Crytek expects 'pushing the high-end PC' will pay off

The high-end PC gaming market isn't what it used to be, but Crysis developer Crytek told Gamasutra at GDC last week that its bleeding edge tech will trickle down to emerging mobile and browser platforms. Carl Jones, director of global business development at the Frankfurt, Germany-based studio, said the company's CryEngine game development middleware will be the foundation for diversifying Crytek's business -- and PC is at the center of that strategy. "Right now [CryEngine's evolution] is about DirectX 11 and high-end PC, because the new PC architecture that's out there right now gives us a whole lot more to play with. And we think the benefits of building that stuff will apply to future platforms, even as we move into the tablet and mobile space." "The high-end GPU with a really powerful processor is going to become more ubiquitous as an architecture, and that's something we want to push with the PC market that's out there. And we hope that filters through other platforms in the future. So that's one strategy -- keep pushing the high-end." Since its founding in 1999, the studio has been an ardent supporter of the PC as a gaming platform. But in the last several years, the console market became too big too ignore. Crytek had to diversify. Now Crytek's first-person shooters Crysis and Crysis 2 are on PC and console, and the studio readying to release its first tablet game -- the colorful and non-face-shooting puzzler Fibble. The company also has the online free-to-play client server game Warface in the works, and is developing CryEngine for browsers. "It's always difficult to say when it'll be done," said Jones about the commercial release of CryEngine for web browsers, "because we like to finish things when they're quality-finished, not time-finished. So I don't know [when it will come out]. I would hope towards the end of this year, people can start seeing browser-based CryEngine games, but we'll see. There are other things that will have to happen first." Gamasutra will have more from Jones on Monday.