What Developers Want On Next-Gen Consoles

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What do developers like Epic Entertainment and Crytek want on next-gen consoles? The answer might surprise you.

Tim Sweeney, founder of Epic Games, suggests that the next consoles should learn lessons from mobile devices, from Facebook integration to ease of buying and downloading games on the App Store without having to make physical media. "So, having all the things you'd expect from the game industry as a whole, and the best that's been done elsewhere, and bringing that to the console platform is really important."
 
You know what I want? I want Epic to crash and burn into a heaping pile of feces.
 
Tim Sweeney is late to the game. I can't speak for Xbox 360, but PS4 and the Wii has been able to download games with utmost ease for years now.
 
As for downloading games for free and trying before buying, well there was this thing game developers killed 10 years ago called Shareware. Don't blame console makers. Blame greedy developers and publishers.
 
Oh look, useless opinions from two fairly shit companies who haven't put out anything AAA-worthy in quite some time.
 
Facebook integration? Yeah, because I want people to know I called out of work so I could finish Mass Effect 4. And of course Sweeney wants physical media gone; that way he can still charge $60 for a game but save on manufacturing...

Horsepower is a no-brainer, but consoles will continue to be behind the PC curve and we'll still be stuck being the red headed console port stepchild.

"The thing that separates consoles from FarmVille is the fact that consoles define the high-end gaming experience. When you look for the best graphics in the home gaming industry, today you look at Xbox 360 and PlayStation 3, and those games are the best out there, bar none. The big opportunity for future consoles is to bring that to an entirely new level by delivering a dramatic increase in raw computing power."

I'm sorry, where did the Unreal engine get its start?
 
I think the makers of the engines/games of years passed are awfull pissed at the way new devs/publishers are simply excuses of the way business should be done. They throw far to many excuses around and still want the big bucks, but simply do not produce the quality they once did and yet the hardware is where it needed/needs to be, so they cannot use that as an excuse anymore, now its all about how little they can spend on crappy ports/products and make the most $$$$. Really sad actually, it is a crying shame as most of the devs have sunk so low as of late because of the attitude they take.

What would be nice is to see devs make specific versions for spefic markets instead of this "one size hat" type approach in the end it seems to cause more problems then it fixes and we the customers are the ones to deal with it. Its not like they arent making oodles of coin in the process, see any current BF or COD game as examples.
 
"The thing that separates consoles from FarmVille is the fact that consoles define the high-end gaming experience. When you look for the best graphics in the home gaming industry, today you look at Xbox 360 and PlayStation 3, and those games are the best out there, bar none. The big opportunity for future consoles is to bring that to an entirely new level by delivering a dramatic increase in raw computing power."

I'm sorry, where did the Unreal engine get its start?

Exactly. Epic Games has not been relevant in the PC arena for a long time and I doubt they ever will be again.
 
What it needs is RAM glorious RAM! 4 gb of memristors, and 1gb of L2 cashe. It also needs 1024 spu's
 
I want upgradeable components. Ram. GPU. CPU if needed (probably not). I guess that would be called a PC (duh).

But think about it for a minute. Only have a 720p TV? Buy the "core" model xbox 9000. If you upgrade to 1080p later, buy the GPU upgrade and plug and play. It will never happen of course because being modular and upgradeable costs more. But still, what if they sold a GPU upgrade for the 360 that would give you real 1080p games instead of 720p or less (like the 540p or whatever COD and Halo use). If it was like a hundred bucks I'd buy it.
 
Would be cool if one can "upgrade" to the next version i.e a ps3 to a ps4 once the parts are out, will keep the maker happy as it can reduce thier costs etc.

Personally I would be plenty happy if we as users can swap cooling fans for better ones, or even change the hard drives for better, faster ones without going through stupid hoops in the process. MS and SONY can save themselves a ton of $ and development costs if they went a consolized PC and let us the users have a select assortment of hardware "speced" to work with the machine. They simply release the slowest version at a lower cost and we the users decide if we want to upgrade it to a more powerfull version later on. Serves both sides of the crowd, those who have limited coin and want the new system and those who have more coin but still want to enjoy thier console experience.

I would love to see a multi-cpu based console with upgradable ram as well as a "starter" gpu and harddrive. Or better yet, a "knights-corner" type approach a bunch of lower clocked cpus handling everything, kind of like cell but way more customized in its approach. X memory(user installed) for cpu stuff and X memory for the "gpu" side. Keep the manufacturing costs low so we can afford to buy it and "they" can afford to release it and we bump its performance when we are able/want to :)
 
I want upgradeable components. Ram. GPU. CPU if needed (probably not). I guess that would be called a PC (duh).

But think about it for a minute. Only have a 720p TV? Buy the "core" model xbox 9000. If you upgrade to 1080p later, buy the GPU upgrade and plug and play. It will never happen of course because being modular and upgradeable costs more. But still, what if they sold a GPU upgrade for the 360 that would give you real 1080p games instead of 720p or less (like the 540p or whatever COD and Halo use). If it was like a hundred bucks I'd buy it.

Then they can just charge obscene prices for the "upgrades". Even the hard drive upgrades they had for the 360 were insanely priced.
 
Tim Sweeney is late to the game. I can't speak for Xbox 360, but PS4 and the Wii has been able to download games with utmost ease for years now.

Where'd you get your PS4? I want one! :p
 
More power!

I would also like Microsoft to stop using proprietary hard drives... I know they make bank on them though.

True 1080p, with HD audio would be nice as well.
 
I have to chime in and say I'd like to see a lot more ram on the future consoles so we can get better textures and better textures. Also, levels that are larger would be great too.

Really, 8GB of DDR3 ram from the egg's canadian website (cheaper on .com) from g-skill runs you $37.99. It's silly that were limited by the xbox 360's 256MB of CPU and 256MB of GPU memory that can be semi-shared due to Unified Memory Architecture-- but still. 512MB of ram? That's so little compared to what can be bought for pennies on PC now adays ^^ see above.

I can't help but think Skyrim would be able to have way more detailed towns or much much larger cities if we had 8GB of system memory and 2GB of GPU memory.
 
Of all the directions the latest gaming hardware could go in the near future, it is mystifying that Epic and Crytek want to push the envelope all the way to... Farmville?

It's pretty clear the empty suits that now run so many successful game publishers and studios do not actually give a shit about the quality of the games themselves -- I doubt most of the suits who call the shots even play them. A lot of companies were started by devs who loved to play games themselves. Some of them were successful enough in designing great titles that other devs who love gaming flocked to join up. And some of those became so successful in the market making money that it naturally attracted MBA types who live and breath business for the sake of business. Now the largest game publishers and dev studios are run by these suits, whose primary interest is insuring their stockholders get a good return on their investment, and are thus able to raise more capital by selling more stock. That's why their contracts have sweet bonuses in them if they meet certain milestones for profit and stock value.

As to whether the customer gets a good return on their investment in a game title, well, that only matters insofar as it impacts corporate-wide revenue. (Which it rarely does. I blame gamers who will give the next crap sequel a record-breaking opening week, thus throwing enough cash at the company that it more than covers the stingy dev costs of a host of compromised titles that didn't turn a profit. This only reassures the suits that their min/max bean-counting methods are best. Further, it reinforces their notion that money is better spent on slick marketing than on the development budget itself, beyond the absolute minimum required.)

They don't get a bonus for releasing a title that earns Game of the Year awards, or design accolades from their peers in the gaming industry, or achieves a "long-tail" cult-status among gamers. No bonuses are paid for releasing a game in a finished state without any game-breakers requiring later patches. No bonuses are awarded for designing a title that evolves the current state-of-the-art in video gaming, spawning dozens of imitators and defining or re-defining a genre. Bonuses are only paid for profit and stock price, which automatically put tremendous pressure on management to be risk-averse. Not to mention that MBAs are taught risk-aversion as a matter of good business practice in any case.

Everyone sees how financially successful Blizzard is. But now they see how much bank Zinga is rolling in and think, "Hey, that looks a lot easier than trying to make the next WoW, and a lot cheaper to implement! Profit! Bonus! Good game? Who cares? We can make ten of these Facebook games for the cost of a hi-res texture patch!"
 
Where'd you get your PS4? I want one! :p

Next you'll tell me you don't have a teleporter and 3D holographic televisions. Sheesh. Tim Sweeney isn't the only one behind times.

;)

Fat fingers. I meant PS3 of course. lol
 
I'll be shocked in the next-gen Sony/MS consoles don't support most games at 1080p DX11 60fps, as a mid-range PC graphics card can handle. I'm hoping for a minimum of enough power for 3D 1080p DX 12.
 
It's idiocy like this that causes us to embrace indie games and kickstarters with renewed vigor.
 
Who gives a damn what two losers like Epic and Crytek think? This whole deal of eliminating physical media is about killing the used game market,as well as denying consumers true ownership of games they paid for. The more I see the direction consoles are taking gaming,the more I pray for another Great Videogame Crash.
 
Here's what I want.
1080P, 60fps, no upscaling. Or GTFO.

While you're at it....spend more than 20 minutes on R&D on heatsinks and cooling devices so there's no more RRoD or YLoD.

I'd love to see Microsoft make Live free for everyone just to compete with the PSN....but they're not gonna slaughter that cash cow; no way.
 
I just want "Steam" on consoles. If I want to buy a game and download it, they should allow that. Although given how shitty Sony's servers are when it comes to downloading updates, I'm not actually sure it would work very well. Still though, until consoles get a steam-like service, I won't really mess with them. I wish I actually had a use for the Vita, I'd love to support that as they actually seem to be doing everything right with it. Unfortunately I have zero need for another handheld device...
 
ZacharyS is right on the money. Steam is the way to go.
from what i have been reading, sony and microsoft are heading in the "online only" games with no ability to play if purchased used unless you pay a fee and now adding this facebook/farmville/angrybirds mentality makes me cringe at the thought of what this will do for PC games.
Are their any developers left that prefer the PC platform over consoles?
 
from what i have been reading, sony and microsoft are heading in the "online only" games with no ability to play if purchased used unless you pay a fee and now adding this facebook/farmville/angrybirds mentality makes me cringe at the thought of what this will do for PC games.

I think they're trying to make digital distribution the only way to get games, eliminating the physical games and the process that entails (while also killing the used game industry and finally putting a bullet in Gamestop once and for all).

I have no problem with DD, if it's on PC.
On PC, DD is done so well and so flawlessly that....call me a kool-aid drinker, but....I have no reason to doubt that all the games I have in my Steam library just won't be there one day. Maybe I trust Valve more than some people. I just think that Steam has long passed the point of where there was any doubt whether or not it was here to stay. I don't see Steam closing up shop and ceasing to exist anytime, ever. Origin being the new kid on the block is more likely, but even then....it's EA, they could keep Origin running with probably 1% of the revenue they earn from every new iteration of Madden they release on consoles. I don't see Origin going anywhere either, for the record....however, service vs. service, I'm fully entrenched in the Steam camp.

However ~ on console. GTFO with the DD, especially when it comes to Microsoft.
I favor Sony *slightly* on DD only because the Ps3 HD is ridiculously easy to upgrade and it uses a standard 2.5" drive.
Microsoft OTOH decides to pull their penny pinching BS and force people to buy THEIR HD with THEIR copywritten boot record on the drive and with THEIR astronomical $-per-GB cost. Sure, you can hack specific drives and flash them to make the 360 work with them...and admittedly I've done so.....but there shouldn't be hoop jumping just to upgrade a HD on a console. Sony gets it right here. That being said - there's been way too many console games released with DLC (and by that I mean disc locked content). Capcom is especially guilty for pulling this BS. I'm sorry - you don't see publishers doing that on PC.

Steam also has all their sales and deals....making it even easier to buy stuff from them.

Are their any developers left that prefer the PC platform over consoles?

Valve is one of the few ones left. You could probably argue a few others who would rather make their games run best on PC first, with all the bells and whistles, and then downgrade from there for consoles; Crytek comes to mind. But then again, a lot of companies have decided to take the opposite approach and port all their console versions to PC (Activision with CoD comes to mind especially).

As long as I have Steam and a lot of the indie devs out there still available in Steam....I'll continue being a happy gamer.

Rhetorical indeed. I doubt Sony or MS will do what the game devs want. Personally I only want Next-Gen consoles to do only one thing: Fail. That way games can be made to play on high powered computers like they should be, and we'll have no more crappy console porting.

I really wish this.....I wish developers would see the PC as viable again, but the ridiculous notion that the PC is nothing but a sea of piracy is really hurting everyone. The problem is - consoles are almost just as easy (if not easier) to pirate games on, but....that just gets swept under the rug; no one wants to talk about softmodding because if no one talks about it, it doesn't exist. :rolleyes:
 
So the devs want digital downloads but still charge $60? Whatever.....

Not really any different than they do now. Honestly, I haven't bought a retail PC title in a long time. Though I do think $60 is too much for any new game.
 
yep, I 100% agree, if they say retail copies are to expensive etc, then why are they still charging the same price for the digital copy?? Makes no sence to me, if anything is should be slightly cheaper as there simply is not as much material to go along with this media.
 
yep, I 100% agree, if they say retail copies are to expensive etc, then why are they still charging the same price for the digital copy?? Makes no sence to me, if anything is should be slightly cheaper as there simply is not as much material to go along with this media.

The answer is greed. They know most people prefer the convenience of digital distribution now so they don't have any motivation to lower prices, even though it would make logical sense to do so.
 
I'm not real hip on the game world, but from what I understand from my sis-in-law (who is a game dev) one problem with the physical media (for any software) is, yes of course, the cost of physical media. It's not just the printing process and the retail packaging etc, but licensing as well. According to her, profit margins on console games aren't that phenomenal when you consider a AAA game can cost well over $50M to produce, and the successful games have to make up for the expensive failures. Secondly, physical media distribution puts numerous strict deadlines on development and so software that isn't as polished as it should be gets shipped anyways.

Again, I'm not a big gamer at all, but I welcome DD. I also don't play on consoles. Only PC.
 
Secondly, physical media distribution puts numerous strict deadlines on development and so software that isn't as polished as it should be gets shipped anyways.

I support going digital and unlike a lot of people here, I don't actually think it ought to come with a price reduction. That being said, I don't think digital distribution will make a difference when it comes to deadlines. There will still be deadlines and they will still be just as strict and they will still need to be met even if the software could be more polished if given more time.
 
I just want "Steam" on consoles.

But Steam has one serious problem that will make it hard to bridge multiple platforms: there's no such thing as a Steam Family Account.

No matter how many games you own licenses for, only one person can be logged-in to your account using any of those licenses at one time. This same problem is also holding-back Microsoft from bridging the console-PC gap with Live.

What Steam (or some other competing network) needs to provide is a Family Account where a specified list of users have access to your shared library, and they can all log into the library at once. Game licenses can be used by all members of the Family Account but only one member can use a license at a time. I imagine you would have to pay extra for a "shared" license, but even a %50 markup would be worth it.

Someone needs to find a solution fast that both users and content providers can agree on, or we're just going to continue to be presented with a fragmented mess of digital delivery platforms, all with serious limitations.
 
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