Consistency is one of those characteristic beloved of figures of authority such as parents and teachers. Apparently, it's also something that middleware companies like, despite the fact that fragmentation is one of the issues they're paid to deal with.
Nonetheless, consistency was the charge made during an interview with Gizmodo discussing Epic Games' approach to releasing games on Android.
According to its tech guru and founder Tim Sweeney, Google's platform fails because Epic looks to deliver a largely identical experience from one handset to another an approach Android simply can't deliver.
Consistent view
"When a consumer gets the phone and they wanna play a game that uses our technology, it's got to be a consistent experience, and we can't guarantee that [on Android]," Sweeney said in the interview.
"That's what held us off of Android."
Sweeney's view is, Google gives operators and manufacturers far too much of a hand in the OS, allowing its performance to differ from one handset to the next.
"Google needs to be a little more evil," he claimed, adding "they need to be far more controlling."
Carrier crap
He went on, "If you took the underlying [Sony] NGP hardware and shipped Android on it, you'd find far, far less performance on Android.
"Let's say you took an NGP phone and made four versions of it. Each one would give you a different amount of memory and performance based on the crap [the carriers] put on their phone."
However, given Honeycomb Google's version of Android designed specifically for tablets hasn't been released to third parties in the same way as previous iterations of the OS, there's a chance the big screen version of the platform might deliver the kind of consistent experience Epic craves.
Nevertheless, for the moment, Epic is happy to remain Apple's bedfellow. As well as delivering a steadier platform, Sweeney also attests that iOS remains "the best place to make money".
However, Epic does support Android within Unreal Engine 3.
[source: Gizmodo]
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With a fine eye for detail, Keith Andrew is fuelled by strong coffee, Kylie Minogue and the shapely curve of a san serif font.
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