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Crytek Boss: PC Gaming "Held Back" By Consoles

Game Informer: "PC gaming is far more technologically advanced than its fixed hardware console competitors, but the current economic climate is preventing developers from taking advantage of it according to Crytek founder Cevet Yerli.

"PC is easily a generation ahead right now," Yerli told the UK publication Edge. "With 360 and PS3, we believe the quality of the games beyond Crysis 2 and other CryEngine developments will be pretty much limited to what their creative expressions is, what the content is. You won't be able to squeeze more juice from these rocks."

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kancerkid5641d ago

No, PC gaming is held back by a lack of dedicated, PC only developers. Why, because there is seemingly little money in the PC gaming market...

MisterNiwa5641d ago

Exactly, nobody is holding anyone back. Why are they waiting for the Consoles?

Spydiggity5641d ago (Edited 5641d ago )

you two really need to read the article first...that's EXACTLY what he said.

the economy is holding developers back from pushing hardware so they stick with the fixed hardware of consoles. the economy also prevents the consumers from upgrading their hardware as often as they did in the late 90s.

doesn't make his comments any less true. technically, it's the existence of this current gen of consoles (which for PC, is last gen) that is holding back the cutting edge developers.

Soldierone5641d ago

@spydiggity

To counter that comment. I personally hate upgrading things on a yearly basis, i hate doing it for phones i hate doing it for PC. Thus I became a dedicated console gamer. One console lasts 5 to 10 years, and the funny thing is developers find ways to push the boundries even further year by year.

Now the question is why cant pc hardware makers and PC developers do the same thing? Simply because they think "oh just buy a new one" instead of playing around with current technology and trying to push it further. There is so much lost potential in tech with PC gaming. yeah its advancing, but come on. Build one thing that isnt the price of 10 consoles that will last a good 5 years without any issues.

BattleAxe5641d ago (Edited 5641d ago )

STEAM can change everything. Its essentially a console platform on a PC with a friends list, market place, achievements, chat system and an overlay similar in idea to the XMB on the PS3. With over 30,000,000 users, MAC support, STEAM Client preloaded onto all Dell gaming PCs, STEAM connectivity to Portal 2 for PS3 and possibly future games, support from all publishers in the industry except Microsoft Game Studios and a solid publisher/developer/owner like Valve supporting STEAM, this could be the future of gaming especially since STEAM can sell games from any generation of gaming including the next generation of games, without ever changing anything.

If STEAM ever starts to market themselves to people watching their TVs and reading the paper like Sony and Microsoft, look for STEAM to become the main competitor for Playstation, Xbox and Nintendo. Although, you could argue that it already is.

@Soldier One

I agree with your point that PC Devs should be doing more to max out the capabilities of PC hardware like console Devs do. Some great examples of that on consoles would be: God of War 2 on PS2, Metal Gear Solid 2 and 3 on PS2, God of War 3 on PS3, Uncharted 1 and 2 on PS3, Metal Gear Solid 4 on PS3 and Killzone 2 and 3 on PS3.

Sony Santimonica, Kojima Productions and Gurilla Games are the best at maximizing console hardware. For PC I would have to go with Crytek, although I'm waiting to see what Valve does next.

Spydiggity5641d ago (Edited 5641d ago )

you aren't countering my comment. i don't disagree with you that unchanging hardware lasts for as long as the company that made it wants it to last. that's a completely unrelated argument.

to counter your argument, however, and to go back to what crytek is saying...once you see crysis on max settings on PC, you never get a wow factor from any console game. you've seen the best back in november 2007. nothing has topped it, and as long as developers focus on this generation of consoles, nothing will (i know fanboys...there are some of you in denial about this and will say certain exclusives on a certain console look better -- they don't, and you're speaking out of ignorance). the whole point of the article wasn't to say console is bad, it was to say that gaming tech could be so much further along if more developers could afford to develop for the PC.

why do console-only games blow everything out of proportion?

think of it this way. the wii sold really well cuz it was cheap and it appealed predominantly to an audience that didn't understand there was better stuff out there. most of the people that bought a wii didn't know what HD gaming even meant. they didn't know games like gears, uncharted, halo, gow, etc... even existed. and since the wii was like 200-250 dollars, they thought it was great. why buy the 400 dollar systems when you can get one for 250? that's the mentality of all the other console gamers that wanna think they are "hardcore". why buy a 1300 dollar computer when you can buy a 400 dollar console? 90% of the ppl they talk sh*t on crytek and crysis never got to experience it outside of youtube videos. from a PC gamers perspective, ps3 and 360 owners are basically what Wii owners are to you. no doubt you get better graphics than wii on your ps3 and 360, but you certainly aren't getting cutting edge.

Soldierone5641d ago

Im not being an ignorant console fanboy when I say this. I Owned an Alienware laptop just for games like Crysis back then, I now own two gaming capable computers. Certain creative games like Sims and Dragon Age are indeed better on PC. However thats a creative aspect that PC gaming allows to be that way.

As for graphical impressions I have never seen a need to upgrade to "fancy" hardware on a yearly basis for any PC game. battlefield looked fantastic, but it wasn't pushing the boundries of tech and looks just as good on both consoles. Crysis on full settings didnt impress me. I understand the technical aspects behind it and why it deserves a wow factor, but it didnt blow me away. Let alone that games all visuals, beyond that it did absolutely nothing and was kinda boring at the end of the day. Killzone 2 had a much bigger wow factor for me, it was one a console and looked on par with top of the line PC games. Uncharted and so on, the are beautiful games that also add gameplay elements as well.

Then you have games like Resistance 2 or MAG where PC gaming has yet to venture off into. Why dont we see technical aspects other than visuals being brought to PC if the tech is so amazing? All the videos from Crysis 2 show great visuals, but your fighting like one or two guys at a time....where is the fun in that.

Ducky5641d ago (Edited 5641d ago )

Fighting onslaught of enemies or only a squad at a time is often a design choice than a technical limitation.
You have games that are slower, while others are more like SeriousSam.

I found Crysis to be more impressive than killzone's grey-brown world, but to each his own.
Personally, visuals aside, I'll take a game running at 60+fps over a 30fps one.

I'm not sure what you mean by Resistance2 or MAG venturing into something new.

+ Show (3) more repliesLast reply 5641d ago
kaveti66165641d ago

there's more money made in the PC market than the combined revenue of all non-PC platforms.

There is a lack of dedicated PC developers because they've all been bought out by a company who shall not be named.

SuperKing5641d ago (Edited 5641d ago )

I'd say it's actually the PC that's holding them back. Due to the open ended nature of PC hardware, you have to make your game work on a vast variety of hardware, not to mention the expensive task of optimising it. Such a thing is too much for ordinary PC developers, so they switched to making games for consoles in mind then porting it to PC.

It's so much nicer on consoles to be honest. Yeah you lose some thing like mods and such, but to know your game works on your console straight away without worry for thing like drivers, hardware is awesome. Not to mention there are a hell of alot of better games for consoles. Halo Reach, Bayonnetta, GOW3 etc. Plus you get first party support on consoles, you'll never get that with PC.

FanboyPunisher5641d ago (Edited 5641d ago )

Look at crytek, they were PC only and because they got the shit torrented out of their game they jumped ship.

Warhead sold well though because hardware caught up with the game, not that it was better. Crysis still is more enjoyable.

End of the day, 720 low res console games screw all mplat games from looking anywhere close to where we'd be (not resolution, effects, features, dedicated*, and the full power).

But no, a 2007 game is still the graphics champ. Excluding warhead since graphically nothing much has changed since the first (No killzone fanboys here, post-processing effects alone dont make a game look good, doesnt make up for no Geo/Mesh/Consolitis level design.)

Rule of thumb, lowest common denominator is what is met, and because of this we have a word called...

CONSOLEITIS

Thanks Sony/MS -- Thanks for the contracted disease.

Soldierone5641d ago

The thing I dont understand. Why doesnt that stuff count?

I mean I understand the technical aspects, that stuff does make a quality of a game better etc.... However there is no denying the fact that Killzone 2 is one of the most beautiful looking games out there. post rendering or not, it still compete with games like Crysis hands down. It still plays perfectly fine and runs great. So whats the issue with using a differnt technique to get the same outcome?

Baka-akaB5641d ago (Edited 5641d ago )

They released a game that was indeed a graphical king , but had barely anything new or interesting to offer despite asking a costly material at the time , then blamed piracy .

Why would people have bought in droves such an insipid fps ?
The engine wasnt even optimized enough to warrant being used with licensed games .

At least when ID sofware and epic released their hardware consuming no games , it brought something exciting and new , with a whole new level of polish , and was later on down the road massively used for other games .

So if you wanna be pissed than right now you can't justify buying a new card every year for a single game actually using fully ...hardly the fault of console players .

PC seems healthy enough with blizzard and valve games , rts mmo and lots of other games .

solar5641d ago

in part yes, i agree. im an avid PC gamer who hasnt turned on my Ps3 since the great UC2. with this console generation we as gamers have seen a massive shift from gaming as a nerd sport, to 7-11 cups with Halo plastered on the front and Madden being thrown in our faces at every football game.

gaming is a mainstream medium now. and the mainstream medium is a console compared to a PC. for various obvious reasons.

the most powerful platform will always be PC, and there always need to be PC gamjng to push forward gaming. graphics, AI, tech, etc.

i could go on and on right now but the booze and my clan mates are waiting for me in BLOPS aftEr this smoke. :P

as much as i see console gamers wanting PC gaming to die, they need to remember the roots.

DragonKnight5641d ago

PC tech is holding PC gaming back, not consoles. Every month you hear about another graphics card company coming out with "teh uber grafix card" that is 10% better than the last one, and yet costs $200 more than the last one. It's ridiculous. Looking at nVidia's newest card, it costs $520. I could buy an entire notebook for that.

You think that people like being told that their gaming PC is obsolete every year? People don't want to have to fork out the price of a console every year for a damn graphics card. And really, Crytek's gripe is about performance, not gameplay mechanics or story development or character development, etc.. Crytek doesn't make great games, they make playable tech demos.

You know why consoles have more developers? Simple. Console developers don't have to develop for multiple configurations, they don't have to create multiple patches for the smallest issues (typically only one or 2 patches are ever really needed), they don't have to completely re-work games because of new updates to technical specs. There are so many reasons why developers choose consoles beyond the economy excuse Crytek is crying about.

And hell, Crytek is being hypocritical in this because they are making, you guessed it, a game for a console. So are they holding themselves back then? Nope. They're going for the money and the market. And simply put, convenience will always win, no one likes having to always upgrade every year just to get "teh best grafix". The costs add up.

And before PC elitists use the tired "the cost of console games makes console gaming more expensive" argument, I present to you two things.

First, typically a multiplat game that includes the PC sees the cost of the PC game being maybe $10 cheaper. Added to the cost of the graphics card alone needed to play the latest games every year, an entire console generation is vastly less expensive than PC gaming.

Second, piracy would of course make PC gaming "cheaper" if you really want to get into it. And piracy plagues the PC gaming industry.

solar5641d ago

"PC tech is holding PC gaming back, not consoles. Every month you hear about another graphics card company coming out with "teh uber grafix card" that is 10% better than the last one, and yet costs $200 more than the last one. It's ridiculous. Looking at nVidia's newest card, it costs $520. I could buy an entire notebook for that."

that has been PC gaming from the beginning. so no, that is no where near holding it back. hell, AMD/ATI alone has sold 25 million DX11 cards already and DX11 is still in it's infamy. so i cant agree with your argument one bit.

http://www.xbitlabs.com/new...

BrianC62345641d ago

PC gaming is being held back by piracy. Also, since there's no standard developers are wasting time pushing the hardware. What percentage of PC gamers will have computers good enough to play the game? Console gaming is easier to deal with. They don't have to worry about 1000 variables like graphics card and processor.

+ Show (4) more repliesLast reply 5641d ago
All_4_One5641d ago

Again, nothing is stopping them from developing PC only games. They want a piece of that console pie, yet they want to complain about it too. Sorry, doesn`t work like that.

kaveti66165641d ago

apparently, it does, you see. because they've complained about it, and they're releasing a game for consoles. so, it does work like that.

JAMurida5641d ago (Edited 5641d ago )

It's most likely EA making them do it. Kinda same reason Mass Effect 2, (and most likely Mass Effect 3), are coming to PS3.

Baka-akaB5641d ago (Edited 5641d ago )

i dont think they were forced into anything . Crytek just love making bunch of silly excuses lately . Again i remember them blaming piracy for "only selling above a million" of Crysis back then , wich was still a lot , and quite quickly .

When it was pretty clear the game wasnt worth the hardware jump it warranted for many people at the time .

Seems like they are already covering their bases . IF crysis 2 was "to fail" , they'd blame consoles then + piracy on pc .

HDgamer5641d ago

Well the money to cover their losses from pirates on the pc, but now it's tripled. Well doubled, it depends if they pirates can use the game on the pc.

Pandamobile5641d ago

Crysis + Warhead sold about 4-5 million copies when all was said and done.

You're acting like the people that pirated the game prevented Crytek from breaking even or making a profit.

If Crysis wasn't profitable, how the hell is Crytek able to run and operate 5 separate studios?

Baka-akaB5641d ago

yeah the piracy thing was an excuse at the time , when they expected more sales .

The game was always a hit , it quickly sold its first million .

evrfighter5641d ago (Edited 5641d ago )

Lol you should look up how much crisis sold before you start talking about sales. It's sold more than most of your console kids precious AAA titles.

Last I checked almost a year ago it was pushing 3 mil.

Edit. Panda beat me.

Pandamobile5641d ago

It was pretty slow out of the gate because of the steep hardware requirements.

In 2007, an 8800 GT cost about $400, and was barely enough to run it on high at 1680 x 1050 at 30 FPS. Once the hardware caught up with the game, it sold very well.

Doc_Splice5640d ago (Edited 5640d ago )

@Pandamobile
Their engine is also another source of income as well as simulation work being one. They've got another studio dedicated to simulation work, including for the military. I'd expect that to pay well :)

I really don't think Crysis has been their main source of income by far.

+ Show (2) more repliesLast reply 5640d ago
Letros5641d ago

Shogun 2 begs to differ, there are still some games consoles cannot handle, and still some developers who refused to dumb down their product.

Organization XII5641d ago

why make crysis 2 on the consoles?? if you like to support pc gaming make full use of pcs power and make it a pc exclusive

SuperKing5641d ago

Because they realised that you can't get good sales on the PC. Seriously Crytek admitted it, no wonder they're more interested in console development (I hear they're also making an 360 exclusive too).

solar5641d ago

Minecraft has 2 million players and it looks like Super Mario Bros. on NES. you make a game worth buying, PC gamers will buy it.

Soldierone5641d ago

If they are that explains why they think consoles are so restricted....haha! (only playing calm down)

Pandamobile5641d ago

Well, Crytek are able to push PC hardware to its limits, but at the same time gain extra revenue from the console versions.

When you see a console exclusive, most of the time that game is exclusive to that platform because Sony or Microsoft either own the developer, or are publishing the game, so the developer doesn't get its say in which platforms it will be on.

There's no single company that holds a gun to the backs of developers and dictate that their game must be on PC, and PC only.

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70°

Microsoft Gaming Revenue Drops 7% Year-on-Year, Content and Services Down 5%, Xbox Hardware Down 33%

Microsoft announced its financial results for Q3 of fiscal year 2026, including an update on its gaming Xbox business and more.

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simulationdaily.com
Jin_Sakai14d ago (Edited 14d ago )

Not looking good. Hopefully Asha Sharma is able to turn Phil’s disaster around.

dveio13d ago

To me it's still quite remarkable how they can cash-in 5.3bn in revenue in a single quarter, since their hardware is basically dead.

Jingsing13d ago

The stock mark is what makes Microsoft remarkable, They have convinced every institutional and retail investor to just keep piling money into them. Like many big tech giants they are just a big growing pyramid scheme. As long as people keep dropping money into ETF's that cover the market Microsoft will always be liquid. At the same time it is completely stifling innovation and competition. People need to start being more discreet in how they invest their money as it's killing the system.

Tanktopmaster9213d ago

Once they re-evaluate exclusive all will be fine….

S2Killinit13d ago

Riiiiight because people will just flock back to them for one or two games per year.

Jingsing13d ago

15+ years of bad performance is what they call irreparable in business. It is time for them to sell off the assets and get out of entertainment.

Tanktopmaster9213d ago

These declines are on the back of extra revenue received from releasing games like Forza horizon 5 on PlayStation. So I’m being sarcastic here when I said they should go back to exclusives. Killing off a revenue stream from Ps5 sales will only make things worse

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50°

Report: Injustice 3 in Development at NetherRealm Studios

Thanks to the slip-up of an artist working on the title, we now have more evidence that a new Injustice game is in the works.

50°

Spiders Studio, Developers of GreedFall: The Dying World, Announce Liquidation of the Company

Spiders: "We're going to cut straight to the chase so you're not left wondering: After a long period without clear answers, we have received confirmation that Spiders is being liquidated.

What does it mean? This means the company as a whole no longer exists. We'll cease our functions immediately. The planned DLC will release via Nacon, and then-- well, that's it.

We're sorry that it's come to this and would like to thank each and every one of you for your support over the years.

If you have any questions or run into issues with your games, please contact Nacon directly as we'll no longer be able to reply."