And in doing so he implied with a backhanded complement that the PS3 has been maxed out (or more acurately, had every last ounce extracted out of it) while the x360 is anything but.
Holy smokes you guys are hyper sensitive about your PS3's, my goodness. No, that isn't even remotely what I was getting at. I mean jeeze I have friends there, and I've owned every game they have made for years including Way Of The Warrior on my 3do. Sigh.
Let me reword it in simpler language. Naughty Dog exists in a vacuum. In their studio the only target hardware in existence in this universe or the adjacent one is the PS3. Therefore, there entire development path, structure, design methodology, whatever you want to call it, is 100% tailored to extract whatever is best and/or whatever they need for this single platform called the PS3.
Now, don't lose me here because I'm gonna mention the 360 so some might think I'm automatically calling everyone at ND and Sony an idiot, fools, etc, but here goes. In the 360 development world, "as far as I know" there is no equivalent to the setup at ND. There are customizations made as sebbi mentions, but 360 products are not built at 360 products, they are built as multi platform products. This goes the same "as far as I know" for exclusive games both because it's cheaper (you don't need to hire as many platform specialists), and because product needs to be ready to hop off to some other platform in case someone writes a big enough check.
So, that is why I also laugh when I hear comments of the 360 maxed out because I know how so many studios operate. I re-read the above 5 times to make sure it doesn't affect peoples PS3 sensitivities, but I'm sure someone will find hate in there somewhere.
My point still is that it makes absolutely no sense for activision not to sell it´s game on the PS3.
I agree....for COD because it makes bank. But does it make sense on the whole? I'll follow up in my response below:
I'm referring to Barbarian's comments, that's what we were talking about. He's not a publisher, but a developer. If he drops the PS3 he drops the PS3, he's not keeping his biggest hits on the PS3 while avoiding it with more niche stuff. And that really doesn't address what I said in the first place: it's odd to put faith in a console you don't know about over one you do, unless you're living in some weird future where the WiiHD is actually the PS3 with better sales.
There is always a leap of faith that happens every generation, it doesn't matter that that WiiHD hardware isn't out. If there wasn't then no one would have moved away from PS2. To the suits it's always the same, they look at what we make and what we could be making it and shift everything accordingly. Barbarian may very well have been talking future as well, as in keep going on PS3 for now and shift later. And why not, they could probably put out 5 to 10 Wii/WiiHD titles for the cost of a single PS3 title. Risking a companies outlook on a single product is huge risk, but 10 products? Much better. I worked very briefly for a multi platform company that made what everyone here would consider a crap Wii game. However this game made more net revenue that countless other name brand PS3 games. Guess what, they dropped PS3 support. It does sometimes happen that way at the developer level.
My point is as above: you're talking about the WiiHD as if the WiiHD were some holy grail, the PS2 of the HD generation and it's a strange thing to do. Because the WiiHD doesn't exist in any way other than on forums.
The problem with eliminating the PS3 is the size of the market. HD's a smaller market than the Wii market, but more expensive to make games for. If you drop the PS3 on these games, you lose 35-40% of the install-base, in which 50% of the effort (according to assurdum) goes into making assets. And no, I have problems believing that PC is a substitute. As Brad Wardell reminds us, the PC was never home to a blockbuster audience and is better served by games targeted at an older audience. If we're strictly speaking of ROI, then we could just as easily say that it's safer for Activision to start targetting the Wii for all its games and simply upscale assets for the 360/PS3. As you've pointed out, this would of course exclude CoD from this, as the HD version makes more money than the Wii one. But probably not GH.
But what if WiiHD is a holy grail? Wouldn't it suck if it was and a publisher was caught with their pants down having not supported it from day one, then are forced to play catch up? That's the thinking that goes on here. You need multiple towels to wipe up the financial slobber that occurs when there are talks about the Wii. It's still viewed as a bit of an unknown with gargantuan potential. The "HD market" argument is moot since WiiHD games will almost certainly work on non HD tvs just like current HD consoles. Plus you and I know full well that simply upscaling Wii games to 360/PS3 would be suicide. It's more about properly targeting the 100 pound gorilla in the room with stuff other than ports, namely the Wii/WiiHD.
Yes the PS3 market is big, but who cares if people aren't buying a publishers games in a meaningful amount. Does anyone have a breakdown of Activisions PS3 revenues for 2008? I suspect just a handful of games make up the bulk of that amount. Keep those, and ditch the rest. Like I said, they will never just pull the "off" switch, that would be insane. But keep the COD level stuff and kill the rest. Whats the point of say risking say 20 million to earn maybe an extra 50 million on all these lower tier PS3 games, irregardless of how big the market is, when that same 20 million could yield a 10x return on Wii/WiiHD?
