The Xbox 360 approaches its sixth birthday in the coming months, so naturally gamers and developers alike are starting to look to the future of consoles. Microsoft haven’t been forthcoming in outlining what they have up their sleeves to suceed the 360, but rumours are already bubbling up about its existence.
However, Epic’s lead designer Cliff Bleszinski has said that Epic and other game developers can push the power of the 360 even further.
“With creative programming you can squeeze anything out of any given platform,” Cliffy said, speaking to Edge. “Go back to the demo scene where these guys would take a 286 PC and in 38k make a demo that rivalled the most triple-A game of the time.”
“It’s just a matter of code magic, time and effort,” he added. “I don’t know how much longer the 360 will be around, but I’m sure that if we have a product coming out before the end of [its] lifecycle we’ll continue to try and squeeze more water from that stone.”
“We’re now at at the point where it’s not learning how to use the hardware, it’s learning to trick the hardware into doing what you want it to do. The first thing I was ecstatic about was the new lighting…we’re at the point where an artist can just let the lighting breathe, a nice brick wall can just be a nice brick wall; it doesn’t need 8000 pipes layered on it.”
Good news for thrifty gamers then. It seems that the Xbox 360, and the other consoles, might have some life left in them still. The next generation of home consoles will kick off with the release of the Wii U, expected late next year, while Sony and Microsoft haven’t said anything about their forthcoming new consoles.
Source: EDGE
