[Gubbi]

Originally Posted by -tkf-

Well Well.. looks like there is more meat to this than i even imagined:

http://brutalgamer.com/2011/09/05/so...-game-content/

Parity doesn't mean that content has to be exactly the same. It's just that the quality has to be on par. It's a provision to ensure XBox owners won't be short changed with cut down / crappy ports.

There are examples where the PS3 version has more/better quality content than the 360 counterpart (FF XIII springs to mind).

Also, this made me laugh:

and it’s well known that the Xbox 360 doesn’t have the horse power of the PS3.

Ouch.

Cheers

[Shifty Geezer]

As any car nut will tell you though, it's how it's applied that works. Many US musclecars with insane horsepower get beaten in every way on the track by less powerful motors...

Anyway, that's dumb PR, not worthy of discussion here beyond the suggestion of disc-size being a cap actually being a mandate.

[-tkf-]

Originally Posted by Shifty Geezer

As any car nut will tell you though, it's how it's applied that works. Many US musclecars with insane horsepower get beaten in every way on the track by less powerful motors...

Anyway, that's dumb PR, not worthy of discussion here beyond the suggestion of disc-size being a cap actually being a mandate.

Car analogy Shifty.. not enough sleep?

EDIT: Fixed the original post with a "better" link.

[Gubbi]

The car analogy is fitting.

Replace horse power by mega flops.

Cheers

[-tkf-]

Originally Posted by Gubbi

The car analogy is fitting.

Replace horse power by mega flops.

Cheers

Then the subject should be Fuel Tank and the size of it..

[boommoob1]

Originally Posted by Gubbi

The car analogy is fitting.

Replace horse power by mega flops.

Cheers

It's a silly analogy. MS are trying to affect the quality of content on a competing platform by threatening independent companies. That's anti-competitive whichever way you dice it.

[dobwal]

Originally Posted by boommoob1

It's a silly analogy. MS are trying to affect the quality of content on a competing platform by threatening independent companies. That's anti-competitive whichever way you dice it.

Its not anti competitive in nature. Its a move to the other side of the competition/anti-competitive spectrum, by artificially creating a more competitive product.

Business by nature is anti-competitive. To gain marketshare you have to make your product more compelling to consumers, thereby reducing their attraction to your competitors products. MS methods do seem underhanded but since MS isn't the market leader in any major markets its probably isn't going to catch the wrath of any regulator.

[boommoob1]

Originally Posted by -tkf-

Well Well.. looks like there is more meat to this than i even imagined:

http://www.eurogamer.net/articles/20...ish-psn-firsts

Sony have raised the issue so i'd imagine MS should be wary of this anti-competitive business practice getting the attention of regulators. MS being naughty again.

[Shifty Geezer]

I've moved this thread out of another. Not sure the titles valid. Not sure there's any real discussion here other than various partisan contributions saying how one company is Lovely and the other Evil. The original statement is just PR mudslinging.

The only sane discussion to be had from this I think is how much impact it's having on what games appear on what platforms. The article appeared on GI.biz with some industry responses amoung the tattle, and a post caught my eye suggesting Sony offer a very good deal for indies versus MS:

Originally Posted by Doug Kennedy, president Reverb Communcations (no, I don't know who they are either ;))

Microsoft will not allow a title to ship on PSN and then come to the XBLA platform, it doesn’t happen. For those on this board that think my comments were “Fanboyish” why don’t you go ask publishers and developers how difficult it is to take your title to XBLA compared to PSN? Microsoft makes the process almost impossible if you are not a holder of a Microsoft PLA, and add MS’s unwillingness to license new publishers and developers for PLA’s, have you ever been through the process of having to fly to Seattle and sit down to present to the team? You would think you were adopting a baby, your company is put through the ringer, questioned, dissected, insulted (yes your 3 game designs will be ridiculed to no end) and then put through the ringer again, all in an effort to bring content to the XBOX platform – and make Microsoft money!. SCEA on the other hand will provide a license to pretty much any publisher or developer that can demonstrate a sustainable business model.

Call me a fan-boy, that’s fine, I’m a huge fan-boy for independent developers and publishers that are looking to breakout and build successful games. I agree that both companies have regulations, but at least in SCEA’s case you can have an opportunity to self-publish on the platform, with Microsoft *if* you can get to the platform you have to go through one of the select PLA holders, (pay them a fee 10%-20%) put the game on XBLA (pay MS a fee 30%, and that’s provided your PLA partner has shipped enough retail content to allow an XBLA game to ship) and let the money trickle down through a bunch of hands (MS, PLA holder) until it reaches the developers, who put forth the creativity and work = the developers once again get paid last.

In SCEA case, the game gets placed on PSN and the developer gets paid directly by SCEA.

So, trying to recover something from this other than saving that other thread, how much are publishers strong-armed away from publishing on a platform versus enticed onto it? how many titles have become platform exclusive because of these background business tactics?

[dobwal]

Originally Posted by Shifty Geezer

I've moved this thread out of another. Not sure the titles valid. Not sure there's any real discussion here other than various partisan contributions saying how one company is Lovely and the other Evil. The original statement is just PR mudslinging.

The only sane discussion to be had from this I think is how much impact it's having on what games appear on what platforms. The article appeared on GI.biz with some industry responses amoung the tattle, and a post caught my eye suggesting Sony offer a very good deal for indies versus MS:


So, trying to recover something from this other than saving that other thread, how much are publishers strong-armed away from publishing on a platform versus enticed onto it? how many titles have become platform exclusive because of these background business tactics?

I believe some pubs may be annoyed by this tactic. But I doubt many were disgruntled to the point of abandoning the 360 platform. The reality is that a 360 is the lead platform of choice due to its ability to sell titles and porting to the 360 to the PS3 is easier than porting from the ps3 to the 360. These policies reinforce that choice, but what you end up with is developers choosing not to spend more money creating an advantage for the PS3 platform.

Lets not forget that the PS3 is more powerful console, but that advantage is not easily produced. So unless the PS3 is your lead platform, parity is more easily reached versus producing an advantage in quality on the PS3.

[Richard]

Apart from the disc-cap, isn't this policy similar to Sony's? IIRC that's why Oblivion PS3 had to come with extras.

Anyway, this is a great policy if you only have one console (not getting stuck with a port) and bad if you have both (can't reach its true potential). PC gamers regularly suffer both so I wonder if this policy applies to the PC version.

[-tkf-]

Originally Posted by Shifty Geezer

So, trying to recover something from this other than saving that other thread, how much are publishers strong-armed away from publishing on a platform versus enticed onto it? how many titles have become platform exclusive because of these background business tactics?

The reason why i posted the link (which i should have taken from Eurogamer to begin with) in the other thread was that we had a discussion going about the "sizes of games" which "proved" that there was "nothing" to gain from having more space.

We had some good examples for both cases, for example that more space on the PS3 didn´t necessarily yield better looking games vs having less space.

Apart from already being forced to adopt the lowest common denominator, the 360 the link showed that developers also was forced not to include more content on competing platforms even if the space were there vs the 360.

The developers can´t take advantage of more space because Microsoft have a clear policy that aims to make it expensive (the more than one DVD tax) and simply hinders those that might want to use more space on competing platforms.

Which imho is another good reasoning why the sizes on 3rd party games usually is so close to each other.

[Tea2]

Originally Posted by -tkf-

The developers can´t take advantage of more space because Microsoft have a clear policy that aims to make it expensive (the more than DVD tax) and simply hinders those that might want to use more space on competing platforms.

They can. There are multiple examples of games spanning more than 1 disc on the 360. In addition, two games that make the most interesting (imo) use of additional space are multiplatform third party titles (facial tech in L.A. Noire and megatextures in Rage).
Besides, I seriously doubt that in this day and age multiple publishers/developers are sitting on bags of money ready to create multiple gigabytes of bonus content to include in their games, cursing the fact that they are forced to release the rest of the game as paid DLC.

[-tkf-]

Originally Posted by Tea2

They can. There are multiple examples of games spanning more than 1 disc on the 360. In addition, two games that make the most interesting (imo) use of additional space are multiplatform third party titles (facial tech in L.A. Noire and megatextures in Rage).
Besides, I seriously doubt that in this day and age multiple publishers/developers are sitting on bags of money ready to create multiple gigabytes of bonus content to include in their games, cursing the fact that they have to release the rest of the game as paid DLC.

There is a price to pay for using more than one disc.

According to Carmack, the royalty fees to include a third disc in the Xbox 360 version would be so high that it simply isn't a feasible solution, with the programmer hoping for Microsoft to make a concession. He stressed that the issue is merely a storage problem and has nothing to do with the power of the Xbox 360 hardware, while adding that the PlayStation 3's Blu-ray format is Sony's one leg up on the competition.

http://www.shacknews.com/article/539...-look-worse-on

John Carmack on the reasons:

Carmack speculates quite logically that this is probably due to Microsoft not wanting to look bad next to the significant storage capabilities of the PS3's Blu-ray disc technology.

http://www.1up.com/news/quakecon-car...shes-dirt-sony

[Tea2]

Originally Posted by -tkf-

There is a price to pay for using more than one disc.

So the games I mentioned don't exist?

Tim Willits:

"Microsoft is not being dickheads," he said. "It was a simple kind of miscommunication. Microsoft does not charge a royalty per disc, but there is a cost of goods that goes along with manufacturing. "

http://www.shacknews.com/article/547...illits-on-rage

[mrcorbo]

Originally Posted by -tkf-

The reason why i posted the link (which i should have taken from Eurogamer to begin with) in the other thread was that we had a discussion going about the "sizes of games" which "proved" that there was "nothing" to gain from having more space.

We had some good examples for both cases, for example that more space on the PS3 didn´t necessarily yield better looking games vs having less space.

Apart from already being forced to adopt the lowest common denominator, the 360 the link showed that developers also was forced not to include more content on competing platforms even if the space were there vs the 360.

The developers can´t take advantage of more space because Microsoft have a clear policy that aims to make it expensive (the more than one DVD tax) and simply hinders those that might want to use more space on competing platforms.

Which imho is another good reasoning why the sizes on 3rd party games usually is so close to each other.

Also brought up in that original disc-size discussion was the fact that even Sony exclusives don't make significant use of the additional space available on Blu-Ray with most titles using it for additional languages, uncompressed audio, pre-rendered video, etc. To me, this calls into question the extent that game devs are really being held back by the DVD medium.

[-tkf-]

Originally Posted by mrcorbo

To me, this calls into question the extent that game devs are really being held back by the DVD medium.

You ignore the above quotes so of course you would call it into question

THEY CHANGED THE GAME BECAUSE OF THE DVD LIMIT...

And then they did alot of PR bullshit ehmm damage control because it´s bad business to claim that the 360 is limited (same goes for any platform),

[Tea2]

Originally Posted by -tkf-

You ignore the above quotes so of course you would call it into question

THEY CHANGED THE GAME BECAUSE OF THE DVD LIMIT...

And you're ignoring the fact that a) RAGE is far from a typical example of current gen game and b)there are multiple other examples were the developers decided that 1 DVD is not enough and went multiple disc route.
How often do you think a developer creates a 15gb-20gb game and then realizes that 360 has a dvd drive and changes need to be made? That is not a revelation, it's been know since 2005. I would imagine most (if not all) developers know about it and know how to plan for it beforehand. It's more of a inconvinience than a hard limit.

Another thing - if Microsoft demands that the games be 1:1 on both platforms then how are we going to explain those multiple multiplatform titles releasing at the same time but having exclusive content available only on PS3. Mafia 2, L.A. Noire, Dead Space 2, SSX, RDR. Sony always makes a big deal out of it during their E3 presser. Sure, it's never anything substantial, but it's happening. Platform exclusive content is a fact. Are all those DLC vouchers?
As far as I'm concerned, in console space MS and Sony are equal players. If MS is throwing their weight around, it's Sony responsibility to try to combat that and encourage developers to take advantage of additional storage capacity on PS3.

[mrcorbo]

Originally Posted by -tkf-

You ignore the above quotes so of course you would call it into question

THEY CHANGED THE GAME BECAUSE OF THE DVD LIMIT...

And then they did alot of PR bullshit ehmm damage control because it´s bad business to claim that the 360 is limited (same goes for any platform),

Even if I were to accept that without argument, it's one game and I still question the overall extent that current-gen games are being held back by DVD size restrictions. You're going to have to present more comprehensive evidence showing this than one quote referencing one game that itself was followed by a clarification to convince me otherwise. There are too many other factors effecting the amount of content in games for this to have as much of an effect as you would like to believe. Technical reasons and economic ones.

You also failed to explain why we don't see much more "game" content on PS3 exclusives than there is in multiplatform games or 360 exclusives despite the increased storage available on BR and no artificial restriction on using it.

[Squilliam]

But isn't this really the pot calling the kettle black? Why should we discuss the tit for tat politics between these two console makers when they are both guilty and yet we gain nothing much from discussing these anecdotes of he said she said.

[SedentaryJourney]

Originally Posted by Squilliam

But isn't this really the pot calling the kettle black? Why should we discuss the tit for tat politics between these two console makers when they are both guilty and yet we gain nothing much from discussing these anecdotes of he said she said.

Is it the pot calling the kettle black? The above quote from Shifty seems to indicate MS is less developer friendly or takes a harder line concerning publishing on XBL than Sony does on PSN. Then again, given the success of XBL it's amazing that anyone would air Microsoft's dirty laundry seeing as how it would only damage one's relationship with Microsoft and won't influence purchasing behaviour towards PSN or Steam. I doubt the average gamer takes publishing fairness into consideration when buying a game on one of several competing platforms.

[-tkf-]

Originally Posted by Squilliam

Why should we discuss the tit for tat politics between these two console makers .

Who cares about those politics, the interesting part is that we have had arguments about storage for years, and it turns out there is a direct policy from Microsoft to make that problem "not exist". Which of course is the best confirmation there is that it is a problem

[bkilian]

Originally Posted by dobwal

Its not anti competitive in nature. Its a move to the other side of the competition/anti-competitive spectrum, by artificially creating a more competitive product.

Business by nature is anti-competitive. To gain marketshare you have to make your product more compelling to consumers, thereby reducing their attraction to your competitors products. MS methods do seem underhanded but since MS isn't the market leader in any major markets its probably isn't going to catch the wrath of any regulator.

There is nothing anti-competitive or underhanded in the MS position. MS is not requiring developers to ship on XBox or lose something else, like say, PC version. MS is not stopping a game from shipping on a competing system at all.

What it has done is create a set of expectations. If you do not meet them, you cannot ship on XBox. You can ship anywhere else you want, there's nothing stopping you being a PS3 exclusive.

Let's say I require visitors to remove their shoes when visiting my house, or they can't come in. Those visitors have no right to complain that I'm being unfair because my neighbour lets them wear their shoes into the house. It's my house, my rules.

[Crossbar]

Originally Posted by bkilian

There is nothing anti-competitive or underhanded in the MS position. MS is not requiring developers to ship on XBox or lose something else, like say, PC version. MS is not stopping a game from shipping on a competing system at all.

What it has done is create a set of expectations. If you do not meet them, you cannot ship on XBox. You can ship anywhere else you want, there's nothing stopping you being a PS3 exclusive.

One of the expectations is that a game shipped on a BD should not exceed the content contained on a DVD. Am I reading you right?

Originally Posted by bkilian

Let's say I require visitors to remove their shoes when visiting my house, or they can't come in. Those visitors have no right to complain that I'm being unfair because my neighbour lets them wear their shoes into the house. It's my house, my rules.

Uhm, the analogy would be that you don´t let them in without shoes in your house, because you happen to know they had shoes on in your neighbours house.

[Squilliam]

Originally Posted by -tkf-

Who cares about those politics, the interesting part is that we have had arguments about storage for years, and it turns out there is a direct policy from Microsoft to make that problem "not exist". Which of course is the best confirmation there is that it is a problem

But couldn't you argue that Sony prevented developers from taking advantage of more memory on the Xbox 360, etc. Both companies have these rules in place.