Am. Football games 2008 PS3/X360

[wco81]

Here's a kind of official explanation from a Tech Support guy at EA:

http://kotaku.com/gaming/for-those-who-care/ea-explains-why-madden-sucks-on-ps3-289436.php

 

[Arwin]

Well, that suits my earlier explanation of that EA estimated (correctly) that the PS3 wouldn't make it to the market until late last year, and simply shifted development resources to the 360 in the meantime, rather than (continue to) keep developing for the PS3 and 360 in paralel.

It also indicates that Phil Harrison's anger about this was justified somewhat, in the sense that EA could have done a better job.

 

[wco81]

I really wouldn't put it past EA to deliberately impair one version for financial considerations. Or maybe seeing how much weight they can push around.

They are the only game in town and their sales are so big that they are a key title for any platform.

I don't buy the 3.5 vs. 1 year development timelines at all.

There are two conclusions you can draw:

Either they're incompetent (despite the big budget and staff) or they're deliberately screwing things up.

And this isn't limited to the framerate but also other aspects of gameplay, like bugs or glitches which were fixed years ago cropping back up.

Again, that's a sign of incompetence or they're deliberately doing it so they can say buy the fixed version next year.

 

[Gubbi]

I really wouldn't put it past EA to deliberately impair one version for financial considerations. Or maybe seeing how much weight they can push around.

Get a grip.

Madden sells most of its copies in North America where 360 marketshare is a lot higher than PS3.

It's pretty natural to assign more resources to a bigger platform. On top of that 360 is an easier port-target. That means you save time getting core functionality up and running and can spend more time to polish/optimize.

When the PS3 catches up to 360 marketshare (and I'm confident it will) you'll see higher average quality titles.

Cheers

 

[Cheezdoodles]

I don't buy the 3.5 vs. 1 year development timelines at all.

Ofcourse not, that is a flat out lie, they allready released Madden a year ago on the PS3

 

[TheChefO]

It also indicates that Phil Harrison's anger about this was justified somewhat, in the sense that EA could have done a better job.

Indeed.

All sony had to do was provide better tools, sooner.

...or provide hardware that was easier to develop for.


In the meantime, everyone in the development world is limited by time and man power.

To assume they would invest x-times more time or manpower on the ps3 version (which would likely sell less anyway based on userbase) is foolish.


I have to say, Madden2007 is the first version of madden that has been worthy of purchase* in years IMO.

(*on xb1.5 ... errr ... 360)

 

[Ben-Nice]

I'm no expert but if COD4 will be running at 60 FPS on the X360 and PS3 i'm pretty sure it could be done in Madden. It's how EA does business. Three years ago all they did was add QB vision and update the rosters and still charged full price for the game. They are the king of half-assing games in general.

 

[wco81]

Exactly.

I've been buying Madden every year for over 10 years. I even defended them when the exclusive deal went down, saying they still have to put out a good product because they're competing against all video games, not just other NFL games or sports games.

But it's clear that MS has treated them like royalty, doing a co-op deal for the Madden advertising on TV.

Forget about the frame rate. There are other issues being widely reported. Many of these are things fixed several versions ago.

Again, is it incompetence or venality?

 

[Todd33]

Indeed.

All sony had to do was provide better tools, sooner.

...or provide hardware that was easier to develop for.


In the meantime, everyone in the development world is limited by time and man power.

To assume they would invest x-times more time or manpower on the ps3 version (which would likely sell less anyway based on userbase) is foolish.


I have to say, Madden2007 is the first version of madden that has been worthy of purchase* in years IMO.

(*on xb1.5 ... errr ... 360)

Your anti-Sony rant does not explain Madden 2006 and 2007 on the 360. Last years had bad frame rates and even the menu was slow (I own it), did MS have bad tools and hardware a year ago? They finally get the 3rd iteration with full features and frame rate, so why is EA's 2nd iteration the on the PS3 a fair comparison?

 

[quest55720]

Your anti-Sony rant does not explain Madden 2006 and 2007 on the 360. Last years had bad frame rates and even the menu was slow (I own it), did MS have bad tools and hardware a year ago? They finally get the 3rd iteration with full features and frame rate, so why is EA's 2nd iteration the on the PS3 a fair comparison?

Because that is what is out right now fair or not. Just like resistance got compared to gears of war and halo got compared to every PS2 game. It is one of those nice advantages of launching early. If I am spending 60 dollars on a game I could careless about the excuses.

 

[Todd33]

Because that is what is out right now fair or not. Just like resistance got compared to gears of war and halo got compared to every PS2 game. It is one of those nice advantages of launching early. If I am spending 60 dollars on a game I could careless about the excuses.

I'm not sure what this has to do with what I was talking about. Tools/Hardware difficulties don't explain why Madden 2006 and 2007 sucked so bad on the 360. Obviously if you own both systems you would buy the 360 one this year, if you own one system (like 99% of the fanboys) you buy the only one you can and hope EA puts a little more polish on their cash cow next year.

I personally only buy one NFL game at most every two years, so I push the choice to 2009 if at all.

 

[joker454]

I'm not sure what this has to do with what I was talking about. Tools/Hardware difficulties don't explain why Madden 2006 and 2007 sucked so bad on the 360.

I certainly have no interest in defending EA

Having said that, you're question is easy to explain. Sports games don't have luxurious 3 year dev times like other games out there, they have to ship each year no matter what. The first 360 title had to be completely converted from old gen. So that's old gen code, old gen art assets, old gen game ideas, old gen audio, etc, etc... Switching all this over to next gen in one year is a massive undertaking, hence why the first pass, or even the first two passes of a sports game on a new generation of hardware often seem incomplete. The PS3 version gets to benefit from this by arriving later, since it will have likely been converted from 360 assets instead of old gen assets. So much of the hard work has already been done.

 

[Todd33]

I certainly have no interest in defending EA

Having said that, you're question is easy to explain. Sports games don't have luxurious 3 year dev times like other games out there, they have to ship each year no matter what. The first 360 title had to be completely converted from old gen. So that's old gen code, old gen art assets, old gen game ideas, old gen audio, etc, etc... Switching all this over to next gen in one year is a massive undertaking, hence why the first pass, or even the first two passes of a sports game on a new generation of hardware often seem incomplete. The PS3 version gets to benefit from this by arriving later, since it will have likely been converted from 360 assets instead of old gen assets. So much of the hard work has already been done.

What about the engine (sorry for the generic term)? It's not like the guys doing engine/animation work were peeled off to do textures and sound in 2006, those are separate groups, right brain - left brain people.

 

[wco81]

EA boasted of having an advanced technology team for at least a couple of years before even the X360 came out. They obviously have the resources to have people dedicated just to a project which wouldn't ship for a few years. In fact, I think they claimed to have done something similar before releasing the first PS2 game -- the impact of that unveiling at the 2000 E3 months before PS2 launch has not been matched by the X360 Madden, except by the fake target render which they put in a commercial a few months before the first X360 release.

They were also developing on PC, supporting higher resolutions and the best GPUs (although nobody compared their PC game to the best PC games) for years.

For comparison, look at what the MLB 07 team did in a few months to ship their first PS3 game, which is running 60 fps. The developers posted at the Operation Sports boards and they claimed to literally move on to the PS3 version after shipping the PS2 version in February of this year. They shipped the PS3 version in May. Now I'm sure they had other people working on it before those 3 months. And I'm curious about the geometry and shading in MLB 07 compared to Madden 08.

But once again, I ask the question, is Madden 08 such a technical and graphical tour de force (compared to a game like MLB 07) that getting it to run at 60 fps should be so difficult?

 

[Nesh]

Indeed.

All sony had to do was provide better tools, sooner.

...or provide hardware that was easier to develop for.

I didnt know that Madden is so demanding that it needed better tools or much easier hardware to make it at least a little better than it is now.

It has so many "downgrades" that even tools and architecture cant be an excuse

 

[Tap In]

...
But once again, I ask the question, is Madden 08 such a technical and graphical tour de force (compared to a game like MLB 07) that getting it to run at 60 fps should be so difficult?

well I rented Madden 08 last night and I'd guess yes. it must be.

the graphic detail is not as good as it was the first two years on next gen (nor as good as APF2k8) so I'm guessing sacrifices were made to meet these fps goals on both systems this year.

let's face it, nobody is saying PS3 can't keep up with 360. it is evident that they are at least equal in most instances but that it is and will continue to take more time/care to reach the results on PS3 that you can get on 360. (AS Joker who has done both has implied already).

 

[jb]

Tap-in
Hmmm I thought it was on par if not better in places. I got the game last night and only had time for a quick match. The uniforms seem to stand out a lot more. Also there is more detail in the crowd/sidelines now..

But to me its not suprising as this is not the first sports game that ran with a higher FPS on the 360 than it did on the PS3. I doubt its a question of MS influcence or incomptence on the developers. But like other said xbox360 had a whole year head start with better tools out of the gate, PS3 is "harder" to work with, you have short developement time frame and limited resorces...so I can see where it probably just do to those reasons more so then a big fat check from MS...

 

[joker454]

For comparison, look at what the MLB 07 team did in a few months to ship their first PS3 game, which is running 60 fps. The developers posted at the Operation Sports boards and they claimed to literally move on to the PS3 version after shipping the PS2 version in February of this year. They shipped the PS3 version in May.

I'm curious. Do you really believe that a dev studio was able to get a PS3 game out the door at 60fps in "just a few months"?

What if I told you that, say, private sources indicate it was worked on for far far longer than that, would you believe me?

I'm just curious

 

[joker454]

What about the engine (sorry for the generic term)? It's not like the guys doing engine/animation work were peeled off to do textures and sound in 2006, those are separate groups, right brain - left brain people.

What I'd expect for engine people (for a sports game) would be:

Sports game season #1: "just get the damn thing working so we can finally go home for dinner"

Sports game season #2: "ok, lets put in what was cut from the first game"

Sports game season #3: "finally feature complete, lets get this thing running slick"

...grossly simplified of course. The season#1 pain should have mostly applied to their first title, the 360 build. You'd think by now that both 360/PS3 builds would be at similar states, but who knows maybe they aren't. Still, with such a short dev cycle, the engine guys don't really get to relax after the first and/or second titles have shipped.

 

[assen]

Sports game season #6: "Six years of faithful service to the this franchise, and I get what? All the cool kids have moved on to FancyNewConsole - and I get to update the phototextures of the bleachers with all the graffiti accumulated last season. I hear the grass is much greener in indy/mobile/flash games, gotta call Pete and discuss a small startup, just the two of us, like old times!"