Epic's Mark Rein: We're not ready for PlayStation 4 or Xbox Whatever

Notice Milo is nervous about Tom Cruise insisting to touch him.

as long as there are children, Nintendo will succeed

Sony's new MO:

Kill all children.

@ Captain Planet

Nah. Sony wouldn't do that.. they look at the long term. They would somehow make everyone a homo.

That pic of Milo is just BEGGING for the DSG! Step yo game up Joystiq!

*rips the word "ad" from post* (didn't mean to put that there, must be stuck in my head from the adverbots)

anyways, I'm sure it's just part of their marketing campaign. I must admit, MS are marketing geniuses. That's where Sony needs to step it up.

And you'd still need an Xbox to use it. By definition it's nothing more than a fancy peripheral.

You totally missed the sarcasm in Rein's referring to Natal as the "next Xbox". He knows it's not a new console.

You're right, I must have missed the sarcasm...

Besides, it's not just rein, I hear it all the time.

Direct X11 is why i think Microsoft will release a new console sooner rather than later. They're going to want to keep everything together.

Natal is just going to be a large-scale Beta for what's in store for the next console

Considering DX10's ridiculously low rate of penetration - I would *not* bank on anything regarding DX11 taking off. Despite my love for Vista64, there are still millions upon millions of XP users out there still running DX9, and I don't think Windows 7 is going to change that either (despite Microsoft's best efforts to force everyone to upgrade).

As long as they keep pushing back the EOL date for XP, people will continue to use it because, to them, nothing is wrong with it. Not that I think anything is wrong with XP either - but having 2 computers with 4gigs of ram and 1 computer with 8gigs - I have to use a 64bit OS, and - sorry - XP64 is a giant pile of crap.

But that's exactly why Microsoft would want to promote DX11. If they build a console around it, it can more or less force developers (since a great many developers seem to be slave to Microsoft's whims) to adopt it, and then it will spread back to the PC sphere

zero2dash,

Actually, it seems that DX11 is going to fulfill the promises DX10 failed to live up to; there's already a fair amount of developer support behind the new API and that list is expected to only grow as time goes on. While DX10 didn't bring in a new era of visual fidelity (beyond object based motion blur) for many of the titles that supported it, DX11 should; hardware tessellation will start to pick up steam (instead of using parallax mapping to simulate depth on wall or ground textures, tessellation promises to actually give depth to those surfaces using geometry), you'll see compute shaders being used for more advanced physics (Havok's cloth physics, for example), and there will be some changes to how we render shadows/light.

In theory, the standard should also allow for tangible performance gains over DX10 largely because it builds off and expands many of the advances found in the seldom used DX10.1 API. While the performance increase often touted for DX10 over DX9 never materialized, DX10.1 completely rectified those problems. Though supported by only a handful of games (since NVIDIA completely refused to adopt the standard), titles using DX10.1 often showed a 20-30% increase in performance compared to those using the DX10 renderpath. For example, before DX10.1 was patched out of Assassin's Creed, an HD3850 was able to touch toes with the much faster Geforce 9800 GTX with the same image quality, the same resolution, and a (albeit marginally) faster framerate just from using the newer render path. DX11, baring the new features, is little more than DX10.1 on steroids; there's no reason to believe games using it shouldn't run as fast if not faster than those using only DX10.

To sweeten the deal even further, DX11 will actually work on hardware we currently have though with some drawbacks; there will be no hardware tessellation (all of ATI's performance hardware since 2007 has tessellation hardware but none of NVIDIA's hardware does) and DX10/10.1 level hardware won't see much in the way of compute shader use (since they're not as refined or robust as those found in upcoming hardware). Furthermore, DX11 isn't restricted to Windows 7; since it uses an existing driver model, it will be released on Vista as well.

HAHAHAHAHA!

oop, my bad, that outburst was supposed to go to the guy below here. don't need it to see the difference, PRICELESS!!!

Hahaha!

wut

And the most superfluous post of the day award goes to...FUN DMC!!!

I totally meant to add more to that post, haha. Just expressing my confusion over WiredKnight's post. I also don't see why I'm being downvoted (not like I was trollan or anything) but whatever

a standard tv goes up to 480. so if you have a HD system like the xbox and PS3 that display in up to 1080, you get a bottleneck at the tv. That means you are playing ur games at the same resolution as you were back in the last gen.

Yeah, SDTV's top out at 640x480. However, the vast majority of PS3/360 games run at 1280x720 or below native resolution, such as Halo 3, Call of Duty 3 run at below 720P. They can just be upscaled to 1080P. So even a 720P television can mostly work.

Even on an SDTV, you'll still notice extra details older consoles could never do. When I briefly played GTA4 on the PS3 on my SDTV, it still looked way better than the PS2 GTA games.

Find me a game that spits out enough HD detail to rival the image quality of a live SD broadcast. SDTV isn't the bottleneck, it's the hardware.

"You don't need an HDTV to notice a difference."

With all due respect, Mr. DMC (may I call you Fun?), until mid-November 2007 I gamed on a 32" Sony Wega 480p SDTV, both 360 and PS3. Despite the warmth and buttery smoothness that is an enhanced SD picture I knew I had to be playing those games in widescreen HD, but I didn't want to pull the trigger yet on an HDTV. When I knew it was time I did my research and bought a 37" 1080p Sharp Aquos, and let me tell ya: the first time I saw the 360 boot-up sequence and dashboard in HD in my living room I almost cried. And later that night when I popped Ratchet & Clank Future: Tools of Destruction into my PS3 it was imperative I start a new game despite my saved game with 50% completion. I had bear witness, y'know? ;)

@ LaughingTarget

How about...every single game on the 360 and the PS3.

None of them have the level of realism and detail as a basic SD camera from 20 years ago do. Games have a long, long way to go before being able to convince me that the image on the screen is remotely real.

Amazing, the kind of assumptions people around here make.

I said you don't need an HDTV to notice a difference, because it's true - it looks better EVEN WITHOUT AN HDTV.

I never said that with an HDTV you couldn't tell a difference. As someone who owns a 360 and a PS3 and have it all hooked up to a pretty huge system, trust me, I know this.

Geniuses.

In other words, I'm quite aware that higher resolutions look better (I know this from experience), but you don't need an HDTV to be able to see the graphical difference between this generation's games and the last. lrn2read

I suppose I should lrn2clarify too...

Wow, I'm chock full of fail today. Completely misunderstood a post or two and responded with unnecessary hostility.

I'll just stop, for now.

OMG...LaughingTarget you must fucking stupid. Just because something is "high definition" doesn't make it more realistic. The mere fact that you think this way is fucking hysterical as fuck.

@Captain Planet

Seriously!?

"Just because something is "high definition" doesn't make it more realistic."

That's exactly what Laughing Target is trying to say. All the detail in the world won't necessarily represent real-life more accurately.

You can't possibly tell me that every game on 360 and PS3 looks just as realistic as a live-action broadcast, HD or not.

Don't worry I know what your on about. It's not like all the advanced lighting, realmaping, blurring, bloom effects dissapear and your left with a PS2 looking game when you play on a SDTV.

HDTV just make everything nice sharp and crystal clear on big TV's, mainly benifits text, small complex HUD details.
You can also play the game from like half a meter away and it still looks clear. :O

Can't wait for the Xbox Whatever. Hope it comes with a standard Thingamajig and we don't have to pay extra for the Whatchamacallit.

I already pre-ordered my Xbox W/E at Gamestop.

Xbox Whatever would be the best console name - well - ever.

To beat that they'd have to find an even more outrageous name for the next Nintendo system... they could go the whole hog and use, say, Nintendo Piss.

"Sure, I have a Wii, but I only use it to play Smash Bros. once a month. The motion control is just too gimmicky."

Post fail and not read after this point.


Coming from the guy with the Halo avatar at that.

Oh, cody, cody... You still haven't learned it, have you? Nobody cares what a nintendo fanboy like you thinks about a post and in this case nobody cares that you didn't even read the whole post.

I for one completely agree with what Dragod said.

being a Nintendo fanboy is not what invalidates Cody's opinion, Ashitaka. Being a troll is what invalidates it (much the same applies to you, i believe)

As for Dragod, i think the sentiment you express is exactly what is going to hurt Natal. Microsoft won't be willing to really cram Natal down the user's throats, for fear of alienation, and third party developers sure as hell aren't going to lead the way (you can see the Wii for that), so if Microsoft doesn't give it A-1 priority, it's going to fade from prominence right quick.

It's an all-or-nothing thing. Natal can be the next Wiimote or the next Eye-Toy

I'm afraid that I agree with Khan on this one. If they don't fully back it then the developers will stick with what's comfortable and the thing will fail. The sad truth is that we will likely be forced to use Natal even though we don't want to on the day-to-day, just so it can be available at all.

I totally believe that Natal needs to be given "A-1" priority, but I don't think it should be a necessity. It should be something everyone wants, but it shouldn't be what is necessary. I just visited my father, and I brought along my Wii because I just got RE4 Wii and I was hooked. Bringing along and setting up the sensor bar is incredibly annoying. I had to keep it in my laptop case and check every 30 mins to make sure it didn't snap in half. If Microsoft wants to put it in the next console, great (I guess), I just hope it won't require the external sensor like it does on the 360.

I play my game systems in my room or in my friends' basements for LANs. There's no room to be jumping around, dancing, waving arms, etc...

I'm not passing judgment on how useful it is for certain games. Just saying that unless they at least make it the default means of interfacing with the system, then devs (even their internal devs), will feel that they are able to completely or mostly ignore it.

It doesn't have to be required, much as Wii has the classic and gamecube controller, but it does have to be the default at least, so that devs have a real, tangible reason to at least try and use it for all or most of their games

You say you don't notice a difference at your friend's house, then why buy an HDTV and surround sound system at all? At least the different isn't that large, don't say there is no difference.

I don't think I can go back to SDTVs, but I've still been playing my music and games with regular stereo speakers, maybe if I finally get an HD Surround Sound system, I won't go back to stereo speakers...