to the wii by 2011 at the latest, the graphics on wii are looking crappier and crappier with each new ps3 and xbox game coming out. Motion controls or something similair will be included in either the new playstation or the new xbox also and will drastically hurt nintendo in the next gen.

Some of you people dont see how games can look much better in the next gen? Are you serious??? Look at a movie like hellboy 2 or 10,000 bc. Games will eventually look like the cgi you see in those movies so if you cant imagine it then you have an extremely poor imagination. Until games look like that there will always be room to improve.

geo1378

@vx2: Ok grammar erros, but i'm tired.

vx2

@His_Shadow7: Its the same philosophy with movies, all special effects and no depth or story. I have to disagree however with your statement about games. There are much better games now than there were 5-10 years ago.

geo1378

@KroKan: "The game uses Epic's Unreal Engine 3 rather than DICE's own Frostbite Engine because the development of Mirror's Edge began before Frostbite's development was complete. Beast, a new lighting system developed by Illuminate Labs in association with DICE, was added to the Unreal Engine in order to accentuate the different art style of Mirror's Edge and allow for the reflection of colours as well as light."
From Wiki.

FP_slomo788

I swear(ok, hope) Nintendo will release a very capable machine next gen. With the mad profits they've been raking it this generation and a huge installed base, I'm sure they could at least try to break even for every machine sold or even just lose a few dollars.

One can dream.

vx2

@Garo:
I mean oops

Garo

"... PCs will follow after that." ups

Garo

@3inst3in: There were other complaints, but only that one lawsuit I believe.

We got to see a couple titles get cancelled on PS3 and go 360 (Fatal Inertia comes to mind, though it's back to both by now)... titles that had licensed UE3, and the scuttlebutt was that UE3 was a factor.

The vocal complainers have included Silicon Knights (which you mention), Digital Extremes, and Mistwalker that I know of off-hand. Koei openly defended the engine, but it's hard to know exact reasons for everything.

I believe EnigmaNemesis had mentioned at one point that the people up the chain were buying the tech without talking to the people who'd actually have to use it. I think he has some experience with the engine, actually, so I trust him on this.

As for what we've seen in public statements... something tells me that the behind the scenes gripes between programmers that don't get to make public statements is probably enough to give people pause, anyway.

I mean, whether true or not, it's name got tarnished enough that they'll need to show more than pretty pictures next time.

dv8godd

@jrghoull: the playstation doesnt even have a good graphics card, they just put on in it to make the development process a little more similar to other consoles the majority of processing visually and not is done in the cell unit.

stryker1800

@phatnacky:

LOL!!

dude...nintendo has just outsold the xbox360 with the wii despite being out a whole year less than the xbox360...MS would have lost by now had they not been willing to throw all the money in the world to the console world.

the ps3 has been doing so badly that there has previosuly been talk of the ps3 being the last playstation...

it takes innovation to win the console war...not better graphics cards

jrghoull

@enewtabie: Mmmm, I think you might be onto something there, but I still don't think their next console will be in the same league as the next Xbox or PS. In fact, I'm guessing that it's power will be more comparable to the PS3, which is really all they need. Their top selling games don't require ultra-realistic graphics or millions of polygons so just the jump to HD will be enough to keep people happy. In any case, I'm sure the Unreal Engine 4 will make it's way to the Wiiquel(tm) in some form or another somewhere down the road.

chuffhoncho

@henri1kk: Mirrors Edge doesnt use UE3. It is a brand-new in-house made engine.

KroKan

@henri1kk: i completely agree, dont blame the engine its perfectly capable of processing whatever color you put into it, blame the games who's motifs generally consist of scenarios where you wouldnt see alot of color in the first place, mirrors edge is a perfect example of a game built on epics engine that is very colorful and beautiful to boot.

stryker1800

@His_Shadow7: What good-looking game sucked this generation (I'm curious)?

FP_slomo788

@karasu is my homeboy: Gamefly. It's saved me tons of money on this current generation of games.

Sasquatch

There are very few games this generation that have impressed me from a gameplay standpoint. I could care less about how pretty these games are getting. If they aren't fun then what the hell is the point.

Developers need to spend more time on gameplay and refining the mechanics of their games before worrying about making the damn things prettier.

This kind of pisses me off. If you would stop making shitty games that look pretty maybe you would be able to recoup the tremendous cost incurred by the development process. AHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH! I'M GOING INSANE BY THE LACK OF LOGIC IN THE INDUSTRY >_<

His_Shadow7

@Yas: Who the hell cares about PC gamers. PC gaming is dead, people just dont want to accept it. Piracy killed it. And the 600 dollar graphics card upgrading every 6 months.

vacta

@phloog: Im guessing that if your right then nontendo's next system will use this kick ass camera system that tracks movement of your entire body and uses that as its input device. I saw a tech demo of it awhile back, and i cant remember if it was on here or giz or wherever. Im sure somebody knows what im talking about.

smuckers is good

can't they make use of it with directx 11 ... it would be great

waza

So accoring to them we will have the 360 for another 4 years? Do they already know it 3 years old?

Quicksilver4648

Breaking news... yet again Carmack has shown the future of game technology with his megatexture and plans for megageometry and given Epic the next feature set they need for their next engine which they will ship before ID ships its' Tech 6 (Note I say Tech 6 not 5...).

Note I am not saying Epic make bad engines they just take advantage of Carmacks generosity to the community and make it a commercial reality sooner.

I would really love to see what they would do if Carmack actually played his cards to his chest for once... ID needs to move to get those Tech 5 games out fast and move onto Tech 6 quickly and stop giving people clues so people see credit where it is due...

TurtleSoup

My prediction about Nintendo is that IF they stick with their current philosophy, all your predictions are meaningless.

If they keep to the Blue Ocean strategy, their next console may not have waggle, may or may not have high end graphics...you won't know. The strategy revolves around NOT competing with Sony and MS, but finding places where there is no competition (thus Blue Ocean, instead of a red, bloody, shark-filled ocean where all the sharks compete).

They will focus on finding something that is NOT just a better implementation or an incremental improvement over feature A, B, or C...they will focus on finding feature Z.

phloog

@dv8godd: well, isn't it really just Dyack who has had problems with UE3? Every other game that has utilized UE3 this gen (which is about every other title in existence) seems to be doing just peachy.

3inst3in

Maybe Unreal 4 will make use of the Wii Motion Plus Plus Plus Plus Plus: It's 1:1 this time, we swear!

thewisestfool

They forgot the Phantom!!! Oh noes!! and Atari's next console!

Wolf_Dog

@Heliophage:

I don't think anyone is doubting that it will be HD. They'd be foolish to release a non-HD console in 2012 and beyond.

What people are doubting is that it will pack the same horsepower and graphical punch as the next generation 360 and PS3. I would have to agree.

I don't see Nintendo releasing a $500 console at a loss when doing so would likely alienate their key market now. I would guess Nintendo's next entry will have similar specs to the PS3/360.

To your assertion that Nintendo addressed internet connectivity with the Wii, this is factually true, but I don't know anyone who has found their connectivity to be much more than a virtually useless annoyance for gaming. It's nice that we can get updates and buy classic games, but they have a long way to go to make their next console a decent internet multiplayer experience.

doubtful

@karasu is my homeboy: I Definitly agree with you there. We 're about to get into cart prices again.

Neo-Senku: The World's Finest Pervert

@KaneRobot:
They won't have to be better,just in the neighborhood

@chuffhoncho:
It's what I call the "Wii Heritage Theory"
I was going to write all out in my blog,but here is what I surmise.Nintendo has a pretty product going with great popularity.They are entrenching themselves into the homes of people that normally wouldn't care about games and now love the Wii's capablity and general "fun" gameplay.
You now have a very large consumer base after a few years who associate that fun with the term "Wii" and "Nintendo".

Nintendo knows they can do capable consoles if they want to,but really don't want to get into a making up losses like Sony and MS have for years.

Well,they develop a next gen console with HD graphics,nice sized Hardrive,Waggle and other standard fare.You have a higher price point,but you have a consumer base that loves their Wii and now that you have a Nintendo Console that lets you play HD graphic Mario/Zelda games and do pretty much what the others have,you won't mind spending a little more on it.

Similar to what Sony hopes the PS2 fanbase does to the PS3.But,price is the key.

enewtabie

@henri1kk: exactly it seems most devs just assume that since we liked gears it must be because of the color palette. Not that grey and brown is bad, but jesus ham-sandwich christ a little variety would be nice.

smuckers is good

@KaneRobot:

I don't think they'll match Sony's and Microsoft "next gen", but I have no doubts that Nintendo will make an HD capable console next generation. I mean really, the next logical upgrade to the Wii's graphics would have to be HD capable.

LittleBigPlaneteer

Well, everyone has to be digital by the end of next year or so no?. I know its a big country and all, but is US the only country still serving analog?; welcome to the late 90's?

Tech5 got forced their panties in a bunch?. Yes, there is brown and bloom; but it is one beastly engine; perhaps THE money-making engine on the market. They must have licensed it to everyone and everything breathing.

PsycheE

@LittleBigPlaneteer: haha i liked that

My guess is that nintendo will probably make a new wii-like console, but with system specs closer to the 360 or ps3 which is cool to me. While im sure that graphics will get better in the next gen of hd consoles, im not so sure that they need to be better. Hell, i still like the ps1 and n64 gen of graphics tech. But i've really enjoyed a lot of what UE3 has brought to this gen of consoles (bioshock, mass effect, and okay gears too) so if epic is working on its successor well, more power to 'em.

smuckers is good

@KingBroly: Mirror's Edge, Mass Effect, etc... Have you heard of them?
Just because Epic's games are always dull-colored it doesn't mean UE3 is only capable of doing those kinds of games!

henri1kk

Unreal Engine 4 -

Now with colors!

lionkitten

@LittleBigPlaneteer:

The timeframe is interesting, especially compared to earlier generations.

Heliophage

i say by then we will be seeing mairo holding hands with sonic on a xbox or playstion title ....Nintendo the next sega... that or they will just keep with the portable stuff.

@Dimipapa:
+ 1 for the obscure Robin Hood Men In Tights reference

phatnacky

I like how Epic puts PC's last on the list of priorities. Glad to see they plan on continuing the tradition of crappy console-to-PC ports.

Kenny

Remeber, Epic: "All good things come to those who plan ahead".

Oh, you remebered! Good Epic, good Epic!

Shiryu

Epic in "We will make a game engine for consoles that are around at that time" shocker!!

Monkey Majiks

@enewtabie: But I'm thinking that Nintendo likes it's current price point and the fact that they profit off of hardware. If the Wii continues to sell as well as it does now, I'm guessing that they'll stick with a less powerful, less expensive machine for the next generation as well.

chuffhoncho

@enewtabie: Oh,it's very likely.

You really think Nintendo is going to go back to playing "r gigahurtz are more than ur gigahurtz" against Sony and MS?

KaneRobot

And again ditching the coreusers of their engine, the pc gamers. Seems that Valve is only company that really cares about pc gamers anymore.

Yas

@LittleBigPlaneteer: Well I guess the timeframe is news...

FP_slomo788

Now with even MORE brown and bloom!

SupaPhly

ZOMG, a new Unreal Engine?! I can't even comprehend the Unreal Engine 3! How can it possibly get better? 4D graphics?!

ChronicLogic

@Heliophage: @FP_slomo788:

Well the Gamasutra article mentions that the quote is from March. The "new" information is from the first quote where they are mentioning estimates of when it will be released, and that they're currently working on the engine. Not much new info from the last article, but I've seen worse reposts here, lol.

LittleBigPlaneteer

@crapsh00t:
If you don't think that Nintendo isn't thinking down the road towards a HD capable console,HD and more for at least 5-6 years down the road,well they are..that's the way it works.
Take the best aspects of the Wii and add the features of a 360/PS3 console and sell it as Wii-HD and you bring in two audiences.
Hell,you could see that before that time

enewtabie

@Heliophage: Hehe.

FP_slomo788

@FP_slomo788:

Same quote, I didn't even notice.

Heliophage

Great, more games using almost identical characters...

Sparx

@sc00t420: If it's anything like UE3 (Brown, Grey, Neon lights) then count me out. I can't stand the stylings of UE3.

KingBroly

While it's nice to see them looking forward, I'd suggest the put a bit more energy into making sure they succeed on this generation too. Either that or they're going to have a lot to prove to licensees out of the gate. Whatever the public perception is, they've certainly raised a few eyebrows from developers.

I don't imagine devs, or even the execs who bought into the package, are going to be quite as quick to take them at face value on the engine's robustness and support for non-Epic properties next time around without a bit more proof either way.

dv8godd

@sc00t420: I don't see how things can get better. I mean, they're not even fully using the capabilities of current gen. Not to mention games already cost a ton of money and time to make.

I don't know if I'm ready for a 2 games/year @ $80 from every developer just for slightly prettier graphics.

karasu is my homeboy

"Sony's successor for the Playstation 3"... but they said "2012 to 2018" Guess it'll be one of the first engines for the PS4 and a late release for the XBox 720?

darknessgp

*possible

Heliophage

[kotaku.com]

FP_slomo788

In all fairness, Nintendo addressed internet connectivity this generation when they felt it was nonessential in the last. It's possibly that the same theme will appear in HD adoption..

Heliophage

@enewtabie: Under what premises is it even remotely likely? They've been able to sell Gamecube ++ with waggle... while getting burned on their previous cutting edge attempts.

crapsh00t

Epic, it better be 3D. That is the future you know!

LittleBigPlaneteer

More likely that nintendo will make a next-gen console that Unreal 3 will finally be able to work on. Nintendo's found its niche and that's appealing to the soccer moms and senior citizens who will go for the cheaper and simpler to use console.

Tull

@KaneRobot: i agree with you with the wii selling like hotcakes why change your target audience.

Servant_of_Jashin

I can't imagine how insane next gen is going to look visually.

let's just hope the animations keep up

sc00t420

@KaneRobot:
Oh,it's very likely.

enewtabie

Blinkin guesses no one is coming

Dimipapa

and if Nintendo ships a machine with similar hardware specs, then that also.

Not freakin' likely.

KaneRobot

How much more metallic could they possibly make everything look?

Quilt

@FP_slomo788:

Oh, don't get me wrong, I don't think the current gen is perfect and I agree on the anti-aliasing. I'm sure we could make a list of many things we'd like to see, but I'm not sure if any of them would justify a new console within the next 4-6 years.

I can't think of anything that would represent the same type of leap we saw between the last generation and the current generation.

doubtful

The specs for Nintendo's next console are really going to depend on just how quickly PC parts advance over the next 4-5 years. For example if PC parts sorta get stuck at eight core CPU's in 2009 and that's the defacto standard for machines for several years, then it's highly likely that Nintendo's next machine will be an eight core machine.

This is because Nintendo seems to base their hardware not on what's going to give the best visuals, but what will allow them to launch their software at the price and profit margin they please.

So basically, if eight core CPU's and five hundred pipeline GPU's are cheap by the time Nintendo's designing their next console, we'll probably see parts like those used.

Whether that'll run Unreal 4 or not is a whole other matter. We don't know the specs for the engine, and we don't know how big the gap will be between affordable hardware and top of the line hardware.

I will say however, that it's very very likely that Nintendo's next hardware will at least be able to run Unreal 3. That should be a pretty safe bet by 2012 or so.

WolvenOne

I wonder why they'd bother mentioning this at all. 2012?

MSUSteve

Trust me on the following:

Nintendo's next console will not be comparable to Sony and Microsoft's next console.

Sony and Microsoft's next console will be comparable to Nintendo's next console.

Epic will be bankrupt by that time, anyway.

stuminus3

@Kenny:

yeah totally! that statement was ass backwards. pc's will be at that level way before next gen. hell look at the performance we can get with the 280 gtx now!

i predict that gen of consoles to be just dells with a big ass sony or microsoft stickers over it. but a 3 button mouse will cost you 59.99 and 69.99 if you want a scroll wheel!

cihx

@jrghoull: I have no idea where you got that "Last Playstation" ordeal from. Sometimes I wonder where people in this world get their facts from, it seems most wake up and roll a die to see what their IQ is going to be that day. So here to counter the ignorance of some people here just for my own reasons since I'm sure you're not gunna listen anyways. PS3 with it's "no exclusive" self IS catching the 360 in all it's exclusive glory. I'm not tryin to hate or like either side but the fact that you 360 guys are hateful and ignorant bothers me. (Not all btw, there are a few that show intelligence but are weighed down by the 95% of retards)

@stryker1800: At first countering your argument seemed like a good idea but here ya go. The architecture of the two systems differ so you take that into account whenever you say something like that. Now, the RSX can process more than double what the 360 graphics card can because it works with the Cell. By itself I'm not sure but that's why you take the architecture difference into account. Yeah I know 360 has 2 video cards or GPUs but even multiplying the number by 2 still puts the amount of data processed under the RSX.

Post too long so I'm stopping, plus I'm hungry.

Spigget

Is it me or is this old news? This was posted over a month ago over at videogamesblogger. Keep up kotaku. haha.

jpwb

2012? Xbox360 will be over 6 years old. Do you really think Microsoft will wait that long?

dogcow

The estimate the next console generation wont start until at least 2012? xbox 360 has already been out for 3 years so that would be a 7 year lifespan minimum. The original xbox was only out for 4 years before the 360 was released.

BulletzBill

I want to see what what games will look like in 4-5 years =)

Murderdolls

Can we get Valve's Source engine 2 by the same time?

artistpavel

interesting to se what architecture the next nextgen consoles will have...
I guess it will also be a challenge to keep developement in a payable region with graphics/AI etc. getting better and better.

McLogo

@homernoy: dual*

homernoy

@Spigget: "Now, the RSX can process more than double what the 360 graphics card can because it works with the Cell. By itself I'm not sure but that's why you take the architecture difference into account. Yeah I know 360 has 2 video cards or GPUs but even multiplying the number by 2 still puts the amount of data processed under the RSX"

I think you might want to do some research before you type blatantly false information. Hey, when you do, please tell me where to get the duel GPU 360. That might push me to finally run out and get an Xbox.

homernoy

Is the PC market so bad that Epic is thinking about bringing a new engine to PCs after it goes to consoles that might not even be in development yet?

whitepawn

Why do people give MS so much shit for having short generations?

The only reason the original Xbox's lifespan was cut short is because MS messed up the hardware licensing. They didn't make the same mistake on the 360 and they've made no indication (that I've heard) they plan on rolling out the next generation anytime soon.

PreachingLlama

why doesn't epic use the unreal engine 3 on the wii 2

they can make money on ports of games that currently use the ureal engine 3

it'll be ports with waggle!

koeramco

heh hopefully the ps4 will be my very own PC by this generation. One can only wish. Im tired of haveing 3 consoles and a PC to satisfy my gaming need. I need just 1 platform to run all my games on.

LoganForge

@homernoy: I can't tell what side you're on!!! How can I counter argue that? If ya want me to justify the 2 video card/gpu thing, hmmm, it's the worst answer I could give but "That's what I was told." I assumed it was in 360's favor but even still, it loses whether it has 1 or 2 cards. Figured I couldn't go wrong if I was throwing 360 a bone for once.

Spigget

@vacta: That's a ridiculous statement. Regarding the need to upgrade every 6 months that is simply not true, considering that moderately priced PC hardware (not $600 videocards) are more powerful than 360 or PS3 hardware, and therein the need to upgrade is not as significant if developer's (especially of ports) produce optimized games.

In regards to the comment that PC gaming is dying, in fact it has actually expanded over the past couple years as a platform, increasing by a couple billion each year for the past few years (excluding digital distribution sales, which the number of are increasing).

But this is all a digression from the original topic.

I am, and have been severely disappointed in Unreal's transition to console-focused development, considering their fantastic PC games in the past. Their poor handling and production of the PC version of Unreal Tournament 3 (gearing it towards console-users) led to lackluster sales which in turn drove Unreal away from PC gaming, which they seem to blame the PC gaming community for, instead of looking internally.

UE3 seems to be used for games with very similar presentations (UT3, Gears of War, Jericho, etc), all drab, brown and lacking in variety or originality. Bioshock and Mass Effect had some color and variety here and there but they still seemed similar to the others somehow. But I don't think this is necessarily a limitation of the engine, but rather of how developers have chosen to use it. I just hope that UE4 is used for a larger variety of games, as I'm sure the engine will be good.

Their timeframe for the next release seems a bit far into the future for the next generation of consoles. Who knows? Maybe the PS3, 360 and Wii will last that long...

Mango_Reinhardt

@enewtabie:

The problem is, Microsoft and Sony may decide to take the best features of the Wii and incorporate them into their next-gen consoles. Ultimately, it's a race to see who can meld their console with someone elses the fastest.

My money is on Microsoft.

AlbenoEpiX

@TurtleSoup: Its the thing that ps3 fanboyz will never accept, the 360 is more likely to release in somemoment games with similar quality to crysis, but in the ps3 its 8 cpu wont run the games by itself and its gpu its barely enough, look at gta4 even with bigger disc capacity they could not match the resolution of the 360 version,

Who knows maybe nintendo will release "Wii2, now you are playing with power" , a wii with powerfull cpu and gpu, its possible...

TOCATL

They should spend more time focusing on making UE3 a better product, rather than talking up a platform that doesn't exist.

If UE4 isn't as shiny and brown as everything that seems to come out of UE3, I'll eat my hat.

gblock

@vacta: That's funny... I could swear my $170 video card is running Unreal Tournament III at 1920x1200, highest in-game settings, and 16x AF at at least 60 FPS.

Mezodon

God this is gonna suck. I can barely suffer through Unreal 3 as it is. I'm not saying it's a bad engine, it looks cool with Unreal 3 and GoW, but I just can't stand it being on almost every damn game now. Everything looks so bloomy and greasy.

theturtle343

Bah. Epic was born and raised with PC gaming, now they treat it like it wasn't even there.

Slowly, the PC developers will realize that the uber-hardware they optimize their games for never arrives and make games that actually run well, look great (no that's not the polygoncount-number), and make use of PC-exclusive features far more interesting than graphics effects and monopolized internet services. At least I hope so.

lumpi

why? I banned all UE games, I hate the look of UE on console games. If it gives the same look, I don't want.

Gutter_Trash

@Spigget: Yeah seriously dude, most of that information is not correct.

The main differences between the two consoles (perf-wise) are the cell (with its 1 PPEs and 7 SPEs) for the ps3 vs the 3 general purposes cores for the 360, the GPU embedded eDRAM for the 360 and the differing memory architecture (256/256 for the PS3 and 512 shared for the 360).

Neither console processes GPU-esque instructions on anything but the GPU.

Any game devs can feel free to correct the above.

PreachingLlama

@jrghoull:

the wii is fine for the casual gamer but, once the shiny newness of wagging a stick around wares off your not left with much. you can only sale so much hardware till you stop making money then have to fall back on software.

the problem with the wii is that games just cant be directly ported to the wii,one becasue of the uniqe motion controls , and two becasue the system just cant handle it. game developers would rather not go thro the hassle.
they will have to step up there game if they want to stay in it. when the next gens come out developers are going to push games to there limits , and if Nintendo is still rocking hardware reminiscent of a e-machine from 1998 they will be left in the dust , developers wont even glance in there direction. in fact thats already happening.

then you can go into the fact that MS and Sony offer more from there consoles than just gaming. all Nintendo dose is play games...and not many off them ...and not very good ones... Nintendo is isolating it self from the market,by making itself so "unique" and "inovative" its going to pull a 3D0 or Sega Saturn/dream cast, except the oppsient, insted of being to advanced for its time, they will fall behind.

you can eather spend your money and get a system that offers hi-def gaming, movies, huge online community,huge game library that will grow by the min.

or you can sit and the corner and wag a stick around in the air like a doofus , and wait for next Mario spin-off or poorly ported version of some game that no one has heard of thats missing half its content.

phatnacky

and to all the " but the wii is the top selling consloe " people.

who cares how many wii's were sold, there cheap, mening less overall profit.

and most of theos sales were due to trendy gotta have yuppies,who most likely bought a Wii bought 3-4 games , will get bored with it and never buy another game. <--(casual gamer)

were as the hard core gamers will always buy/rent more and more, along with that , gaming accessorys , and online subscriptions and so one, and even if they do get bored with a game , you just log on and buy more content for it.
and thats were the real profit is to be made

what can you do with you nintendo product ? buy a dido attachment for your wii-mote...

phatnacky

@FP_slomo788: Ah, seems I missed a few of your posts. Heh, you've pretty much already said what I have. Sorry for repeating things.

AntiheroKing

@FP_slomo788: *ahem* Too Human comes to mind... The point really is that pretty graphics do not make a game good any more than special effects make a movie good - it can enhance the overall experience, but can't save the product on its own.

AntiheroKing

@phatnacky: The thing is that the wii is selling, and nintendo havent drop the price, and thats surpricing, imagine a $150 wii with mario galaxy bundle, the same goes with the ds, they could drop the price easily and still making profit, despite you dont like the way nintendo handle its affairs its working for them...

TOCATL

"who cares how many wii's were sold, there cheap, mening less overall profit."

Uh, except Nintendo makes a profit on their hardware sales, while Microsoft and Sony are still taking a loss. So if by "less overall profit", you mean "any profit at all", then yes, Nintendo makes "less overall profit" on the Wii.

dogcow

@TurtleSoup: Sometimes with game systems there have been problems when you just switch to a faster chip (a G5 instead of G3, in this case) even if they have compatible instruction sets, because some developers relied on very specific timing details... if they kept the same chip, hm, I don't know whether a multicore G3 would be a good idea, I mean it's getting on a bit?

You might be right, maybe it can work. But they also seem to be pretty big on emulation right now.

@phatnacky: Ahhhhhhh, fanboys. Aren't they sweet!

Nintendo are absolutely rolling in cash and if they haven't stopped selling Wii yet - they haven't - I don't see why they should in future. They haven't even needed to cut the price from where they were profiting on day one! It's pretty much unprecedented and I'm willing to bet Nintendo were absolutely expecting to make a price cut well before this time.

As a Nintendo fan I hope the next Nintendo console will be more powerful (it would've been nice if this one was! except that then it would probably have bombed). But as long as it's a significant improvement on Wii, that'll be good enough.

quen

translation: Nothing for Nintendo. They don't deserve anything anyways though.

Gam3r

It sounds like he's expecting the next generation to last from 2012 until 2018, not that it will start as early as 2012 and as late as 2018. How'd you guys read that quote adn get any other impression?

stfufools

The new wii will be fine with 360 level graphics (as long as they keep the controller). In terms of graphics, what developers forget beauty > realism. And I thought that twilight princess, and Super mario galaxy looked much better than what, say, Fallout 3 looks like.

GlitchMaster

@phatnacky:

Really? The Nintendo the next Sega huh? How long have people been carrying that old tune?

houser

Nex-gen will probably feature DX10/11! :P

Floreum

@TurtleSoup: Maybe you're just not a very good programmer.

sereal

@doubtful: Oh man, the 360's graphics are already looking pretty old. Games getting lower fps counts. It feels like the 360's being pushed to it's limit. Where on the other hand most of the power of the ps3 is left untaped. I bet it's just a matter of time before we start seeing a big difference.

What the next gen stuff needs? Well free online for one. new xbox needs a blueray/highdef drive. Better graphics. Pretty much historically what we have improved on.

sereal

@sereal: Maybe they can untap all that potential ps3 powah to give us the 1080p gaming they promised. Listing a few of their best looking games, one can only wonder how much better they'd look:

Grand Theft Auto IV = 1152x640 (no AA)
GT5 Prologue (demo) = 1280x1080 (2x AA)
Heavenly Sword = 1280x720 (4xAA)
Lair = 800x1080 (2xAA) - AA buffers are merged to produce 1600x1080 for further scaling
Metal Gear Solid 4: Guns of the Patriot = 1024x768 (2xAA, temporal)
Ratchet & Clank: Tools of Destruction = 1280x704 (2xAA, centered on 720p output)
Uncharted: Drake's Fortune = 1280x720 (2xAA)

sniper13x

@sereal: Quite probably I'm not the worlds best programmer especially as I actually spend less time doing that kind of stuff these days.

But still I am probably more informed and objective then someone who posts cheap shots without qualification and adding value to the discussion...

TurtleSoup

@PreachingLlama: Well to be pedantic you could argue that both consoles have GPU'esque instructions on their CPU's.

The PS3 has it's SPUs which can be viewed as Vertex Shader units of a sort and the PowerPC's on the 360 have special pack/unpack instructions to deal with vertex format data types specifically and a dot product instruction.

TurtleSoup

@PreachingLlama:
Insomniac and others have found-out that offloading the vertex-shader code to a SPE increases performance.
What Spigget mentioned, that he had read about the PS3, is actually true. But in the expert gamedev studios only. They feed vertex-data from Cell to RSX, while GDDR3 is used only for texture/framebuffer data/computation. Also, they pipeline things in such way, that the XDR memory isn't used as a scratch-pad for DMA. And the RSX has a large texture-cache onboard (a quote by developers is "any DXT1 texture can fit in it", but I guess they mean up to 1024x1024), so GDDR3 can be made dedicated just for framebuffer updates and Early-Z culling. Also, some post-processing effects can be done on a SPE, to offload some seriously gpu-daunting tasks much faster.
Overall, the PS3 has been designed to be a bandwidth monster. Its only faults are:
- RSX is not very fast at vertex-processing, and cannot do vertex-texture-fetch (fixed easily by using a SPE, can be made to surpass Xenos at this task)
- has fewer pixel-shaders than the x360 gpu - but at least has UP2H, PK2H, PK4UB, etc. instructions .... which you see used in Killzone2 - to deliver massive amount of per-pixel data optimally in a single-pass. Xenos requires either redrawing the whole scene several times to do this, or using-up huge amounts of bandwidth and memory-space for the preprocessing hidden framebuffer. (so, you can't fit that framebuffer in the 10MB eDRAM!)
- the integrated texture-cache, even if it's enough, must be a dozen times smaller than Xenos' eDRAM. But it can be used smartly to deliver great performance. It's nicely seen in MGS4 - the post-processing effects there are very heavy on texture-fetching. My GF7600GT and GF8600GT struggle at doing 1/8 of the tex-fetch work done in MGS4.

Meanwhile, x360 has these qualities:
+ unified shaders, in higher count. So, easy vertex-texture-fetch.
+ eDRAM, which can be used in many ways to speed-up one thing at a time. But you choose whether that thing is MSAA, or HDR, or multiple-draw-buffers (required for next-gen graphics, not current-gen), or several textures.
+ easy conventional symmetric cores, things every developer can tackle easily. No 256kB limit, no complex scheduling - your code just runs (and waits automatically).
- shared memory-bus. You can't pipeline things. Your code waits, or your gpu waits. Try to play a game on a mobo-integrated gpu, this is the experience. It's not very evident yet, but you'll soon start to see this limit. 3 cpu cores, one gpu and one RAMDAC all fight for the same bus constantly.
- overall, no way to turn the x360 into a bandwidth monster.

But neither of the consoles can draw complex scenes in 1080p easily.

somarix

@houser:
look im no fan boy, i might even buy a wii when the price drops. the motion control is cool , but to me its a one trick pony, nothing good engouh to warent its own system, it would be cool as a add-on to a system capable of playing mainstream games as well as Nintendoesk wagglestick games.

how many times have you read a review about a wii port were the developers says,,"well that wont be in the game , becasue we just couldnt get it to work."
i'm more a nintendo fan than anthing, its a name synonymous with video games.
but lack of 3rd party support means less titles.

i just see them slowly becomming a "the other system" and id hate to see that happen. but who knows , if Nintendo steps up on the next gen, they will crush the market...if they stay on there current minimalist path ...not so much.

phatnacky

The Unreal Engine 4 probably won't even surpass the CryRngine2. Anyhow, all the consoles are just mutating into PC's. Games are made on PC's and that's where they should be played.

BillyTheRatKing

Unreal Engine 4 is now sitting in a corner and laughing silently. Just waiting for its time. Its time to shine...

Jaamlid

Man, I hope the next Nintendo machine is called 'The Nintendo Poo', That would be awesome :)

TokeYo

guess this means the Xbox 1337 is gonna have to keep using UR3 engine when it's launched in 2010 -_%

FP Bleentastic has cake

@vacta:

I strongly, STRONGLY agree with the upgrade every 6 months statement. I had a top of the line PC just under a year ago and now it ain't worth a shit. I can't even run the Crysis demo at the lowest res with everything down without having obscene framerate issues.

Chicopollo

@FP_slomo788:
I never said that all games that look good are bad. All of the good games that look good have large budgets where the teams can focus on both gameplay without sacrificing the visuals. How are you not getting this?

His_Shadow7