Epic “Approaching the Upper End” of Xbox 360 Graphical Capabilities

Epic’s Gears of War 2 franchise senior producer Rod Fergusson has been chatting with Gamasutra about the technical capabilities of the Xbox 360 and he revealed some interesting information about the console’s technological potential.  He thinks that Epic is “approaching the upper end” when it comes to the console’s graphical capabilities.  However he added that “there’s room to grow” for titles shipping in a couple years - that is, those starting to be developed now.  His full statement was:

I mean, I’m not the technical guy… all I know is that with the two to three more years of optimization that we’ve had, we’re much further along than I think, three years ago, we thought we were going to get.

So I think we’re certainly approaching the upper end of it, as far as what developers are able to do with it, but just looking at all the demos we saw today — ours and others — it’s clear that all the games just keep improving, and keep pushing that bar.

I think it’s just a matter of, you know, it’s a slow cycle; you only get a kick at it every couple years, and so it takes a while for people to see that progress.

There will be games in development that won’t ship until 2010, and I’m sure they’ll look killer, just because, again, they’ll have more time with it, and learn from mistakes and optimizations of others. So, I don’t know; I think we’re getting up there, but I still think there’s room to grow.

So Epic is reaching the roof of Xbox 360’s technical abilities, but does that necessarily mean other developers are as well?  Epic is one of the best developers of graphically intensive games (Gears of War) with their impressive Unreal Engine 3.  However, other developers who are less focused on graphics may not be close to the Xbox 360’s potential yet.

Another interesting point to make of this is that Epic points out 2010 specifically.  This gives more steam to the rumor that the next console cycle will be releasing in 2010 or 2011.

[via Interview with Gamasutra]