Author:
Simulacrum
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Date:
11/14/2017 6:37:21 AM
Subject:
Necro, regarding Project Offset
Here's what I got from the video:
1. Three guys attempted to start a game studio based on an ambitious idea.
2. They made (or contracted out) lots of cinematics and made lots of promises/noise about 32-player mp, amazing AI, etc. -- the usual promises that never appear in anyone's released products.
3. They made interesting tech demos and spent a bunch of time updating their website, looking for publishers, and so on.
4. Intel gave them a chance to make a game that would sell their (Intel's) drawing-board graphics thing. This means that they had to start over.
5. Very likely, Intel's graphics thing got stuck in development. Very likely Project Offset got stuck, too.
6. Even more likely, Intel realized that market timing and the momentum of Skyrim spelled doom for such a massive undertaking. They were competing against two things: (a) a guaranteed Bethesda mega-success and (b) the mega--success being targeted for the Xbawx.
7. Quite probably, the realized that they were throwing their money down a rathole because neither the graphics thing nor the game would be ready in time to survive -- let alone compete with -- the Bethesda/Xbox tsunami.
8. Even if Intel looked past Skyrim, I don't think the game had as much to do with the cancellation of Offset as the roadmap everyone could clearly see -- that nothing the PC could offer would ever regain the runaway market share co-opted by consoles. It was too late to compete in that theater.
So, in the end, it wasn't Bethesda colluding with anyone. It was the inevitable direction gaming was taking. Also, even though Intel might originally have wanted to compete with Nvidia and AMD, they realized that the struggle wasn't worth it. If the PC had been the dominant platform, maybe they would have stuck it out, but a child could see the outcome with consoles. They would have been competing with Microsoft, who didn't have to fool with a new technology and an absurdly over-designed game whose development time would have been on a par with Duke Nukem Forever (more likely the game would have been whittled down to something with a third of its proposed features).
Thus, Intel sensibly canceled the graphics thing and Offset. The real reason was Microsoft and its habit of cramming a flagship product down everyone's throats.
