"Too many platforms," says Epic boss

Epic CEO Tim Sweeney expects casualties as we build towards a new platform war.

Speaking at DICE Summit 2012, as reported by GamesIndustry, Sweeney said consumers now have to divide their attention between PC, Mac, tablets, smartphones, consoles and handhelds.

"This is too many platforms," he said.

"Over time these platforms will be whittled down to a competing set of platforms to maybe three winners worldwide across everything - computers, game platforms, smartphones."

Sweeney warned attendees to expect "consolidation", which is a polite way of saying some contenders will drop out of the race entirely, and said who succeeds and who fails will be determined by "who picks the right directions and executes successfully".

The executive seems to be tipping tablets heavily.

"We're seeing now iPad sales have surpassed the sales of PCs. This is a real revelation, this is a product that wasn't invented until a few years ago and its basically supplanting personal computers," he said.

"There are a lot of technical challenges. We've barely scratched the surface of the consumer implications, what we can do with an iPad or iPhone today is limited by our experience of our computers and history. When a whole new generation of kids is raised with these devices pervasively around us it's going to lead to entirely new worlds.

"I see a bright future for technology and its implications on games. The ability of game developers to exploit another thousand-fold increase in computing power on future generations of platforms. Some of it will be consoles, some of it PC and some of it tablets. The form factor we can't predict, but the opportunity is there. Our industry's brightest days are yet to come."