By Ian Kenny / New Jersey
During this year’s GDC Epic Games, the developer behind the Gears of War game series, unveiled the new Unreal 3 Engine. The demo video which followed the big reveal has set the gaming community ablaze with rumors and discussions regarding the future of gaming. This new engine supports Directx 11 graphical features and the demo was intended to show developers what games played on a next generation console could look like.
PC Gamers are really excited about the news, but what about console gamers?
Everyone who has ever owned a console, myself included, can’t seem to escape the feeling the inevitable release of Next-Next Gen consoles is right around the corner. It’s something that those of us lacking significant amounts of disposable income have come to dread whereas PC gamers (and this would depend entirely on your current configuration) might only have to upgrade their RAM and possibly their graphics card, console gamers have to buy a whole new Playstation or Xbox.
If you happen to remember the release prices of the PS3 and the Xbox 360 you will understand what I’m talking about.
Sure the graphics displayed in the demo are astounding but once the excitement dies down many questions remain. Will the Playstation 4 be backwards compatible? Will the games for the new Xbox still cost $60 or are they raising prices again? Just look at how bent out of shape players get when World of Warcraft releases a new expansion pack, AND THAT ONLY COSTS $29.99! Granted there are many other factors that play into your average WoW player’s level of dissatisfaction but let’s just save that for a future article.
Now for the good news.
In recent months there has been a lot of industry speculation regarding the development of new consoles from Sony and Microsoft. However, in an interview last month with PC Watch that was featured on Kotaku Kaz Hirai, the head of Sony Computer Entertainment stressed that the PS3 has not come close to reaching the end of it’s intended 10 year life cycle.
This makes sense considering the PS3 has only truly come into it’s own within the last year following countless lackluster launch titles, the extra time and money that went into the inclusion of a Blu-ray player and the fact that it is still the most expensive 7th generation console on the market. Microsoft is in a similar position. Having won the motion-control wars with the release of the Kinect late last year it is highly unlikely that there will be any news of a new console until we start to see more Kinect titles from major 3rd party developers.
Basically, the new and improved Unreal Engine seems to signal the end of an era but don’t start pitching your tent outside Best Buy just yet as the major manufacturers have a lot more to accomplish with their current gen consoles, at least for now.
I’m not going to lie, the possibility of a brand new console is certainly exciting, but then I look at my bank statement and remember that I’m broke.
Chocolate Covered Classics 
Leave a comment