Home Gaming Now Randy Pitchford turns his attentions to Crytek and id – Apparently they misjudged the longevity of this generation

Now Randy Pitchford turns his attentions to Crytek and id – Apparently they misjudged the longevity of this generation

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Randy Pitchford… sidebar, is it only me or does anyone else always want to say Randy Pitchfork when reading that name? And does Randy Pitchfork make you think of shenanigans in a barn somewhere? Only me?… okay let’s carry on.

Randy… the president of Gearbox (Borderlands developers) has previously had a go at Valve for being 360 fanboys and has now decided to turn his attention to Crytek and industry stalwart id.

Basically he feels that they misjudged this generation by creating engines that will only really run well on the next generation of consoles and seeing that we won’t be getting a new generation for a couple of years they may end up in a bit of trouble… or in his words’

“Some people have invested a lot going to a place that’s too far, and the customers aren’t ready for that yet because they don’t have the hardware for it. And so they can’t find the market. I was thinking of Crytek, they couldn’t find a market because they made a game [Crysis] that very few people could play. I’m not putting words in their mouth, I remember reading something publically where they said they couldn’t put this on consoles because of the hardware”

and

“We see the id guys talking continuously about this, [with Rage] – ‘well, Sony will have a Blu-Ray and I don’t know what we’ll do on the 360, maybe we’ll have three DVD’s… if the publisher will let us do that, maybe we’ll errrrahh I dunno”

Now these quotes come from an interview that he held before Borderlands was released which I guess shows that the success of Borderlands isn’t going to his head he is just that sort of person.

In one way it feels weird with this relative newcomer on the scene calling out all the big guys but I have to say I have agreed with everything he has said so far.

id were my favourite developer of all time but they have slipped recently and as nice as rage looks it’s all smoke and mirrors until they can get it on a console in front of me.

He is also spot on with Crysis, it was an awesome game that virtually no one could run. There really is no point in that.

So do you think it’s right that he is speaking out like this?

Source: OXM

Last Updated: November 17, 2009

6 Comments

  1. Fox1

    November 17, 2009 at 11:30

    Well, what the guy is saying is actually right :blink:

    If you look at it, Borderlands and Brothers in Arms: Hell’s Highway has just come out from nowhere and showed id and Valve how games are supposed to be 😉

    Not once have I heard Gearbox complaining about this consoles architecture or that consoles storage medium :sideways:

    Reply

  2. Uberutang

    November 17, 2009 at 11:51

    Agree with you, but then again, borderlands runs UT3 engine and BIA HH is a great game, but will not win any beauty prizes….

    Reply

  3. bl33k

    November 17, 2009 at 15:02

    but, where would gaming be without ID and Crytek pushing the limits of Hardware? i think they can push so far ahead that hardware is playing catchup.

    I think without their engines, hardware wouldnt be where its at today.

    Reply

  4. V@mp

    November 17, 2009 at 19:53

    Well, without Crytek pushing the limits you wouldn’t have a spiffy new engine coming to consoles.

    Reply

  5. hadlee

    November 17, 2009 at 21:03

    I think that it’s both a good and bad thing, good in that gaming is being pushed to the limits and bad in that there’s little point in pushing the tech to the limit if no-one can play it.

    On the other hand, I think Randy is making a great statement, I’m sick of hearing about how this machine can’t do this etc, it’s time that developers put more effort into their games instead of going for the generic brown action game template

    Reply

  6. themadpeacock

    November 18, 2009 at 00:12

    Crytek and others are busy running a race that is very quickly becoming irrelevant. I am not saying computers are fast enough, games are beautiful enough or that we have reached a “tipping point”.. that’s all crap.
    What I do think is that visual fidelity (the yard stick we game technology developers have historically measured our egos against) is no longer where the challenge lies.
    We cant “technology” our way to a healthier more profitable games industry. As a technologist that scares the hell out of me.. but in a good way.

    Reply

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