Epic CEO believes graphics will be "indistinguishable from reality" within 10 years

Epic Games CEO Tim Sweeney believes gaming graphics will be "indistinguishable from reality" within 10 years, but to create such photo-realism, technological hurdles will have to be overcome.

Speaking at the Develop and reported by GI International, Sweeney said there are still a lot areas requiring research - "probably the rest of our lives" - before graphics will even come close to approaching reality.

Sweeney also touched on the ability of developers to write one game on PC, and have it run on any platform that is appropriate including mobile and console.

"That just moves the challenge of graphics to the problems we don't know how to solve," he said. "Like simulating human intelligence, animation, speech, lip-syncing. There are still a lot areas that will require ongoing research for probably the rest of our lives before we come close to approaching reality.

"It feels like we're going through the last 25 years of game history at the rate of four years every year. We've always recognized that the industry is in a state of constant change, and those that react fastest are the survivors.

"It means that now, increasingly, we can think about building one game and shipping it on every platform that's appropriate. It means we can potentially reach a much larger audience, and it will be increasingly important worldwide. Consoles are specific to the Western markets - North America, Europe - but they really don't exist in Korea, China... I really think we can build one game that goes to all of those markets by supporting the appropriate platforms."

You can hear snippets of his talk below, and a one-on-one at Develop below.