Id's Nix: Id Tech 5 Not Using 'Stepchild Platform' Approach

Author: by Staff

Talking in a new, in-depth Gamasutra interview, id's director of business development Steve Nix has been discussing the id Tech 5 engine's unified technology approach, commenting pointedly on the "stepchild platform" approach taken by other tech such as Epic's Unreal Engine 3. When asked about eliminating the concept of a lead platform with a more unified, multi-platform approach to an engine, Nix, who formerly headed up Ritual Entertainment, commented: "I think the lead SKU in development, you pick a platform or another, and [that] might be mirrored mainly what you're doing your testing on. We are trying to ensure that more people in the studio are working across different platforms simultaneously." He continued pointedly: "We don't have the sort of stepchild platform that's going to be a year behind that you're going to try to pack it onto after the fact. We think about the game and all of the platforms which is what this technology allows you to do." When specifically asked about competition from Epic's Unreal Engine 3, currently the leading next-gen engine, Nix suggested: "Epic has a lot of licensees, no doubt. I'm not familiar with what they're talking to their current licensees about or their road map or anything, but what I can say is that with id Tech 5 that we have a solution that runs extremely well on the platforms today. It runs at a high framerate and it's not really a bifurcated technology approach." He added: "Ninety percent of the code runs the exact same in all the platforms. If you put an asset into the game once, it's the exact same asset across all the platforms." The full Gamasutra interview on the subject features id co-owner Kevin Cloud and biz dev director Nix, also covering the future of PC gaming, DS and mobile efforts, and much more.