Crytek devs say new consoles are too weak for Crysis

[Steve]

With all of the hype about next-gen console and their graphical prowess, soothsayers have been proclaiming the doom of the PC Games industry (again). Well, let's just put that to bed right now - Crysis will not be a console title. Why? Crytek says the next-gen consoles are simply "too weak" to run the game.

Senior Game Developer Bernd Diemer dropped this little tidbit as he spoke at the Leipzig Game Convention. The limitation isn't in how many computations that a console can do, or in its graphics chip, but how the API and optimisations are written for consoles (and then not updated again). Apparently, the optimisations written into DirectX 10 make such a difference that Crytek feels that there is no sense in writing for the non-upgradeable consoles, which are behind a generation in API despite being ahead in raw power.

Though the game will support DX9 and DX10, Mr. Diemer says that DX10 will be the way the game was meant to be played. The optimisations for DX10 allow more objects on-screen and higher quality effects, all while requiring less out of the hardware than DX9 does currently. This certainly must be some refreshing news for Microsoft, with Vista's launch looming in January. The upgrade to DX10 will pull a lot of gamers to the new system sooner than later, but only if it were to really offer something that could not be seen with DX9.