Digital Illusions: Consoles are holding PC games back

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Digital Illusions: Consoles are holding PC games back

Posted Apr 15th 2011 1:00PM by John Callaham
Filed under: FPS

One of the big games of 2011 will be Battlefield 3 and the first person shooter's developer Digital Illusions has made no bones about stating that the PC port of the game will be the lead platform with the console versions being developed around the PC port. In a new interview over at Nvidia's GeForce.com web site, the game's executive producer Patrick Bach believes that consoles are in fact holding the development of PC games back.

He states, "Most games are actually still based on the same core idea that the consoles are your focus, the superior platform or something. I don't know why. That was the truth 5 years ago, but the world has moved on." He says that PCs are much more powerful, hardware wise, than consoles, and few PC games truly take advantage of all that hardware.

He says, "So for our target of what we want to hit, we are now using the more powerful platform to try and prove what we see gaming being in the future rather than using the lowest common denominator, instead of developing it for the consoles and then just adding higher resolution textures and anti-aliasing for the PC version. We're do it the other way around, we start with the highest-end technology that we can come up with and then scale it back to the consoles."

Tags: battlefield-3, digital-illusions, EA, Electronic-Arts

Reader Comments (Page 1 of 1)

"DICE say that the Frostbite 2 engine is complex and the tools would have to be dumbed down for general use."

Wow...since when did modders become simpletons?!Posted at 1:47PM on Apr 15th 2011 by Gomer

Well its bout fuking time!

Finally a dev admitting the truth and not just blowing smoke up everybodys azz. Im so sick and tired of seeing games that have potential ruined by the dominate console copy.

STOP THE M$ XBOX HOSTILE TAKEOVER!!!!Posted at 10:56PM on Apr 15th 2011 by StoOopiD

Well this interview highlights what I find maddening about PC games-- you're expected to fork out hundreds or even thousands every year, to be able to play the latest games. That is what's different about console gamers-- there isn't a new processor/motherboard/videocard coming out every freakin' year.Posted at 9:03PM on Apr 17th 2011 by AtariBaby

@AtariBaby Actually, it is possible to build a mid-range PC for about the price of a console, able to run any game on max settings, and that will last you several years without having to replace any parts. Paying thousands of dollars isn't really an issue unless you are very excessive... ^^;;Posted at 9:07PM on Apr 18th 2011 by Schmouse

Guys, it's a spokesman from NVIDIA for fucks sake. Of course he's going to say consoles are holding games back.

But only graphicaslly. And really, apart from NVidia and graphics whores, who cares about graphics?

Consoles are great because they provide a platform that doesn't need to be constantly upgraded for the new games coming out. They're great because devs can easily optimise a game specifically for that system. Yes I agree there are differences between the PC and console, but it's not like console games are bad or dumbed down anymore these days.Posted at 9:19AM on Apr 25th 2011 by smeghead25