creating inhouse engine is as smart as creating an inhouse console to run your game on

Yeah, I mean how silly to imagine a couple of guys in a shed building their own computer system…

yeah not living 40 years in the past does that a lot

Which is why you see companies doing it. The main thing with The Witcher, for example, has been the storyline, lore, etc. The actual gameplay mechanics always seem to be the biggest points of criticism for the series, yet it sells really well. By using UE they can still do that and maybe get new mechanics. Meanwhile, they're not trying to deal with the CP2077 monstrosity.

A company like SE, however, has alot of different games with similar gameplay styles, so making all their newer games on the Final Fantasy 15 engine makes alot of sense (and the story of it's creation involves alot of lies inside the company that Tabata not only fixed but took the blame for). Capcom's in a similar boat with RE and Monster Hunter (big creatures on uneven terrain).

Back to a company like CDPR: they're not popping out multiple games at the same frequency. We have 4 main games and a couple spinoffs, and they've been around for a while. It's just not viable for them, because they'd be retooling their engine with the next game they make.
Making your own console is indeed pretty practical at this point. The problem is, you'll rely on open source projects to have games on it. That said, it's a bit of a thing right now, believe it or not.

I thought Apple was still going? But if you want more modern versions just look on kickstarter or somewhere like that. It’s was companies like GPD and Aya Neo which game steam their ideas for a handheld. The moment innovation and development really stops is when something becomes big and mainstream.

Spike what I meant in my second comment was why can't these other companies pool their money together and create an Engine comparable to Unreal? I can't believe it wouldn't be cheaper than paying the King's Ransom that is the Unreal Engine.

That's a nice thought, but I think pursuing a proprietary engine in this way would probably suffer from the "too many cooks" effect because each company involved would want their own specific customizations which may or may not be compatible with everyone else's customizations. There would also be the messy logistics of who develops/supports what parts of the project. So I think that the end result of such an effort would be that all parties involved would either splinter the project into their own custom engines or abandon the project entirely.

With that said, this idea would maybe have a greater chance of succeeding if a nonprofit was created/funded by a group of AAA gaming companies with the goal of creating a completely open-source engine that could be customized by individual game dev teams. There may not be enough of a return on investment though which may make getting people onboard a bit challenging.

Yep, there seem to be hundreds of startups making retro consoles, handhelds, and arcade boxes. Using cheaper tech like rasberry pi’s, and putting on emulators and roms (legally or not?). It’s all the rage. Chuck on a free os like Linux (or even android) and off you go.

The latter was especially more what I was thinking and I can't imagine the cost would be worse then Epic's fleecing when devs. use the UE.

Maybe Unreal Tournament 3 will finally come to GOG?

All this hand-wringing over a game developer choosing one game engine over another. *rolls eyes hard*

Or they could go electric, like a lot of people are doing nowadays...
*Catches them, and rolls them back...*

You know as well as he rest of us, all of these types of decisions has connations and ramifications. If it was simply the tech then that has implications on hardware requirements and modding for example. But also you need to look at the company they are making the deals with and their associates. It’s really not as simple as it sounds.

As we've learned recently, people like to bitch.

Also, the money isn't just for use of UE5 (a free version IS available), but they also provide support for use of the engine. For a professional developer like CDP, that's probably a huge deal.

Did you actually really READ my comment?! A fee would be one thing but paying royalties on top. Ffs that royalty could make the cost as much as you'd pay Sony, or MS on a console royalty(if you're not using UE in addition).