Hardware constraints breed software efficiency
October 1, 2008
During a London event pimping the upcoming military/monster/undead bloodbath game Gears of War 2, developer Rod Fergusson from Epic made a remark about the Xbox 360 having reached its graphical limit. Some thought he meant that nothing else could be done with the platform, but what he was really referring to (as clarified later by Epic colleague Cliff Bleszinski) was that developers had to find creative new ways of taking advantage of what the 360 provides, because they’re not going to get any more processing power or memory. Bleszinski cited the Super Nintendo’s life cycle, during which game graphics continually improved despite a series of apparent plateaus.
The point is that a fixed platform, like the Super Nintendo, Xbox 360, and every other console, forces developers to work within their hardware restrictions with no expectation of any flexibility or improvement. While this may be obvious, the contrast between development for game platforms and PCs makes for some interesting observations.
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