While the qualities of what separates a good game from a great one are up for debate, Valve president Gabe Newell feels that due to the increased reliance on multicore architectures, studios with programmers that go above and beyond to push the technical envelope — like Crytek, id, and of course Valve — will enjoy an even greater advantage over the competition than they currently do.

Speaking in an interview with PC Gamer UK, Newell shared his thoughts on what constitutes the gap:

Well, we think we do, yeah. But a good programmer could create an engine to take one of these architectures, and a great programmer could come in and do the same kinds of things and do them ten times faster on the same kind of hardware. In other words, it’s a non-linear return. And you just don’t see that today. Nobody walks in onto an Xbox or a PS3 team and can make something that runs ten times the amount of content on the screen. But in these emerging generations, that will definitely be the case.

In essence, what Newell is saying is that the next crop of platforms will allow for much, much more overhead. But leveraging the tech to its fullest will be largely up to the skill of the programmer. That’s already true now, but if what Newell says is any indication, it’s a trend that will become more readily apparent going forward.

Interesting commentary, to say the least. Perhaps this is why Valve finally decide to embrace the Cell-powered, multi-core behemoth that is the PS3?

Gabe Newell: next-gen game engines will be ten times harder [PC Gamer]

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