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50°

Tim Sweeney is missing the point; the PC platform needs fixing

Bringing the console model to Windows wasn't an accident.

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arstechnica.com
LostDjinn3709d ago

Outstanding! Peter Bright, the MS editor at ars thinks that turning pc into a console is the way of the future. Talk about watertight thinking. It's best for everyone after all. Open platforms and real choice are anti-consumer. Anything else would be...
Nasty "oversight". *smh*

rainslacker3707d ago

He's basically arguing that PC's would be easier and more user friendly if they were closed environments....kind of like phones, tablets, or consoles.

While he isn't inherently wrong when it comes to overall mainstream use, such things can be achieved without removing the option to keep it open. Metro attempted such a thing, although it relied too heavily on MS store.

In this case though, I think it has to be an either or type of deal. You can't have a platform that is both open, and both closed. For his assertion to have any merit, it would have to be completely closed, and I for one would not trust MS to run such a platform. I'm sure they would be happy to...that's what one platform and Windows store is all about after all...but MS at no time in their entire history has proven they can be responsible and pro-consumer with the handling of such things, and have too often proved they would rather do away with competition, rather than supporting it with the services that competition needs to thrive.

Windows is an OS. MS is changing that to make it into a service. As an OS, they barely provided adequate support for competitive products or non-MS branded wares. As a service, they actually only hurt themselves by trying to provide adequate tools for those that would support windows, which makes me believe that they'll passive aggressively try and diminish developers desire to keep things open by making it as obfuscated and annoying as possible.

freshslicepizza3707d ago

they already replied and said it is indeed open,

http://www.polygon.com/2016...

tim sweeney then replied,

"I like the sound of this, and look forward to thorough technical details on UWP's planned openness at //build," said Sweeney on Twitter, referring to Microsoft's annual developer conference."

but of course the critics out there will continue to be in full force trying to interpret it any way they like.

rainslacker3707d ago (Edited 3707d ago )

I know what MS said. My comment was about what the author of this article was talking about. Nowhere did I imply that Win10 was a closed system, only I'm sure MS would be quite happy if it was.

I wasn't saying MS made the OS a closed system, I said I wouldn't trust them to be in charge of a closed system, and gave my reasons why.

I wasn't attacking MS, I was attacking the author of this article who wanted to put a sunshine and roses spin on the benefits of a closed system.

freshslicepizza3707d ago (Edited 3707d ago )

@rainslacker
"Nowhere did I imply that Win10 was a closed system, only I'm sure MS would be quite happy if it was."

and again you are taking what you want out of it all into your own context.

"which makes me believe that they'll passive aggressively try and diminish developers desire to keep things open by making it as obfuscated and annoying as possible."

that to me is implying something that isn't necessary.

"I wasn't saying MS made the OS a closed system, I said I wouldn't trust them to be in charge of a closed system, and gave my reasons why."

then don't. that's your prerogative and we still have witch hunts out there about windows 10 and privacy and so on. people love to dramatize and will not get off their pedestal of negativity while refusing to let go of the past even though they have new blood in the company and a new direction.

"I wasn't attacking MS, I was attacking the author of this article who wanted to put a sunshine and roses spin on the benefits of a closed system."

mock the author all you want, you question him when you yourself are doing the complete opposite, putting a damper and storm clouds with weeds of nonsense because you have a disdain for microsoft.

rainslacker3706d ago (Edited 3706d ago )

The context was discussing the article itself and the differences between a closed and open system and how that relates to MS.

"that to me is implying something that isn't necessary."

It's implying that MS has a penchant for passive aggressively doing things which diminish competition.

I question the author, because his assertion is that a closed system would be beneficial. I even said in some cases he may be right, but it wouldn't be beneficial as a whole in the way he says.

"then don't. that's your prerogative "

I believe I already did, and clarified with my followup to you.

My opinion of MS is there to reinforce why I believe it would be a bad thing to have a closed system in Windows, nothing more, nothing less. It's nothing more than a hypothetical to illustrate my point.

You have a bad habit of taking everything I say as being an attack on MS, and trying to make me out to be some sort of fan boy. Do you have anything on topic to the article to reply to, or are you more concerned with trying to discredit me because I don't worship the ground MS walks on?

Stop making the argument into something it wasn't ever supposed to be to begin with, either with the topic at hand, or my comment to it. If you can't bother to discuss the actual topic, or if my opinions on the matter mean more than the actual topic to you, then why even bother replying. I'm stating my opinions on the topic, you're stating your opinions on me, with the topic being rather irrelevant.

+ Show (1) more replyLast reply 3706d ago
2pacalypsenow3708d ago

Treating a PC like a console will not work, they tried that with GFWl and trying to charge for Xbox live on Pc

Shinuz3707d ago

Exactly and look what happened with gfwl. Its like they don't even learn from their mistakes.

Yetter3707d ago

until we see how this UWP all pans out we can't really claim they haven't learned from their mistakes.

Herbalistic3707d ago (Edited 3707d ago )

PC is an open platform and Microsoft won't get any support unless they embrace everything that's standard on the platform

40°

Tim Sweeney Gets Savaged Online For 'Out Of Touch' Layoff Post

The pile-on includes some people calling on Sweeney to resign

gerbintosh37d ago (Edited 37d ago )

Out of touch layoff post? I think the people raging are out of touch with having a job or seeking employment. The CEO of the company identified they were let go for business purposes, not performance. He also stated that they were great at performing their job as well. Usually the hiring company would reach out to the previous employment supervisor to find this information out. The fact the CEO provided this feedback holds more weight than a regular supervisor saying it. These people will be hired in a heartbeat.

PRIMORDUS36d ago

Checking online this shit bag is worth over $5 billion, looks like greed has spread to this asshole as well. Just retire and leave the company.

TheGamersDojo34d ago

And how much is ol Gabe worth?

Oh. That's right. Over 11b.

Guess he should retire and leave too huh? Him and his multiple yachts? The guy who says they know people buy games on sales and don't play them.

My point isnt that Gabe hasnt made a good product. My point is your point is ill thought out.

230°

Epic's Tim Sweeney shares first details about Unreal Engine 6

In an interview with Lex Fridman, Epic Games' Tim Sweeney shared the first details about the next version of Unreal Engine, Unreal Engine 6.

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dsogaming.com
Vits363d ago

It’s going to come packed with a bunch of flashy, buzzword-filled features that no one will actually be able to use without tanking performance. And just like every iteration of that engine before it, the excuse won’t be that it’s poorly optimized, no, it’s "forward-thinking" and the hardware just isn’t ready to keep up.

But since it saves studios from having to invest in developing their own internal engines, it’ll still end up being widely adopted across the industry.

VenomUK362d ago

But will it have micro-stutters?

Vits362d ago

But of course, even compatible with VRR, so you can really feel it.

rlow1362d ago

What cracks me up, is a lot of games utilize Unreal 5 and yet gaming has become more expensive. So all that BS that they shoveled out the last big reveal hasn’t translated into savings and if it has, then the industry is just plain ol’ lying.

1nsomniac361d ago (Edited 361d ago )

You mean like “going digital will bring down costs for customer dramatically. Because there will be no packaging/distribution.” Or maybe the “games going forward, will be cross-buy so you buy it once and will be able to access it across all platforms you own.” Or even the “if we increase the rrp it will mean we can get rid of micro transactions altogether.”

… I could be here all day quoting the lies from this industry.

abstractel361d ago

Scope of games are way bigger than even just 10 years ago. Also keep in mind that Epic charges 5% for using their engine, Steam charges 30% just like Sony, Nintendo and Microsoft's stores. That's 35% of your revenue gone. Steam infuriates me because they don't have nearly the overhead console manufacturers have but they know people are unlikely to migrate to Epic Games Store (which charges 15% instead but has a shit storefront compared to steam). I love UE5 (for the most part) and it has pushed the envelope in ways that would be too long to list here. I think UE6 will push things further and make it possible for devs who don't have Rockstar resources to make amazing games even further. Time will tell.

barom361d ago

@1nsomniac Going digital did make things cheaper though. Games are dropping in prices at much faster rate than before and you’ll find plenty of sub $10 games on sale all the time, whereas before we had to wait for “greatest hits” label. Not to mention the indies basically have a levelled playing field now.

Pyrofire95361d ago

In the same way that you make all these assumptions and judgments on the future of UE, I see you making these assumptions and disregard any opinion you hold.
I see no value.
There is nothing constructive, just ire on what was and the willingness to believe nothing will get better.
You have given up on the possibility of joy and will not find it.

Profchaos362d ago

Will it have games or just more decade long projects

IanTH362d ago (Edited 362d ago )

I find this odd. How am I expected to be excited with future promises when mired by the current legacy of UE5 and its myriad of technical shortcomings that have yet to be solved, even years after release.

Of course they should be working towards the future, but talking about it while UE5 still has many unsolved issues years after it has been the de facto standard? An engine used by so many, after so many years, with the backing of a company as grossly cash-rich as Epic shouldn't have so many problems still.

And the optics - even if not the truth of the matter - is you're putting time & resources into UE6 at the expense of UE5; your current product still needs quite a lot of attention. Unless the message is "we're abandoning UE5 because it's issues are systemic, and we hope UE6 can address that mess by moving on as quickly as possible".

IanTH362d ago

I was attempting to reframe my comment as I watched more of the video, but the edit timed out. So here is a nearly completely different comment lol:

The number forks/fragmentations of UE5 feels like - from a laymen's perspective - a plausible explanation for why the engine, 3 years post release, has continued to have the same problems today as it did from day 1. Sounding as if they can't really find a way to cleanly coalesce each of the seven disparate variants, it seems hopes lie with being able to do so in the years leading up to the launch of UE6.

That said, if they have so many specific versions, then it does still kind of boggle the mind why issues, like compilation stutter, are still so pervasive. Seems in this specific scenario, the fragmentation could potentially be useful for at least helping to narrow down platform specific issues/solutions.

Clearly not the case, so hopefully they can make UE6 more unified to allow for more focused, streamline engine development.

PixelOmen362d ago

Compilation stutter hasn't really been much of an issue for a couple years now if the devs know what they're doing. The problem is not all the devs know what they're doing in that regard. The real problem is traversal stutter. That is nearly universal.

IanTH362d ago (Edited 361d ago )

I sort of ended up mentally putting both of those under the category of compilation stutter, which is surely too reductive. I should have just said "stuttering/fametime issues in all their incarnations". Because while there are improvements to comp stutter, even games that force you through long, even 30 minutes shader compilation stages before playing haven't managed to fully solve that issue. Heck, even consoles, with fixed hardware that can ship with pre-compiled shaders can't even seem to fully escape it.

Traversal stutter is definitely its own issue, though, and has only been exacerbated thanks to older cards being held onto longer, and companies - primarily Nvidia - opting to put 8GB VRAM buffers into cards for way the eff too long. If you don't have the top of the line CPU and high-end, overclocked RAM kits - most of the PC playing population - to help shuffle that info between system memory and the GPU, you're more screwed than most. And Nvidia could help the issue as well, if they could improve their years-long issue with high driver overhead. Freeing up any extra CPU usage, especially for those with weaker CPUs, would really benefit.

I really hope these things can have some kind of solution found for them sooner than later. As it is, it just feels like games are taking two steps forwards and two steps back a lot of the time. Improved pixel quality (world detail, lighting, etc), at the expense of degraded image clarity (softer image, heavy reliance on upscaling, increased artificing) and smoothness/performance (stuttering/poor frametimes).

And the fact this stuff occurs, when dev times are longer than they've ever been, with budgets creeping ever higher, it's that much worse to feel like a lot of experiences just aren't wins across the board. Especially as deep into this generation as we are, and with as much time as devs & engine makers have had to iron out issues. It feels like we may need to pump the brakes on the pace of research into graphics tech and rebalance towards optimization. Image clarity (native res, especially) continuing to fall further, with poor frametimes for a myriad of reasons, as the generation goes on doesn't feel the best.

PixelOmen361d ago

I'm not just talking about shader compilation stages. There are games like Expedition 33 that barely have any pre-compilation stages (in the background on the main menu) and have almost zero comp stutter. It has to do with the way you use shaders and make your materials. It still has some small traversal stutter though.

Noskypeno362d ago

It feels too soon to talk about UE6. It feels like UE5 barely got tapped, only a handfull of games really showed its potential.

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40°

Fortnite is coming back to iOS devices in the US after a 4-year ban

Tim Sweeney: "We will return Fortnite to the US iOS App Store next week.

Epic puts forth a peace proposal: If Apple extends the court's friction-free, Apple-tax-free framework worldwide, we'll return Fortnite to the App Store worldwide and drop current and future litigation on the topic."