Next-gen consoles can’t beat PC: Crytek

Crytek boss Cevat Yerli has been restricted in what he can say about next-gen consoles due to Sony and Microsoft’s non-disclosure agreements, but the CEO did say that it’s impossible for consoles to match PCs.

“Without breaking NDAs that are in place, realistically, from purely a price point perspective, it is impossible,” said Yerli.

“If you predict how hardware evolves at the current speed of evolution, and then take consumer pricing evolution, already two years ago you could see, whatever launches in 2013 or 2014 or 2015, will never beat a PC again,” added Yerli.

Yerli explained that pricing is one of the reasons that console will never catch up with PCs, as mass-produced consumer consoles need to be relatively affordable.

“It’s impossible to package $2,000-3,000 into a mainstream, let’s say $500 console. I’m not saying they are $500 consoles. They may launch a console at $2,000, but the consumer pricing is usually much lower than that.”

“So, given consumer pricing, and given the cost of production of a gamer PC and the amount of watt of power it needs, which is like a fridge, it’s impossible,” said Yerli.

Cevat Yerli

Yerli also puts the console makers at a disadvantage, given the constant evolution of PC gaming.

“If you look at PC gaming, that has changed also,” he said. “The whole modular way you can design a PC today, with two, three or four graphics cards in them, and you can water cool them and overclock to infinity, that didn’t exist even six or seven years ago. You just bought one or maybe two graphics cards and then you were super enthusiastic.”

“It’s very difficult to compete with that. People have these massive nuclear power plants standing in their rooms that will run your games really fast. It’s hard to compete with.”

Yerli added that Crysis 3 will push PCs as the gaming community wants to see.

“I made a joke at one point saying, ‘We’re going to melt PCs,’ and I think we are going to melt PCs again. People want that, and we’ll deliver that.”