Tim Sweeney is the founder of Epic Games, and when he talks about the future of video games, it’s probably worth listening, considering the fact it’s his job to anticipate the trends. When Gamasutra asked him what he’d like to see from the next generation of consoles his answer was relatively simple — more power and a more open platform.
The human eye can only perceive 72 frames per second. We’ve been seeing games at 60 frames per second for some time. And as graphics approach photorealism with current computing power, some suggest that the days of giant leaps in visual quality are past us, and we’ll be seeing smaller refinements going forward.
Like most of us, Tim Sweeney has owned several Ferraris. He’s also owned a few mobile phones. The Ferraris are the receipt for a life spent making computers do amazing things. They’re cool. They tell their own story about a boy who grows up with a computer as his best friend, a teenager who finds his footing in life, builds his own company, transforms the world of video games and achieves most of his goals.
Epic Games, the folks behind Gears of War, know a lot about how games are made now. So there’s a good chance Epic has a good handle on the future.
The Gears of War 2 Cole hype train is in full effect. People are hanging on every Epic word. Even really BORING things like Epic found Tim Sweeney saying “The next Gears of War game will have improved physics features and new lighting and rendering features”.
Better physics and new lighting? Holy shit, yes, yes, YES. Sweeney did offer up some more meaty clues as to what’s in store for the Unreal Engine 3, and thus quite possibly Gears of War 2. But we’re extrapolating! Guessing! About the Unreal Engine 3′s future, says Sweeney:
For those of you that missed out on GDC and Cliffy B’s epic entrance (see what I did there?) you can now experience the magic for yourselves on Xbox LIVE Marketplace. In two separate videos (available for free), Epic Games President Mike Capps and Lead Designer Cliff Bleszinski tell you all about what you can expect from the fllow up to one of the biggest games of 2006. Also available is a video documenting the technical aspects and features of the updates Unreal 3 engine by Epic Games CEO and Technical Director Tim Sweeney. All three clips are available now for your downloading and viewing pleasure.
Yeah, the Unreal Engine was once synonymous with cutting-edge PC graphics tech. Once. But in the future? With Unreal Engine 4.0? Well, it’s going to be geared towards consoles, not the PC. So says Epic boss Tim Sweeney:
There is a long life ahead for Unreal Engine 3. Version 4 will exclusively target the next console generation, Microsoft’s successor for the Xbox 360, Sony’s successor for the Playstation 3 – and if Nintendo ships a machine with similar hardware specs, then that also. PCs will follow after that.
Exclusively targeting consoles? PCs following after a Nintendo console? Egads. Epic and PC fanboys, let me get my boat and a paddle together before your salty tears cry me a river. Tim Sweeney, Part 3: Unreal Engine 4.0 aims at next-gen console war [TG Daily]
Why do we need a PC gaming alliance again? Oh, this is why. Epic boss Tim Sweeney, speaking with tgdaily, has outlined just why his company have signed up to the industry super-friends, and also notes the challenges the group face in returning a little swagger to the brand that is PC gaming: Retail stores like Best Buy are selling PC games and PCs with integrated graphics at the same time and they are not talking about the difference [to more capable gaming PCs] . Those machines are good for e-mail, web browsing, watching video. But as far as games go, those machines are just not adequate. It is no surprise that retail PC sales suffer from that.
In other words, they’ll probably be spending most of their time advertising and informing, as they educate the masses on why Intel integrated graphics processors are a 2-pound bag of horseshit. Unreal creator Tim Sweeney: “PCs are good for anything, just not games” [tgdaily]
