Vulcan Software News
20th May 2000
Our Future Is Not So Black & White
I was surprised, no dumbfounded, to read Peter Molyneux's latest
statement in MCV where he clearly stated that Black & White would be his
last PC focussed project in favour for console technology.
Obviously he has a perfect right to choose his own future direction but
such a bold statement in such an ever changing industry gives me the
impression that his latest projects 'title' has influenced many aspects
of intelligent thinking and logic. Life, evolution and developing is
certainly not Black & White.
Yes we are all excited about the future consoles (mainly PS2 and Xbox),
yes it would be crazy not to look at them as viable development
platforms and yes they propose a certain element of creative freedom in
technological advancements but hold on, a console has an advanced
hardware life of a fruit fly! The minute it is designed, manufactured
and distributed the hardware is suddenly out of date.
To quote Peter, "consoles are so powerful and you can do some incredible
stuff on them", this simply floored me, how can a 'supposed'
revolutionary figurehead for the development industry base his creative
future on that!
Lets look at the Xbox, it's coming from the PC, it's using SDK's that
have matured from PC development, it's using PC hardware that has grown
and developed from PC architecture, Xbox can simply be classed as taking
a moment of time (in hardware/software evolution) and freezing it in a
sleaky box with a massive marketing budget. Now compare this so called (and quoted) 'power' to the efforts of
processor and 3d hardware companies such as Intel, 3dfx and Matrox and
within a few weeks of Xbox launch the PC is throwing out twice as many
polygons at twice the speed at twice the resolution!
I know Peter is well respected within the industry due to his past
creative developments and I'm sure Black & White is going to be everything it's
promised to be, but I'm always amazed at the level of publicity his
statements receive when they seem to based purely on the 'limelight
factor' or for the 'make me an offer' factor.
By all means, develop and exploit the consoles, but to place your
development future on a frozen technology and to completely rule out the
most adaptive and progressive platform in the world seems naive.
Live Long & Prosper!
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