Skyrim is very playable on my Core 2 Duo with 9600GT at medium details, and this is at a much higher resolution (1680 x 1050) than say, the iPhone 4S screen. The iPhone 4S hardware is already not that far behind vs my PC, and I expect the next revision or two to improve things more. The combat is also very simple, and if you look at games like Aralon it is not that far behind in combat mechanics and UI. Because of the general slower pace of the game it suits touch screens more than say, Modern Combat 3 (which is seriously an amazing rendition of Modern Warfare 3 for iOS, props to Gameloft for pulling this off so soon!) as it does not require a high level of precision. PC hardware hasn't been moving forward much unless you are looking to run games at max resolution / details, while smart phone hardware is moving forward at breakneck speed. I think once smart phones reach Core 2 Duo levels, we will have all the firepower we need. Skyrim has like a gazillion pieces of little objects like cups, candles, utensils etc, a lot of this stuff can be eliminated for a mobile version. Graphics/drawing distance can also be toned down significantly and still look amazing because the screen is smaller than PC/Console. While iPhone doesn't have the same memory of a PC, it is got flash storage, so the loading time is significantly quicker than PC. The world can be divided into smaller regions and we will be all set! Dungeons can be made smaller as well to compensate. Think Capcom's Street Fighter 4 to Street Fighter Volt on iPhone, now think Skyrim made mobile friendly, it is definitely possible! Of course, the real challenge is whether Bethesda is willing to make such a heavy investment. I think they may very well try with older games like Morrowind to test the market. They will probably also wait to see if Rockstar's GTA 3 performs well. I am already amazed with Aralon by the way, I definitely think Skyrim is within reach! To think Aralon runs on the 3GS! In two years 4S will be baseline and things will get very interesting! Airplay to big screen TV with your phone as controller!
Maybe in 5 years, but I can't really see this happening in 2 years. As great as Aralon is, it's still a far cry from Skyrim.
I doubt that Skyrim would be available in 2 years, I just don't think technology is gonna progress that fast, maybe in 3-4. I also think comparing Aralon to Skyrim is a bit of a far shot, don't want to put Aralon down or anything, but its pretty far from Skyrim, that and you really can't compare the combat in the two as they are pretty different (Aralon is kinda like standard mmorpg combat except for the blocking/parrying thing, while Skyrim's combat is a lot more like a shooters combat (fps/tps) with melee thrown in).
Keep in mind Aralon works on 3GS and was in development in 2010. In 2009, if I showed you Aralon and said this is what you will be playing on your phone in two years, would you believe me? Of course I am not saying you will get a 100% port of Skyrim, but it really doesn't have to! If the minimum system requirement is 4S, not 3GS, I believe we will be very close!
I realize that I know your not saying a full Skyrim port of course. I'm just saying there combat is quite different, and still I don't believe we'll get it for at least the next three years, but I could be very wrong, and would be happy to be wrong about that.
I'll have whatever the OP is smoking. Main reason: battery life. What's the point of having the graphics of Skyrim when it'll kill your battery within an hour? Even with the efficiency that some of the new quadcores are supposed to have, it's still not going to help much if battery life isn't increased. iOS users are beginning to see some of the problems that Android has, when you have a lot of features all on at the same time. This will only get worse as even more new and improved features get added. I'll be very happy to eat my words, but it remains to be seen how this will go. HTC will have the first quadcore phone out sometime early next year and we'll see exactly how long the battery lasts. I'd much rather see a game like Skyrim as a tablet only game. I don't depend on my Toshiba Thrive for phone calls, texts and whatnot, but I do with my phone. This is only my opinion, but whether it's iOS, Android, or Windows, manufacturers are going to have to do something about battery life-it's the only thing that hasn't advanced in tech as smartphones have.
I say two or maybe three years, mobile gaming is moving at a rapid pace, i mean seriously have you seen shadowgun on TEGRA 3 for android? Absolutely amazing, just imagine what the a6 and a7 have to offer in the years to come, and thats just CPU i believe. Wait til iOS and android devices get a GPU like the ps vita or better.
I'd say at least 3 years. Unless Apple/Samsung/Nokia/HTC or any other company do a smartphone the size of Galaxy Note, make it fast as frickin lightning and Skyrim goes available on Onlive, I don't see it happening before at least that 3 year. Of course a smaller port of Skyrim would be possible even now!
It's not really a problem of technology but rather the way the appstore is built around short dev cycle and low budget. I know it's not the case for every game but until someone has the guts to do a full "premium" title priced around 40$, there's no way that a game will have the same breadth of content as Skyrim for 2 or 3 bucks. When you factor in the cost , it would be a huge gamble to release it for a price like that. We really need a change of mindset from gamers and devs but with the arrival of freemium as of late, isn't it too late? And would a premium, console like title, priced at 40$ really sell?
I agree with both of these posts! For LOLavi, I agree that the technology won't be there for another 3 or so years. General users are definitely pushing technology at a higher pace than manufacturers nowadays, or at least it seems that way. For example, a lot of people think that the iPad 3 will have retina display, but analysts, reviewers, and myself lean completely in the opposite direction. As far as killercow's post, the AppStore needs a serious revamp in premium category. Plenty of developers won't make $10-20 premium games when people express that they are happy with a freemium model. Look at Six Guns, people are overly joyed to have a mediocre game running on their device just because it didn't cost them a dime. But I bet a lot of those same people will eventually pay for an IAP; maybe, maybe not. In addition to these posts, I guess you should just look at the evolution of gaming. The latest generation of console games have been out for 6 years and still have better graphics than mobile devices which get updated every year. Even though mobile devices are getting updated at a staggering rate, I think the next gen of consoles will still have them beat until the 4th gen consoles come out. We may get a mobile game that looks like Skyrim in the next 4 years on, but what will a game for the PS4 and Xbox 720 look like at the same time? Polygon count and textures won't be catching up to consoles for a very long while IMO. Hell, at this moment, Naughty Dog has said that they won't/can't make an Uncharted 4 for the PS3. To get back to PCs, computers get upgraded every year. Maybe, the specs for the average user don't change drastically, but high-end gaming computers are on a different spectrum. However, these are the computers that most people can't afford or aren't willing to pay for. PCs also offer 60+ FPS, more customization and tweaks, up to 2500x1620 resolution, higher multiplayer count, better antialiasing due to customization. PCs will also always offer enough resources for anisotropic filtering! In all honesty, being on TA has helped me REALLY realize that you can't compare the 3. What you can say is one will catch up to the other, but then the other will push ahead to something better. If anything, we will just hit the point where the naked eye can't notice any of these things and none of this talk will matter. You can decide to play one of the three platforms, all three, or some sort of official gaming hub that ties them together.
Ps2 games can already run. Ex rayman/ prince of Persia. PREDICTION : 2 years until skyrim works properly on a pc/ console. After they spend the next 2 years figuring out the bugs.
Repost for people, like myself, who don't like to read the 1st page Kinda hoping someone will really expand because this seems to be a hot topic for discussion lately. I've already talked about this in 3 threads so far (to an extent). I agree with both of these posts! For LOLavi, I agree that the technology won't be there for another 3 or so years. General users are definitely pushing technology at a higher pace than manufacturers nowadays, or at least it seems that way. For example, a lot of people think that the iPad 3 will have retina display, but analysts, reviewers, and myself lean completely in the opposite direction. As far as killercow's post, the AppStore needs a serious revamp in premium category. Plenty of developers won't make $10-20 premium games when people express that they are happy with a freemium model. Look at Six Guns, people are overly joyed to have a mediocre game running on their device just because it didn't cost them a dime. But I bet a lot of those same people will eventually pay for an IAP; maybe, maybe not. In addition to these posts, I guess you should just look at the evolution of gaming. The latest generation of console games have been out for 6 years and still have better graphics than mobile devices which get updated every year. Even though mobile devices are getting updated at a staggering rate, I think the next gen of consoles will still have them beat until the 4th gen consoles come out. We may get a mobile game that looks like Skyrim in the next 4 years on, but what will a game for the PS4 and Xbox 720 look like at the same time? Polygon count and textures won't be catching up to consoles for a very long while IMO. Hell, at this moment, Naughty Dog has said that they won't/can't make an Uncharted 4 for the PS3. To get back to PCs, computers get upgraded every year. Maybe, the specs for the average user don't change drastically, but high-end gaming computers are on a different spectrum. However, these are the computers that most people can't afford or aren't willing to pay for. PCs also offer 60+ FPS, more customization and tweaks, up to 2500x1620 resolution, higher multiplayer count, better antialiasing due to customization. PCs will also always offer enough resources for anisotropic filtering! In all honesty, being on TA has helped me REALLY realize that you can't compare the 3. What you can say is one will catch up to the other, but then the other will push ahead to something better. If anything, we will just hit the point where the naked eye can't notice any of these things and none of this talk will matter. You can decide to play one of the three platforms, all three, or some sort of official gaming hub that ties them together.
I dont see Skyrim stuff coming to mobile. First off, Bethesda is bad at optimization on GOOD hardware, to be quite honest. Secondly, the devices we have in our hands seem very powerful, but in reality arent as strong as you may think they are. A dual core 1 ghz processor is really awful, and mobile GPUs arent very good currently. The factor that keeps everything chugging is that RAM is inexpensive and people are cramming chunks of it into mobile devices. Once this stuff is available it will be cost prohibitive more than likely too...and a game like skyrim costs lots of money to make...and people on the appstore arent very willing to pay very premium prices, but they would if they DID have a console experience.
Well, first of all the Ipad 3 seems to be really Retina display now. With all the rumors from the assembly line I think it's looking to be real. Though it raises further questions (fragmentation of apps, gpu needed, how will iphone games run?) there won't be any answer to that until next year. Consoles, while limited, will always evolve but i think it's really important to step back and look at the changes we've seen in mobile devices. From smartphone games that nobody used to mass consumption of apps nowadays. This mutation was brought in a short period and changed a lot the market even for Nintendo and Sony. Of course consoles will always be ahead and as I'be said before it's partially because of the way the appstore is built but that's also a strengh. It's a unique ecosystem that produces games cheaper than anywhere else but that can also be really fun. There's no shortage of ideas and uses of the touchscreen and both really impressive title like MC3 can coexist with super casual titles like Angry Birds. But with the Ipad 3 that could go higher than 1920 in terms of resolution, the market will be an interesting one to follow next year (If it really is retina enabled). With the freemium market growing from day to day, 2012 will be one of ios' most important year to define itself against the 3ds with super first party titles and the vita.
Alright, bear with me; posting at 2 in the morning and tired. Yeah, I just checked out everything for the iPad 3 and seems as if it will be sporting a higher resolution screen (presumably retina display). That just goes to show how fast things in the mobile news change. Just a few weeks ago it was pretty skeptical. It also seems as if their will be a new Samsung tablet introduced that sports a "retina display". Personally, I don't care if the display for tablets get better or not, as I don't see any purpose for them (cool? sure). I will be getting an iPad for review purposes only. For everyone else, I guess it's pretty great news. I definitely agree that mobile gaming (not just iOS) will definitely need to define itself next year. Will we lay waste to a freemium onslaught or will we start to see more premium games that compete head to head with the DS and PS Vita. Right now iOS' biggest competition is other mobile devices. This is something I'd rather discuss rested though. As far as technical prowess, I think anyone betting on iOS to catch up with console/PC (especially in the near future) is sadly mistaken.
Oh come on you have to let it go ! The games you dislike/like doesnt mean everyone else will feel the same way OR they're wrong if they disagree with you. Being at toucharcade for nearly a year i'm surprised how many different games people like, some i see and think that looks terrible, cue 40 'i love this game' comments later (And not shill posters) and often i'll change my mind and try it or basically think 'each to their own'. Some games on iOS i love a huge back story, other games i love going in and having a quick 5 minute blast and coming back to it a few days later, thats whats so great about iOS. I can be playing a fruit machine one minute, then playing a classic platform game, a revamped arcade game or a vector shoot em up, then over to a huge deep RPG. Just love the variety I dont mind Six Guns, it needs work but its not this huge great evil thing. Quite happy to dip into that and have a quick go, a few missions here and there and come back to it later. You might think its mediocre , a few others might on the thread but you have to realise its not gospel and you need to stop having digs at anyone who does like it. And anyway, i still cant believe you havent tried Order & Chaos so make sure you have a go of that ! Yes theres a lot of dross at the App Store but i hope they dont ever go to a 'premier' pricing plan. One reason i love iOS are the ridiculously cheap prices, you get amazing quality for 69p games (or even free ones or in some cases freemium). I would like to get Chrono Trigger but it seems an expensive price for just basically a SNES game slightly revamped for iOS. Dont understand that price, if they cut the price in half i bet they'll get tons more sales. But i actually like wading through the crazy App store trying to find some 'hidden gems' or using websites to find a few games i havent tried before. Reminds me of an old record shop where you're sifting through tons of records trying to find a classic or two. But again i love the variety, some games are a quick 5 minute play, others you want to play for hours. Some are 'mobile phone-esque' games, others not. But i hope they dont 'sell out' and start having premier priced games as everyone will want that then. I think iOS has been a huge hit over Wii/PSP because of the crazy low prices, theyre so low people will probably buy more than they usually would. Up all game prices to £10 and sales will obviously be lower. But i still do laugh when people moan about a game at 69p which only has 50 levels or so
I don't believe freemium games like Six Guns or even Bullet Time have a future. Those games are in no-man's land IMO, not good enough to be stand alone games despite relatively high production values, not casual enough to compete with time based games like Crime City, Modern Wars, Battle Nations, or even Sega's Kingdom Conquest (amazing game by the way, despite dated UI/graphics, would love to see an updated version by another developer, someone let me know if there is a good time based conquest game with good combat). You see grinding for gear is extremely tedious when the mission type is very repetitive. At least with time based games I log on, set things up, the game will grind it for me for the next 6/8/12 hours. Games with low quality, repetitive missions and force you to grind same missions many times for gear to do higher difficulty missions just doesn't have staying power. Glu is the best at milking these with Contract Killers + Blood & Glory, but even they can not compete with Funzio in actual profit for freemium games. The key is to create a progression path so even people who don't spend money can feel they are making good progress, and hang enough low $$$, unique advantage items in front of them. I have IAP disabled in my phone but even then I almost bought something in Crime City because it was so good and so cheap. I believe Gameloft will look at the top grossing charts and realize they wasted a ton of resources on Six Guns and came up with a half baked game at high production value with very poor revenue. Their Modern Combat 3 was a much bigger financial success and they will realize quality > quantity (think Apple vs Android device makers in profit making!). Their strength is a quality stand alone game with full IAP on top of it for people who are impatient. Infinity Blade 2 has took #1 grossing spot since release because of this formula, despite of the $6 price. The game already fell off #1 downloaded paid app but because of IAP, it has tremendous staying power at #1 grossing (the chart that matters to Chair). In fact, for a while they had both 1 and 2 on top 25 grossing, absolutely insane profit! Chrono Trigger is also doing amazingly well for a $9.99 game that is very dated (only matters to those of us who played the original) and ported very poorly. I believe GTA 3 will be a HUGE success and challenge Infinity Blade 2 for top grossing spot. I just hope Rockstar added mobile friendly improvements like "start mission instantly" instead of "let's drive there every time even after you failed". A quality mobile port is key, developers really need to optimize for the platform! It wasn't that long ago when playing FPS on a console was laughed at by PC gamers (I still suck badly at shooters with Xbox controllers). It just takes time for touch screen to be optimized and players to adapt to it. Once big name companies realize they can do port of classic games and make good money, more modern titles will follow. I believe Skyrim is very possible even today as a simplified port (think Dead Space iOS vs Dead Space console). I mean as a mobile game, we really, really don't need a 150 hour title. A 20 hour Skyrim done Dead Space style is the sweet spot and would be a great first attempt. Graphics / viewing distance / number of enemies on screen can also be greatly reduced on a smaller screen to look good. I mean Infinity Blade looks 100% console quality on iPhone 4S but I am sure once you put on a 24" monitor it is not that great anymore.
@psj3809 Haha yeah! I have been going at it pretty hard. I actually find myself agreeing with bulk of your post. Such as the variety in games: having one game that you can play for hours or having one that you can play for 5 minutes. The only thing with that is Gameloft's games haven't been worth the 5 minutes; that's my big issue. You would've never heard me destroy NOVA, Star Battalion, the first two DHs, or MC like this. I know I have my own PERSONAL opinion, but people in the SG thread wanted to give the game a shot because it was free only to find themselves dissapointed later on (it's the same thing I see with iPhone, but that's a whole 'nother conversation). Also, I read a bunch of the reviews and there seemed to be a trend of this game is good for free (which sends me the signal that if it was premium you'd probably be dissapointed). I guess we'll just have to see what comes to fruition next year. Yeah, I really do need to check out Order & Chaos, but World of Midgard has slightly been holding me back. You, for sure, need to get that when it comes out. We'll start an alliance or something. I'm doing beta in January and I'm pretty sure the game is supposed to be out by the end of the first quarter.
2 years? I think that the development time to produce a Skyrim-level game might itself meet or exceed a two-year time frame. And to start the development of such a game they'll need the advanced hardware that could make it possible to already be at their disposal when they begin the design and programming stage. It will be awhile for the hardware advances to reach the necessary capacity for such a game, and then you still need time to complete the development for a massive game. 2 years is EXTREMELY optimistic. (Not to mention that the next generation consoles may actually be available within that time-frame, snd at that point - anticipating the leap in terms of console system power - Skyrim may be rendered obsolete.)
