mike capps

Epic Prez Says Xbox Winning Online Battle With ‘Cool Stuff’

9:40AM Michael McWhertor | Epic Games president and connoisseur of “cool stuff” Mike Capps believes that Microsoft is winning the battle for online dominance, partly because of the soon-to-launch New Xbox Experience. Capps tells GamesIndustry.biz that the Xbox 360’s expansion of the “Live presence” and, in particular, the streaming of Netflix content are what’s putting Microsoft in the “winning” position. More »

Epic Boss: Lower Scores for PC GoW are ‘bullshit’

3:00AM Owen Good | A month later, E3 quotes, comments and tidbits are still coming out in dribs and drabs. Here’s one: Outspoken Epic honcho Mike Capps, in a lengthy video interview elsewhere, is a bit pissed at the fact reviewers hated on Gears of War for the PC. “Because what we did was take a great game, Gears of War 1 for Xbox 360, made it run at higher resolutions and added three new hours of really good gameplay and it got lower reviews. I think that’s bullshit, and I don’t understand it. I can’t figure out what it is”. Voodoo Extreme, in the post and the comments, puts forth a fine explanation: 1) The game had bugs at the outset that needed patches. 2) Multiplayer matchmaking via Windows Live was terrible, should be better now that they’ve done away with the gold/silver distinction. But bottom line, as one commenter points out ,it’s probably the fact that it’s not a simultaneous release with the 360 title, not even close. Because when reviewers go checking out a port, if the new-and-better isn’t slap-you-in-the-face obvious, they’re probably going to spot what doesn’t work and harp on it. It does make me wonder what kind of reviews we’ll see for Grand Theft Auto IV for the PC. Lower Review Scores for Gears PC is “Bullshit,” Says Capps [Videogaming247, via Voodoo Extreme] More »

Epic Games Exploring New IPs Through Comic Books

10:00AM Michael McWhertor | Mike Capps, el presidente of Epic Games, recently spoke at the Casual Connect conference in Seattle, saying that his company had lost some of its “nimbleness” as a blockbuster producing studio. With massive titles like Gears of War and Unreal Tournament on its plate, its looking to explore new franchises on the cheap, specifically through comic books. Develop reports that Capps also expressed plans to utilise the recently purchased Chair Entertainment to increase its stable of intellectual property. “We want to learn from casual games”, he’s quoted as saying, telling casual game developers on hand “we’re really jealous of the things you do and we’re going to steal all your ideas.” He then chainsawed them all in half and took their brains back to Epic Games science labs for further study. Epic Games looks to comic books for building new IP [Develop] More »

Why The Chainsaw Gun Exists (Boring Edition)

11:00PM Brian Ashcraft | Gun plus chainsaw? There must be more to that than simply “looks cool.” There is! Epics president Mike Capps says while he was originally against the idea, he told a Comic Con panel: The reason [it] exists is because our characters are so bloody expensive to draw.. Meaning that they have more detail close-up than say Halo characters. Fair enough! Though we prefer “looks cool.” Elsewhere Capps says the sequel have battles that feel more massive in scale. Hope he doesn’t have another dry explanation for that. Gears of War 2 Details [GameSpy via videogaming247] More »

Gears of War Almost Ditched Multiplayer

4:20AM Mark Wilson | Mike Capps, President of Epic Games, revealed two horrible judgments that he almost made regarding Gears of War. The first regarded multiplayer: I was going to cut multiplayer from Gears because I thought it wasn’t coming together fast enough…The day before E3 I’m like “no guys, it’s not pulling together”. And they made it, they pulled it together, and then we won every award. But maybe Gears multiplayer is only good because he almost cut it. Oohh, deep, we know. But Capps had another opinion that was just plain wrong. More »