Epic CEO: iPad 3 Approaching PS3 Levels Of Performance, Profit Differences Between Infinity Blade And Gears Of War

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Yw3hRF0A4eM

Tim Sweeney, at GDC Taipei, has talked at length about his company Epic and how he feels the future of gaming is heading. The CEO started by reaffirming that they are “dedicated to console” and that they “develop the kinds of games [they] want to play – big games with guns and chainsaws.”

He discussed at length the latest Unreal Engine (which you can read more about at the link below) but soon moved onto technology convergence and, in particular, the publishing efforts that resulted in the Infinity Blade series on iPad.

“The most profitable game we’ve ever made,” he said, “in terms of man years invested versus revenue, is actually Infinity Blade. It’s more profitable than Gears of War.”

“Nowadays the high end of the game business is in these console game,” he said. “Activision invests almost $100 million per year in Call of Duty.” Gamasutra quotes Sweeney as saying Epic have been “very very surprised to see how fast smartphone and tablet devices are improving” and says that the iPad 3 is approaching PS3 and Xbox 360 levels of performance.

He firmly believes the market and business models will be changing soon too.

“North American and European developers are far, far behind the state of the art Asian business models,” he said. “We’ve been building these games like Gears of War where you go into the store and you buy a piece of plastic! You just buy this DVD. That is going to change rapidly.”

It’s well worth a read.

Source: GamaSutra.