Unreal Engine 4.0 Console only

[Modelworks]

Well I guess developers are going to have to find a new engine for pc games, although unreal 3.0 has a lot of life left in it.


I vote we take away his pc gaming alliance membership card !


http://www.bit-tech.net/news/2...vely_target_consoles/1

ollowing his recent, and rather controversial comments, about the state of PC gaming and the PC graphics market, Tim Sweeney has revealed that the developer's next engine, Unreal Engine 4.0, will "exclusively target the next console generation."

Sweeney said that PC development would follow after the engine has been rolled out onto the Xbox 360's and Playstation 3's successors. He even went so far as to say that "if Nintendo ships a machine with similar hardware specs, then that [will also be supported before the PC]."

This is no doubt a major disaster for PC gamers, because Epic is one of the largest game engine licensers in the industry ? many developers have licensed Unreal Engine 3.0 technology for use in their own games and we expect the same to happen when UE4 shows up.

What's more disappointing is that Epic Games is a member of the PC Gaming Alliance, yet it appears to be doing just about everything but helping to make PC gaming a better proposition. I honestly find Sweeney's comments to resemble something similar to a kick in the nuts for those of us that game on the PC and have made Epic what it is today - after all, Epic started life as a developer that made games exclusively for the PC.

 

[Riverhound777]

So Epic is the Metallica of the PC industry?

 

[jjones]

I knew this was coming. UT3 was practically a neon sign advertising it.

 

[pontifex]

so then devs will have to use a different engine. might be a good thing for pc gaming. try something new.

 

[Canai]

UT3 engine is fail anyway.

Good riddance, I say. Keep those crap games on the consoles.

 

[Fox5]

Hmm, maybe ID software's engines will see an upswing then. Hopefully OpenGL will get some real push in the PC market.

 

[KeithTalent]

After perusing the list of 3.0 games I notcied the only one I have played and actually liked was/is Bioshock and I can tell you the reason I like it has absolutely nothing to do with the game engine it was built on. So I can't say I'm too heartbroken over this particularly after all the crap Epic has been spewing lately.

KT

 

[SunnyD]

Originally posted by: Canai
UT3 engine is fail anyway.

Good riddance, I say. Keep those crap games on the consoles.

Don't blame the Unreal Engine 3 for UT3's shortcomings... UT3 is a game, poorly designed. UE3 is an engine, designed quite well. There's a HUGE difference.

 

[jjones]

Tim Sweeney on UE3:

The Unreal engine is really tied to a console cycle. We will continue to improve Unreal Engine 3 and add significant new features through the end of this console cycle.

At least Epic's not pretending to care about PC gamers any longer. I'm clueless as to why they would even bother to be part of the PC Gaming Alliance.

 

[AdamK47]

The only point of interest in the article is this quote: "exclusively target the next console generation."

The rest is just spin to make it sound like the PC is left out. What Tim ment was that the coding will target the console platform. This includes graphical features and performance. They won't leave the PC out. Read some of the less slanted articles on this topic.

 

[Dorkenstein]

Epic fail for Tim (S)Weeny

 

[Canai]

Originally posted by: SunnyD

Originally posted by: Canai
UT3 engine is fail anyway.

Good riddance, I say. Keep those crap games on the consoles.

Don't blame the Unreal Engine 3 for UT3's shortcomings... UT3 is a game, poorly designed. UE3 is an engine, designed quite well. There's a HUGE difference.

I just really don't like the engine. Same thing with the UT2k4 engine.

 

[Molondo]

After reading that i feel disgusted for buying UT3.

 

[jjones]

Originally posted by: AdamK47
The only point of interest in the article is this quote: "exclusively target the next console generation."

The rest is just spin to make it sound like the PC is left out. What Tim ment was that the coding will target the console platform. This includes graphical features and performance. They won't leave the PC out. Read some of the less slanted articles on this topic.

What spin? Here are Sweeney's very words:

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.

No, PCs are not being left out entirely, they're just last in line and there's an honest chance you'll never see a UE4 game on the PC. PC game developers may choose to ignore UE4 entirely if a more PC-centric game engine is readily available.

PC gamers are now the red-headed stepchild and Epic is probably hoping they'll be so successful with the console engine they won't need to bother with the last in line.

 

[sanzen07]

UT3 is a solid title, there's just no one to play online with. I went on last night and there were maybe 5 deathmatch servers that actually had people in them. Secondly, I support Epic's move away from the PC. If people aren't buying PC games, then there's no point in the wasting cash developing for it. Love it or hate it, console gaming is going to continue to get bigger and PC gaming is going to continue to diminish. I used to be a hardcore PC gamer. It's rare that I buy a PC game these days. My current rig is probably the last rig I'll build for gaming.

 

[SunnyD]

Originally posted by: Canai

Originally posted by: SunnyD

Originally posted by: Canai
UT3 engine is fail anyway.

Good riddance, I say. Keep those crap games on the consoles.

Don't blame the Unreal Engine 3 for UT3's shortcomings... UT3 is a game, poorly designed. UE3 is an engine, designed quite well. There's a HUGE difference.

I just really don't like the engine. Same thing with the UT2k4 engine.

Again, you can't really say it's the engine you don't like. You really should be saying you don't like Epic's implementation of the engine in UT2k4 or UT3. I'm sure there are a lot of games out there using UE2 and possibly UE3 that you DO like. UE is used in so many titles in so many ways - UT*, Bioshock, NWN, Vanguard are 4 possible examples of different genre and play styles all using the Unreal Engine...

 

[onlyCOpunk]

I'm not really surprised considering the majority of UE3 games were released on 360 first and sold better then their PC bretheran.

 

[Crafty35a]

Originally posted by: Canai
UE is used in so many titles in so many ways - UT*, Bioshock, NWN, Vanguard are 4 possible examples of different genre and play styles all using the Unreal Engine...

Not to nitpick, but NWN uses the Aurora engine.

 

[SunnyD]

Originally posted by: Crafty35a

Originally posted by: Canai
UE is used in so many titles in so many ways - UT*, Bioshock, NWN, Vanguard are 4 possible examples of different genre and play styles all using the Unreal Engine...

Not to nitpick, but NWN uses the Aurora engine.

Hmm, I thought I saw somewhere that NWN2 was based on a UE3 beta engine or something. Oh well.

 

[BladeVenom]

Originally posted by: jjones
I knew this was coming. UT3 was practically a neon sign advertising it.

GoW was a clear sign that they'd sold out to Microsoft.

No big loss. There are dozens of game engines out there, and plenty more will be made before Unreal Engine 4 comes out.

 

[BTRY B 529th FA BN]

Which engine did Red Orchestra get?

 

[skace]

Steam and the Source engine are doing it better than Epic ever could anyways. And Id too (unfortunately). I know Id has moved a lot of games to Steam but I hope they up their support and interactivity into Steam. It's only fitting that Valve got their foot in the door with the help of Id that Id gets back in the game with the help of Valve.

In other words, Cya Epic, have fun making more garbage titles like GoW. I'll always remember you by Unreal 1, your best offering by a mile.

 

[Maximilian]

Originally posted by: sanzen07
UT3 is a solid title, there's just no one to play online with. I went on last night and there were maybe 5 deathmatch servers that actually had people in them. Secondly, I support Epic's move away from the PC. If people aren't buying PC games, then there's no point in the wasting cash developing for it. Love it or hate it, console gaming is going to continue to get bigger and PC gaming is going to continue to diminish. I used to be a hardcore PC gamer. It's rare that I buy a PC game these days. My current rig is probably the last rig I'll build for gaming.

BZZT wrong answer.

The pc will always be the home of the RTS and FPS game. With companies like blizzard pumping out awesome games and valve with their great games and steam pc gaming is doing ok. When EA goes bankrupt i think pc gaming will be on the rise again. Theres also plenty of other developers that make quality games for the pc.

PC gaming is just going through a transitional phase where new developers or lesser known ones are replacing those who were trashed by EA. Apart from that... its fine, pc is a great gaming platform.

 

[hooflung]

What I would like to see is AMD and Nvidia smack the shit out of the development houses on the console.

Who builds the arch or all the next generation graphics? AMD and Nvidia. If it wasn't such a lucrative business for them to sell GPU designs to them then I believe the developers wouldn't be smash mouthing the PC so much. There isn't much technically different from the Xbox 360, PS3 or the PC. They just don't run the same instruction set ( pc vs the consoles ).

I don't think its too entirely difficult to hypothesize that the developers will be back to PCs after the current console generation moved through unless Nintendo drop a updated wii2 that does more than the PS3 can in the next few years. I think the next real update to Vista will bring guest OS gaming into the fray with OS virtualization so where games will run as a guest OS and use a higher level of graphics standards starting to show up on integrated chips from AMD which will make Intel and Nvidia follow suit.

 

[ja1484]

I know this kind of thing always causes an uproar on Teh Intarnet whenever it's laid bare to the masses that game development is a business first and an art form second (much like movies), but frankly if that's the decision Epic wants to make, then that's the decision they make. It's their stock options they're risking, after all.

For my part, I want to know exactly what it means to "target the consoles first". Does that mean they'll just develop and optimize the console-specific bits of the code first and then the PC parts later? Will the console versions of UE4 be available to devs before the PC version?

And I want to hear Sweeney's words on the situation, not something some guy at Bit-Tech wrote between out of context quotes.

I doubt this is going to mean very much at all in practice - after all, the first new title to actually USE Unreal Engine 3 was Gears of War, so technically this happened last time through the cycle too. And yes, I know R6: Vegas, and some other games came out before gears based on UE3. You're not understanding me. They built their game on the engine, but they damn sure didn't use what it could do. Gears was pretty much the first UE3 game to ship that actually *looked* next gen. You can say what you like about the gameplay.

As for PC Gaming, it's fine and always will be. Epic just appears to be shifting their emphasis away from this platform for a while, and I don't see how that's an issue.