Console Exclusives: Are you for or against them & why?

[psorcerer]

You're saying every cross platform game is using one fifth of the console/PC's potential

No, I'm saying that even on totally different hardware you can get to exactly the same game if you are not perormance-oriented.
If you are so much about one platfrom for all devices, why phones are different? Let's make one API for everybody, including phones, we can even reuse UE4 or Unity for that.

But as porting is cheap because of hardware similarities, games are still targeting it.

No that assumption is incorrect. It's not like anybody "ports" anything, developers just write the code with all platforms in mind.
Last time we seen a real port (Batman, I'm looking at you) the performance was so horrible, it was even removed from distribution.

XB1 is an extra 30%

That assumption is also incorrect we will see more and more third party PS4 exclusives in the coming years. When the current games started it was not obvious that XB1 install base will suck this much.
I would say that if PS4 games were harder to support on DX11 we would see a lot more PS4 third party exclusives right now, but because it's easy, multiplatform developers may go DX11-only route, after all it's easy to make DX11 game, there are a lot of DX11-savvy programmers and it's easy to support console versions: just reduce resolution and framerate.
The net result of this approach would be much less tech excellence and much more "last-gen graphics, but now open-wolrd" games (see Witcher 3).

The world is full of dirty developers who actually use and rely on the CPU. Bastards!

It's because the platform-holders decision to support DX11-style programming was a mistake. Even PS4 supports it, at the cost of the performance.

And some of these ports were lousy because they didn't want to invest in refactoring the engine.

I don't think they were Batman-level lousy, i.e. you argument is invalid again.
The bottom line: at the PS2 time Sony did not give a shit about compatibility and ease of development, and still it was a golden-age of gaming. Right now PS4 is easy to develop for, but the golden-age is as far as it gets, I would say 2015 is a golden-age of PC-gaming, mainly because of these wrong decisions.

 

[Clukos]

Star Citizen is an mmo, not single player. And the difference here is that it is crowd funded (like PCars). Also, i agree with DSoup, this thread turned bad.

 

[iroboto]

Star Citizen is an mmo, not single player. And the difference here is that it is crowd funded (like PCars). Also, i agree with DSoup, this thread turned bad.

'the suck it' was in jest btw. haha. I don't really mean it. I wanted to write this thread turned bad, I think we all know it should close, but because Shifty is the moderator and central to this debate, it's a weird one for him to address.

 

[Clukos]

I think we can all agree that without consoles the market would be different (in terms of games), how different it would be is all speculation. It could be all hardcore PC gaming, or it could shift to mobile, or something in between. If it ever happens we'll be here to see that

 

[iroboto]

I think we can all agree that without consoles the market would be different (in terms of games), how different it would be is all speculation. It could be all hardcore PC gaming, or it could shift to mobile, or something in between. If it ever happens we'll be here to see that

Agreed. Everything is in fact speculation. The faster this thread dies, the faster everyone can go outside!

 

[Deleted member 86764]

Interesting hypothetical scenarios here, all fairly nonsense though.

Gaming has evolved into a multiplatform market to provide consumer choice (maybe even to feed tribal instincts). It isn't going to change anytime soon and exclusives will always exist in much the same way that they always have.

 

[pjbliverpool]

I would say that if PS4 games were harder to support on DX11 we would see a lot more PS4 third party exclusives right now, but because it's easy, multiplatform developers may go DX11-only route, after all it's easy to make DX11 game, there are a lot of DX11-savvy programmers and it's easy to support console versions: just reduce resolution and framerate.
The net result of this approach would be much less tech excellence and much more "last-gen graphics, but now open-wolrd" games (see Witcher 3).

Or Assassins Creed Unity, Project Cars, Star Wars Battlefront, Need for Speed 2015, Ghost Recon Wildlands. All multiplatform games that can stand toe to toe with the best looking exclusives available today or shown so far for the future. On that basis i don't see how the above argument holds.

I also think you're doing a severe disservice to The Witcher 3 with your comments above. Granted I'm playing with a couple of graphics mods installed, but it's certainly one of the best looking games I've seen to date and far above anything available on the last generation systems.

 

[Shifty Geezer]

And Sony is the only one that hasn't been changing their model. If that's the only model you want to look at, that's a big problem in progressing this discussion forward.

Sony tried with PS Mobile, but they couldn't gain traction.

Star Control 2 is the greatest game made of all time

This is probably true.

Agreed. Everything is in fact speculation. The faster this thread dies, the faster everyone can go outside!

I went outside anyway. Remember kids, you don't have to reply to a post if you'd rather be doing something else.

 

[psorcerer]

All multiplatform games that can stand toe to toe with the best looking exclusives available today

And? The thing is they do not extract enough performance from PS4. Again you need to compare with PS2 era where difference between games at the start of the generation and at the end of it was huge.
It happened only because the was no need to compromise or to think about other platforms.

one of the best looking games I've seen to date and far above anything available on the last generation systems

It's the same Witcher 2, but on scale. The differences are minor: some post-processing effects.
And Witcher 2 was running far better on X360 than Witcher 3 on XOne (and the reason is: Witcher 2 X360 was redone ground-up for X360 as an "exclusive"). So, it again proves my point...

 

[dobwal]

I don't agree with that. There will always be publishers that want to differentiate themselves from the rest by producing higher end games and there's quite clearly a market there to support them. We'd probably see games built with more innate scaling though. Even today a decent IGP can play current gen consoles games with reduced details and resolution so that serves as a pretty decent baseline and still numbers in the 10's of millions (at least). And that's in a world were consoles exist. In a world where they don't, discreet gaming setups would be far more prevalent. And an interesting side benefit of that would likely be increased competition and R&D in the discrete market meaning graphics tech would be progressing faster than it is today.

Ultimately, publishers are businesses and is the reason traditional funding of game development don't allow for as much differentiation, creativity and freedom that indie development offers game developers.

Plus we just got to point that IGPs can keep up with consoles. Where would we be today if modern graphics were mostly dependent on the average or typical performance of PCs over the last 20 years? You think that the western gaming market would be unaffected if it were Intel IGPs acting as the baseline of performance instead of consoles?

I seriously doubt that many like the ideal of an alternate realtity where the gaming market is dependent on Intel being the ultimate determinant of moving gaming forward. MS, Sony and Nintendo for the most part operate as companies where gaming is of the upmost important and willing to produce game based products. While Intel is mostly motivated by overall cpu sales and its efforts to anything other than its cpus are mostly reactionary and rooted in being "good enough" for your average PC consumer not your average gamer.

 

[pjbliverpool]

And? The thing is they do not extract enough performance from PS4. Again you need to compare with PS2 era where difference between games at the start of the generation and at the end of it was huge.
It happened only because the was no need to compromise or to think about other platforms.

But if they look as good (or better) than the best exclusives we've seen to date - which presumably aren't compromising and are extracting maximum performance from the PS4 for this point in it's lifecycle, then how can you claim that the multiplatform games are extracting any less?

It's the same Witcher 2, but on scale. The differences are minor: some post-processing effects.
And Witcher 2 was running far better on X360 than Witcher 3 on XOne (and the reason is: Witcher 2 X360 was redone ground-up for X360 as an "exclusive"). So, it again proves my point...

Clearly this is just a clash of opinions so won't get us anywhere but graphically the Witcher 3 is light years ahead of TW2 IMO. As stated before though I'm playing with a couple of graphical mods, but they aren't particularly performance intensive so could conceivably have been included as standard in the console version.

 

[Nesh]

But if those big budget AAA exclusives can still turn a profit while targeting only the XBO market then it stands to reason that similarly popular big budget franchises would be able to do the same in a PC only market where the total size of that market would likely be much larger than the current XBO market.

You dont know by how much it will be larger. It doesnt mean all that console market share would have converted to PC. You also dont know if the same amount of people would have bought the game. Publishers/Developers dont just see XBO. They see console market as a total. And in most cases despite more people own PC than XB1 the XB1 is very close or selling better. Not to mention PS4. For some reasons sales are under performing on PC. Probably it is piracy. Probably its too many hardware configurations. Perhaps its stability issues. Perhaps its just the PC mentality....for whatever reasons PC often gets lower numbers

 

[psorcerer]

that the multiplatform games are extracting any less?

Exclusives can extract more, there is no way for multiplatform game to do it, just because tailored performance can even affect gameplay decisions.
I.e. I'm not saying that exclusive games right now extract 100% of console performance, but they can do it, while multiplatform titles cannot, by definition.
Same thing for DX11 games: no DX11 game can extract 100% of any GPU/CPU combination, by definition.

the Witcher 3 is light years ahead of TW2

The difference is only in quantity not quality, just better maps, more polygons, more draw distance. I don't see any changes in lighting or materials.

 

[Clukos]

Witcher 2 was baked without night/day cycles. Witcher 3 features dynamic day/night cycles and one of the most impressive weather systems. It's unfair to call it "Witcher 2 on steroids". It's not groundbreaking and nowhere near close to the initial reveal but it still remains a very pretty game and way different than Witcher 2. I've played about 60 hours of W2 and 130 hours of W3, i would know

Characters for example:

Facial animation is also much improved especially for a world of this size, interactivity with the world too, seamless world with interiors and exteriors without loading screens. Animated trees that respond correctly to wind, better physics with objects that react to your signs all over the world (fences, grass, walls):

Facial animation:

Dynamic lighting:

It's obviously a game running on the same engine (a different iteration of it), but W2 and W3 are worlds apart.

 

[chris1515]

Witcher 2 was baked without night/day cycles. Witcher 3 features dynamic day/night cycles and one of the most impressive weather systems. It's unfair to call it "Witcher 2 on steroids". It's not groundbreaking and nowhere near close to the initial reveal but it still remains a very pretty game and way different than Witcher 2. I've played about 60 hours of W2 and 130 hours of W3, i would know

Characters for example:

Facial animation is also much improved especially for a world of this size, interactivity with the world too, seamless world with interiors and exteriors without loading screens. Animated trees that respond correctly to wind, better physics with objects that react to your signs all over the world (fences, grass, walls):

Facial animation:

Dynamic lighting:

It's obviously a game running on the same engine (a different iteration of it), but W2 and W3 are worlds apart.

TW3 use Physically based rendering too. My biggest complaint about TW3 is the not so impressive lightning and not impressive material. TW3 looks good out of town with many vegetations and in exterior village. But average in town and ugly most of the time in interiors... Very few material look like very good an exception is marble for example. Assassin's Creed Unity is much better for material look for example and TO1886 or UC4 or Quantum Break or any Frosbite 3.0 games look like miles ahead but they aren't open word. Horizon Zero Dawn demo look like much better too....

I am not impressed by weather system too, Drive Club weather system is much better for example...

 

[Clukos]

I agree with that but Witcher 3 doesn't look last gen to me. It looks really good but not spectacular. But given the dynamic nature of it i think it can look amazing in certain instances and it isn't comparable with Witcher 2. I think that increasing the world, compared to W2, by that much and being able to have more details in it is a big achievement for the team.

 

[chris1515]

I agree with that but Witcher 3 doesn't look last gen to me. It looks really good but not spectacular. But given the dynamic nature of it i think it can look amazing in certain instances and it isn't comparable with Witcher 2.

It is 1rst gen for current gen title some sort of cross gen title not last gen title like every first gen title... I think their 2nd gen title Cyberpunk will look much better...

 

[psorcerer]

It's obviously a game running on the same engine (a different iteration of it), but W2 and W3 are worlds apart.

Got a transcript of SIGGRAPH session on Witcher 3 (happening right now). Yeah they did a lot of work, but most of it comes from the need for open world and, as I have suspected, lighting and materials did not change much.
Neat tricks for weather (mostly rain) and shadows, texture streaming and cutscene integration, geometric decals, vegetation translucency.

 

[chris1515]

Got a transcript of SIGGRAPH session on Witcher 3 (happening right now). Yeah they did a lot of work, but most of it comes from the need for open world and, as I have suspected, lighting and materials did not change much.
Neat tricks for weather (mostly rain) and shadows, texture streaming and cutscene integration, geometric decals, vegetation translucency.

Do you know if they will release public transcript of SIGGRAPH session for Witcher 3?

 

[psorcerer]

Very few material look like very good

Usually it's a problem of day/night cycle.
If you remember Watch Dogs also had that problem: night and evening materials were much better than day and morning ones.
In W3 it's much better: all sun/moon-lit materials look good and only artificial-lit ones look bad. On the other hand materials are simplistic. Nothing like Order 1886 anisotropic ones.

 

[psorcerer]

Do you know if they will release public transcript of SIGGRAPH session for Witcher 3?

Have no idea.