Crysis on Consoles - The Facts of the Matter

["Nerve-Damage"]

Crysis on Consoles - The Facts of the Matter

Why Can't Crysis Come to Consoles?

First of all, Crysis could be ported to consoles. It's only a matter of working out how many sacrifices would need to be made to make that achievable. But if Crytek can't reach a similar quality bar as they can with the PC version of Crysis, then it's not going to happen. If Crytek still wanted to make a game for the consoles, then they'd make a new game designed specifically for the consoles. Game ports have never really worked well. Games should either be designed for the PC, or consoles; not both. It's rare to have both the PC and console version of a game become successful.

Sure, Crytek would probably make an extra few million dollars if they did release Crysis on the consoles, but would it be worth the risk of damaging the companies reputation for making top quality games? I don't think so, and neither does Cevat Yerli according to many of his recent comments. There's also the bigger question which is can they actually do it?

Like I said, if Crytek 'can' reach that same quality bar on the consoles, then I can't see why they wouldn't release a console version of Crysis for Xbox360 and PS3. But If they did, it wouldn't be coming out anytime soon, and you probably wouldn't have the same gaming experience on the consoles as you would on the PC.

Here's what Michael Khaimzon ( Lead Art Director ) had to say in fairly recent interview...

"I don’t think there would be any problem to convert anything we work on to the next-gen consoles if we decided to. We have enough power here, with programmers and artists to be able to do such a thing. It's just a matter of making the decision which isn't mine to make. We would just have to see how much of a sacrifice to the game we'd have to make. Or whether there would be a sacrifice at all, maybe we could find a way to make the game look exactly the same as it does on PC on the Xbox 360 and the PlayStation 3."

 

[Fu3lFr3nzy]

why didnt you include the rest of the paragraphs on the same page

 

["Nerve-Damage"]

why didnt you include the rest of the paragraphs on the same page

No full articles or stories, only snippets.

 

[AlNom]

Unfortunately, consoles don't have much ram nor do they have a hard-drive ( which are much faster to read from than discs ). We've already seen how the simple environments in gears of war require many loading interruptions. This makes it hard to imagine how a game such as Crysis could run on a machine with so little quick access storage.

Note: As far as I'm aware, the HDD's that come with some consoles aren't used to store game data for increased performance, the majority of the loading is done from the disc.

Will MY X360 store game data on the HDD ? I know my friend's X360 won't.

Someone needs to tell him about smart streaming.


Anyways... we've had this discussion before.

 

[archangelmorph]

Who wrote this article!?!

But if Crytek can't reach a similar quality bar as they can with the PC version of Crysis, then it's not going to happen

Says who..? I highly doubt preserving IQ or graphics fidelity will play any part in whether or not crytek decide to port the game to consoles.. At the end of the day Crytek are a business which operates to generate money.. If they see a big enough market/demand for the title on next gen consoles then they will port it in some form (whether the game looks as good or not..).. Why in the hell do you think they ported Far Cry to the Wii..??

It's amazing how some people believe that the look of a game matters more than the content of the entire experience (i.e. gameplay, which could easily transfer to any of the next-gen consoles, and probably some of the current-gen ones too..)

Sure, Crytek would probably make an extra few million dollars if they did release Crysis on the consoles, but would it be worth the risk of damaging the companies reputation for making top quality games?

What reputation? Crytek are renowned for making top quality game engines for the PC platform.. porting a game built on such a platform, ported to another platform of which its not optimised for would hardly negatively impact the reputation of such a company IMO..
Not to mention the fact that Crytek will probably make more money selling the game to the massive console user-base than the entire PC market put together.. Especially since by the time this game comes out the market penetration of DirectX 10 capable hardware would still be significantly small..

 

[Bohdy]

Reputation for top-quality games, eh? So far they've made all of... Far Cry... which was highly flawed.

Though I have higher hopes that they can get Crysis right.

 

[function]

In summary:

So, consoles can't handle Crysis, but they could if Crytek ported it, but maybe the sacrifices would be too big, or maybe there wouldn't be any sacrifices at all.

Also: consoles don't have hard drives, but the ones that do can't use them, Gears of War has simplistic environments, Crytek are bringing Crysis to the PC because they want to prove the PC is more alive than ever, and Crytek have a reputation for great games.

Brilliant.

 

[archangelmorph]

So, consoles can't handle Crysis, but they could if Crytek ported it, but maybe the sacrifices would be too big, or maybe there wouldn't be any sacrifices at all.

Also: consoles don't have hard drives, but the ones that do can't use them, Gears of War has simplistic environments, Crytek are bringing Crysis to the PC because they want to prove the PC is more alive than ever, and Crytek have a reputation for great games.

Brilliant.

I was just about to rave a stinkin' steamin' response to this until i realised that you're being sarcastic..

great stuff

 

[DuckThor Evil]

Reputation for top-quality games, eh? So far they've made all of... Far Cry... which was highly flawed.

This is a matter of opinion though, but I think on the gameplay front Far Cry is head and shoulders above e.g. HL2 and Doom3, not much emphasis on the story, but long 20+h solid gameplay with stunning craphics at it's time. It raised the bar on the technical front if you ask me.

 

[dobwal]

If Crytek cant port over Crysis with graphics at least comparable to its Direct 9.0c version then I think that speaks to the limitation of the technical ability or the financial wisdom of Crytek as a company and not the technical limitation of the PS3 or 360.

Console Crysis doesn't have to be graphically equivalent to the DirectX 10 highend PC version just competitively equivalent to any 360 or PS3 game that is available at the time of release.

If Crytek can't produce a top quality console port then they don't deserve the reputation that the original author arrogantly bestows on them.

 

[NERO]

Aaaaaargh!! We're having this discussion again. At least the artistry versus corporation identity adds a new twist to the conversation. I agree with dobwal. The author's claim of Crytek losing credibility by down-porting to the current-gen consoles is madness. It will be done in some form as there is no reason to think they will lose money on these ventures. Besides, in a similar thread I though Crytek admitted into having dev-kits for all of the new current-gen systems.

 

[swaaye]

Well my not-so-top-of-the-line PC has many times the HDD storage space, 2 GB system RAM, and 256 MB dedicated video RAM. See the issue now?

The consoles are really, really low on RAM and storage space for swap. GoW has some pretty obvious constant mip-mapping/LOD going on to reduce memory usage. They'd also have to deal with optimizing the game for the goofy super-complex console CPUs. We all know how well that went for Quake4 and Prey.

 

[pakotlar]

Well my not-so-top-of-the-line PC has many times the HDD storage space, 2 GB system RAM, and 256 MB dedicated video RAM. See the issue now?

The consoles are really, really low on RAM and storage space for swap. GoW has some pretty obvious constant mip-mapping/LOD going on to reduce memory usage. They'd also have to deal with optimizing the game for the goofy super-complex console CPUs. We all know how well that went for Quake4 and Prey.

Quake4 was a crap port. Prey was marginally better, and apparently ran pretty well (roughly steady 30fps).

However, I guarantee you that GOW would not run on my pretty top end X1900XTX system @ 1280*720 at a completely steady 30fps. While X360 does lose out in terms of memory space and storage, it has wins in CPU department, graphics department (excluding 8800GTS/X), and developing on consoles has, and always will, be more efficient. They will be able to pull stuff out of that system that we will only see in years to come on PC at a cheapr price and on a faster timeframe.

Though this is a pointless argument, and OT. I'm sure that Crysis would work on consoles, though I doubt that a PC-centric game will EVER translate into as good a graphical experience as a console centric development.

 

[swaaye]

However, I guarantee you that GOW would not run on my pretty top end X1900XTX system @ 1280*720 at a completely steady 30fps. While X360 does lose out in terms of memory space and storage, it has wins in CPU department, graphics department (excluding 8800GTS/X), and developing on consoles has, and always will, be more efficient.

Your X1900XTX has insanely more memory bandwidth, more fillrate, more shader power, and an equal amount of local RAM to 360's entire supply. I bet it's more than a match for 360.

And I wouldn't place so much faith in 360's CPU being all-powerful. It is impressive for what it is, but it is a very cost-reduced piece of hardware with lots of complications that PC programmers simply don't have to deal with. Nevermind that multithreading is critical to it performing and multithreading is hardly proven or well-known for game programming.

GoW would most definitely run just fine on your system. Probably better than on 360.

 

[RancidLunchmeat]

I'm with Swaaye... Why is everybody else just disregarding these comments, when the ones about RAM seem especially valid to me.

What are the minimum specs for Crysis supposed to be? 1Gb system plus a 256MB of graphics memory.

That's the minimum specs. The recommended specs are 1.5Gb system plus the 256MB of graphics memory.

As opposed to the consoles which have only a total of 512MB? Isn't that huge difference in not only memory but bandwith something that is a legit concern?

In fact, I'd say that total memory and memory bandwith is going to be the bottleneck of this generation of consoles anyway, and with memory prices decreasing, VISTA, and bloat, you're going to see memory intensive PC games that are going to struggle mightly with an attempts at console ports.

 

[DuckThor Evil]

In fact, I'd say that total memory and memory bandwith is going to be the bottleneck of this generation of consoles anyway, and with memory prices decreasing, VISTA, and bloat, you're going to see memory intensive PC games that are going to struggle mightly with an attempts at console ports.

Memory is always the bottleneck on consoles, but after having seen what Xbox did with Doom3 and HL2 with 64MB 700mhz celeron and Geforce 3.5 I'm not too worried at the moment, I think the consoles will hold their own just fine for couple years, eventually the gap will become too big obviously, but hey not much point in worrying over that since it's just a fact of life. PC-ports are the ones that are going get problematic sooner than console exlusives, but honestly I'd say that most console gamers, even the X360 ones are more interested in games other than PC-ports and many top X360 games will be first on X360 and later on PC like Gears of War and most likely Halo 3 and countless others. I haven't actually counted, but I have the feeling that most big budget games nowadays are made for consoles and that trend seems to grow as we go on, so worrying about PC-ports is loosing it's meaning with every passing day.

 

[Fu3lFr3nzy]

Says who..? I highly doubt preserving IQ or graphics fidelity will play any part in whether or not crytek decide to port the game to consoles.. At the end of the day Crytek are a business which operates to generate money.. If they see a big enough market/demand for the title on next gen consoles then they will port it in some form (whether the game looks as good or not..).. Why in the hell do you think they ported Far Cry to the Wii..??

Crytek already stated that theyre very busy making Crysis for the PC as good as they can make it and once theyre done, they'll start thinking about other possibilities(which hints to Crysis for consoles)

And correction: Its not Crytek who ported the console versions of Far Cry, it was Ubisoft. Crytek sold the rights to Far Cry and it was Ubisoft who made the Far Cry games to xbox/x360/wii

 

[RancidLunchmeat]

Memory is always the bottleneck on consoles, but after having seen what Xbox did with Doom3 and HL2 with 64MB 700mhz celeron and Geforce 3.5 I'm not too worried at the moment, I think the consoles will hold their own just fine for couple years, eventually the gap will become too big obviously, but hey not much point in worrying over that since it's just a fact of life.

You're correct, obviously. I suppose I'm just still recovering from the pre-launch banter about how superior the consoles were compared to the PC market. At the time, I was under the impression that was one of the things that really hurt the PS3's late launch. The 360 actually was the most powerful gaming system on the market for a portion of it's lifespan. By the time the PS3 launched, the PC market has already caught up and surpassed the consoles in terms of raw horsepower, and the gap is only going to increase.

What you said is certainly true.. this is always the case. But this generation was supposed to be different! Doh!

As somebody with a decent gaming PC (at the time of its release) and an Xbox, the difference between the two versions of Doom III was immense. Sure, they did a fairly decent job making it look good on the Xbox, but only compared to other Xbox games.. not compared to the same game on a different platform.

So I take it, you're not buying into MS's push for 'Games for Windows' and all that jazz? Why is Crytek spending so much money on Crysis for the PC, if the biggest market is the console market?

 

[Nesh]

I'm with Swaaye... Why is everybody else just disregarding these comments, when the ones about RAM seem especially valid to me.

What are the minimum specs for Crysis supposed to be? 1Gb system plus a 256MB of graphics memory.

That's the minimum specs. The recommended specs are 1.5Gb system plus the 256MB of graphics memory.

As opposed to the consoles which have only a total of 512MB? Isn't that huge difference in not only memory but bandwith something that is a legit concern?

In fact, I'd say that total memory and memory bandwith is going to be the bottleneck of this generation of consoles anyway, and with memory prices decreasing, VISTA, and bloat, you're going to see memory intensive PC games that are going to struggle mightly with an attempts at console ports.

I dont think absolute numbers indicate to anything. Even games like Silent Hill3 need more main RAM, VRAM and CPU to run as well as on the PS2 on a PC. So probably the fact that consoles are closed boxes and devs spend time to optimise the game based on specific hardware specs unlike on PCs (on which they have to optimize the game to run on "countless" configurations) may actually indicate that the console versions may look very very good without the need of the same PC requirements

 

[Dave]

I would definitely like to see this one ported. It looks extremely impressive.

-Dave