Infinity Ward: New CoD Engine Would Be "Counter-productive"

[purbeast0]

fail..
You young people always forget that back then there were more than just 2 companies in the game..

You forgot consoles from Atari, Turbografix, NeoGeo, Coleco, Vectrex, Mattel, Sega and more than I'm sure my old ass brain has forgotten.. competition was very strong back then.. so yes you literally had new hardware and a new company competing every 1-4 years.

the problem now is no competition = slower technology upgrades there is no race going on..

And why would Devs have to relearn how to program? They don't have to relearn on the PC every time something new comes out..
I'm sure MS isn't going to change the OS in their next console, just a hardware refresh..

I agree a console with a replaceable "video card" might make sense as GPU tech does indeed seem to advance faster than anything else..

it's not 'relarning' how to program ... it's learning the systems architecture, the tricks to optimize your software on their hardware, the sdk, etc. the jump from last gen to current gen include jumps in the total # of cores in the consoles, and for ps3, the cell architecture which isn't an easy task to just pick up and program for. there is a huge learning curve and it costs money to do it.

i'm not a pc gamer anymore so i could be somewhat off on this, but pc's don't change that much hardware wise. directx (not sure if still around i'm assuming it is) has been a standard way of programming for years on pc gaming. programmers can just use that for windows devving so once htey know it, when new versions come out, it isn't nearly as drastic as a change at all as with dev'ing for a new console.

basically you make a direct x call, and direct x handles what happens with any graphics card. you don't have to do any hardware specific stuff so no matter what graphics card you have, it doesn't matter. it isn't like this on consoles. you can't simply use the same call (or even design) for an xbox game as you can an xbox360 game. of course there are some execptions with bugs on specific graphics cards.

when a new version of directx comes out, they don't have to relearn a whole new SDK or anything, they simply just get to use newer (and usually easier to use) features so they benefit from it. totally different than learning an SDK from scratch.

programming on consoles is especially difficult with multiplatform games ... they have to do a lot of different techniques and programming to get things working on ps3 and xbox360 the same way. that is why multiplatforms never look as good as console exclusives, because they have to do techniques and things that work on both platforms instead of focusing their power on polishing it for 1.

also, those consoles you mention that were left out ... they were not huge advancements in technology at all with their comparable consoles that were out at the time. maybe the neo geo, but it was also priced as such. turbo graphics was out around the snes/genesis era, and had a cd addon, as did the genesis. they were all fairly comparable systems.

 

[Veliko]

fail..
You young people always forget that back then there were more than just 2 companies in the game..

You forgot consoles from Atari, Turbografix, NeoGeo, Coleco, Vectrex, Mattel, Sega and more than I'm sure my old ass brain has forgotten.. competition was very strong back then.. so yes you literally had new hardware and a new company competing every 1-4 years.

I didn't forget them at all. Most of those consoles were flops so the increased competition didn't actually change anything at all. The two major players in each generation still had several years in between each console released.

the problem now is no competition = slower technology upgrades there is no race going on.

There are three consoles plus the handhelds that have sold in the millions. There is more viable competition now than there has ever been.

And why would Devs have to relearn how to program? They don't have to relearn on the PC every time something new comes out..
I'm sure MS isn't going to change the OS in their next console, just a hardware refresh..

They need to get used to the new hardware.

I agree a console with a replaceable "video card" might make sense as GPU tech does indeed seem to advance faster than anything else..

That would fragment the market which the console makers wouldn't want.