Xbox 360 Still Isn't Maxed Out, Gears of War Creator Says

The Xbox 360 console still has some power left, at least according to the creator of the Gears of War series, Cliff Bleszinski, who talked about the Microsoft device after the E3 2011 conference.

This console generation is rapidly nearing its fifth year of existence, so it's a pretty safe to assume that most devices have reached the limit of their power output, and developers now need to resort to a variety of tricks in order to make sure their games run smoothly and look even better than before.

Besides the non-HD capable Nintendo Wii, the Xbox 360 has been struggling in terms of graphics in front of the PlayStation 3, but, at least according to Epic Games creative director Cliff Bleszinski, it still has some juice left.

When asked by CVG if the Xbox 360 has been maxed out, Bleszinski admitted that it was a "loaded question" but quickly revealed that, through certain tricks, power can still be squeezed out of the console.

"Honestly [360] is a puzzle, a puzzle box. It's a matter of figuring out how to squeeze water from a stone at this stage in the generation. If you look at games like the new Tomb Raider, or look at Gears [3], these are games that weren't really possible when the consoles first came out. Only when the developers mastered what the console was capable of were they able to squeeze that much graphic power from it."

Bleszinski added that the hardware is still capable of a few more things, but it's just a matter of the developers and how they can optimize their titles to take full advantage of the device.

"I still think we can still squeeze some more out of it, right? It's a matter of optimizing how you run your work flow and what you do with it."

Gears of War 3 is set to complete the trilogy of games made for the Xbox 360, and is definitely looking like the best release yet, with lots of enhancements done to the visuals, while the gameplay has been refined, both in the single-player campaign and in the multiplayer one, thanks to the recent online beta stage.