No, it's okay. You can read that again. According to a report released by Wedbush Morgan's Michael Pachter, the company was given a demo of streaming game service OnLive this past March. Pachter states that latency between the user and OnLive's servers is supposed to be no more than 80 milliseconds, while the games he demoed were running at 25 milliseconds. While Pachter isn't certain if OnLive will "dominate any time soon" he believes that the micro console's video conferencing feature "will likely attract widespread demand." (Wait, it plays Crysis like a gaming PC and it's video conferencing that will sell this thing?)

Pachter states that OnLive should appeal to families that have yet to buy into the current generation of consoles, especially if the service is priced right. The sweet spot, apparently, is right around $5 a month. A higher price could be met with "consumer resistance," says Pachter. Furthermore, Pachter is already predicting that OnLive may not last long as a standalone service, suggesting that it might be purchased by another company and offered as "part of an expanded service offering."

For example, Microsoft could purchase the company to further expand the Xbox as an entertainment hub -- Pachter notes Microsoft's previous acquisition of WebTV, which was co-founded by OnLive CEO Steve Perlman. That's assuming neither Apple nor Verizon beat Microsoft to the punch, of course.

It's too early for us to say if any of this will come to pass -- we're not analysts, after all -- but we were certainly impressed with our own OnLive experience. Still, until we can plug OnLive into our internet and play Crysis for ourselves, we're a bit skeptical. That's okay though, because we're supposed to be.

CryTek's newest, shiniest piece of tech is CryEngine 3, which will be put to use in the upcoming PS3 and Xbox 360 versions of Crysis 2. While the first footage of the console versions looks remarkably similar to what you'd get from a PC, a closer examination reveals how top-end gaming PCs are still capable of rendering better graphics with CryEngine 2. According to tehdaza on YouTube, "CryEngine 3 running on console hardware is about the same as CryEngine 2 running on 'medium' settings." The look of the console versions can be recreated on the PC by using low textures, high shaders and object geometry and medium on all other settings.

You can check out the video after the break. In it, you'll be able to compare the draw distance of the two engines and see the change in physics, texture work and more.

[Via N4G]

When Crysis 2 was announced, we looked forward to seeing the evolution of one of the most eye-catching FPS titles ever created at this week's E3. Well, folks, it looks like we'll have to wait a bit longer for that, because the trailer released for E3 is sorely lacking in the content department. Well, unless the kind of content you're looking for is big chunks of broken glass floating in a black space.

Crytek isn't waiting around for the next wave of consoles to hit before melting eyeballs in the living room. In fact, publisher Electronic Arts announced that the German developer is already prepping a follow up to Crysis, this time for the Xbox 360 and PlayStation 3 as well as the PC.

Creatively titled Crysis 2, the title is the first built using the studio's new console-ready middleware, CryENGINE 3. Nothing else is known, though with E3 kicking off this week we've opened up a new box of tissues just in case we hear more.

Like momma always said, if you're gonna effect change, the best place to be is on the inside. Avni Yerli, managing director and co-founder of Crytek, has joined the GDC Europe advisory board, where together with existing members he hopes to "create a conference that will hit the industry's nerve."

GDC Europe's Frank Sliwka put it another way, offering hope that Yerli's membership will "elevate the conference to a whole new level." Let's just hope the board's processors can handle the stress without -- dare we say it -- crying.

You know, Frankfurt has given us so much. There's Saint Bartholomeus' Cathedral, Hauptwache, to say nothing of the annual Festival of Stoneware. Now, the German city's own Crytek is giving you yet another gift: A free trial of the multiplayer-only Crysis Wars, beginning today and wrapping up April 17. You can find all the details here.

Also announced this morning: Crysis: Maximum Edition, which includes Crysis, Crysis: Warhead and Crysis Wars, bundled together for latecomers to the series for $39.99 beginning on May 5. ... What, you thought Frankfurt would give you that for free too? You've already got Wäldchestag, how much more do you need?

[Update: The trial's apparently not going to start until around 3 p.m. EST. Sorry about the confusion.]

Crytek revealed that it has considered the possibility of a streaming game service like OnLive or Gaikai before, but abandoned the idea due to technological limitations. "We had our research in 2005 on this subject but we stopped around 2007 because we had doubts about economics of scale. But that was at a time when bandwidth was more expensive," CEO Cevat Yerli told GamesIndustry.biz.

High-speed connections have yet to be cheap or reliable enough to work, in Crytek's estimation: the company determined that a streaming service may be possible sometime between 2013 and 2015. This is also the approximate period in which most consumer PCs will begin to be able to run Crysis. Yerli said that such services must rely strongly on broadband providers.

"We're not involved [with OnLive], we just allowed Crysis to be tested on it," Yerli said. Publisher EA is behind the addition of Crysis Warhead to the service.

The manufacturer of beautiful virtual worlds your computer can never run, Crytek, has just released a video for the latest iteration of its own CryENGINE, uh, engine: CryENGINE 3. Aside from being a pain to type, it's also a platform for Xbox 360, PlayStation 3, MMO, and DX9/DX10 development (which we already knew) that provides scalable computation and graphics for all major upcoming platforms, making it "next-gen ready." In speed tests, the engine ran at over 800 Van-Dammes per second, destroying CryENGINE 2's record of 150 Stathams per second.

Cevat Yerli, CEO & President of Crytek, really thinks the company has a winner here and hopes that developers will use the tech to get started on tomorrow's great games today. He describes the new engine as "a revolutionary change from our previous PC-only engines," and will likely love the money Sony and Microsoft toss at Crytek to make Crysis 2: Strike at the Plant where Billion-Dollar Cybersuits are Made a timed exclusive.

CryENGINE 3 will be on display at GDC09 all of this week. Head past the break for the announcement video showing the engine in action for the first time.

Crytek's past console experience has been nonexistent, and with the company doing away with PC exclusivity, it needs to get its feet wet in the console arena. Now that the company has acquired what is left of Free Radical, it can do just that.

"We always planned to enter the console market and it was part of our strategy even before the acquisition," said Cevat Yerli, president and CEO of Crytek. "This step will certainly bring us forward a bit faster to achieve our goal to develop high quality games on consoles." Before you start getting excited for a console port of Crysis or something, know that Crytek has not revealed any projects yet, though we could be hearing about something sooner rather than later. Employees there are set to begin work on a major project soon, Yerli confirmed.

Crysis and Crysis Warhead are now both available on Valve's Steam digital distribution service for $40 and $30, respectively. Warhead will be available tomorrow outside North America.

Of course, Crysis is now the stuff of PC legend for being "that game," which will take your two-year-old PC and teach it the meaning of pain. Crysis Warhead is its "less demanding" little brother who just wants to play. Remember, you can always try the Crysis Demo to see how your PC will cope.

Speaking at the outset of this year's Leipzig Games Convention, Crytek boss Cevat Yerli revealed that the developer's graphical tour de force, Crysis, cost an estimated $22 million to create. Yerli has previously lamented the effect piracy has had on the title, but reiterated that it's still recouped the development costs, saying, "If it wasn't profitable I wouldn't be able to stand here."

Best known for their stunning visuals, Crytek's game engines are also guilty of bringing even the mightiest of gaming PCs to their knees. While the upcoming, heavily-optimized Crysis: Warhead promises a significant performance increase even on mid-range systems, Crytek is already cooking up its next GPU melter, which Yerli says should be ready by 2012. That's when he anticipates GPU tech making the next major leap in its evolution; until then, he expects fellow developers to focus more on what they already have to work with, by means of stylized graphics and hardware accelerated physics.

Source – Crysis cost 22 million to make, IGN
Source – Crytek: New engine in 2012, IGN

We are all interested in the future. Indeed, as the great Criswell so astutely observed, "We are all interested in the future, for that is where you and I are going to spend the rest of our lives." And it wouldn't be much of a life if it wasn't spent playing the latest video games, no doubt powered by trillions of tetraflops and a giggle-inducing number of gigabytes. Crytek CEO Cevat Yerli has seen this future (it's where he bought his Crysis-capable computer), and has concluded that the next generation of consoles -- as in the Xbox 720 and the PlayStation 4 -- could arrive in 2011 or 2012.

Discussing "The Future of Gaming Graphics" at Leipzig's GC Developer Conference, Yerli estimated that Microsoft and Sony's next offerings would arrive "in three to four years' time, although there are good reasons why it should be 2010 already...but we'll see." Crytek, which most recently worked on Crysis Warhead, has also pinned 2012 as the debut year for its next in-house engine and follow-up to last year's impressive CryEngine2.

Regardless of timing, we're pleased to see that not everybody thinks the current cavalcade of consoles is our last.

Those of you whose computers e-cowered in fear at the system requirements for Crysis will get another chance to enter the game's world when Crysis Warhead lands in Europe on Sept. 12 and Sept. 16 in North America. More than just a side story to Crytek's excellent game, Warhead purports to actually be a touch less system-intensive than its burly predecessor.

Special side note for those of you who love bargains as much as throwing bad guys into oceans with your cyber-muscles: You can pre-order the game right now in the EA Store for $24.99, a five-dollar savings for you, the consumer.

Are you still consoling your PC every night, saying its inability to play Crysis is okay? All the while, you know you're lying to both yourself and your poor rig, just wishing you could sneak out and buy a better machine and feel the sweet embrace of Crytek's excellent game. Well, there's no need to tell the PC you're "just going for a jog" anymore.

The supposedly less hardware-intensive Crysis Warhead is ready to show you what it's made of and will supposedly run quite well on a €600 rig. It may not be as stunning as Crysis, but it won't require a second job to keep happy either. Check out the first screens below and a new trailer after the break.

It's always a little ... awkward explaining to guests that the "modern art" in our living rooms are actually PCs melted by playing Crysis on its highest settings. Thankfully, Crytek has heard our whimpering and is working to make Cysis: Warhead play more nicely with mid-range gaming rigs.

Voodoo Extreme was kind enough to translate an article on German gaming site PCGamers.de which states that the PC-exclusive Crysis folllow-up is being designed to run at a locked 30fps on a roughly $600 system. Now, compare that to the original game, which was sluggish even on a PC costing three times that much and ... you have happier PC gamers. If Crytek's programmers can actually pull off such a formidable feat, we sense a stalling in the PC upgrade market come the game's release.