"Developers worried about surviving next gen. - Latest EDGE"

[Lord Darkblade]

I for one would like to see 2D (or perhaps 3D in a 2D style) games come back. Things like Castlevania Symphony of the Night are still awesome games, why should we not get things like this now, upgrade the graphics a little but focus on the gameplay!

 

[see colon]

You know that over 25% of games this generation are using Renderware, right? It's not like developers aren't already licensing engines and Epic has just now thought up the idea, so now all they need to do is get on board. If that was the solution to the problem, then they wouldn't be worried, because they solved that problem 10 years ago.

epic just now thought up the idea? there are dozens of games that run on the unreal engine this generation, including high profile games like the splinter cell series, star wars republic commando, deus ex (1&2), and rainbow 6, along with smaller titles like land of the dead, dead mans hand, XIII, and rune. unreal engine games have apperaed on every home console since (and including) the dreamcast.

art assets can be licensed as well. there are texture libraries and stock models for sale.

 

[Shifty Geezer]

art assets can be licensed as well. there are texture libraries and stock models for sale.

Is there much market for stock models outside of medieval RPGs? I'd have thought car and people models would be more needed.

 

[jvd]

The author mentions something about nintendo doing something for lower cost games. Is this the same thing as XBL Arcade? If not, how is it different?

Well the rev should have an itunes type system from most reports .



The major problem with the industry is old games. You make games each generation and if your lucky you can port it to a portable and thats about it .

With the rev every game on every nintendo system can easily be offered by the developer or publisher through this download service . This is fast cash for a developer . There is basicly no work done from them and even at a 1$ if nintendo takes a quarter for it that is still 75cents per download that they are making for a game that has sit in thier vault for a couple decades now


Portables like the gba has made a sucess of this even while at full retail price (30ish)

Of course those were nes and supernes games .

The ds now offers a platform for the psone , saturn and n64 era games to get ported to and of course the psp offers a good platform for playstation 2 games .


Of course the rev will use emulation which is much easier and cheaper than porting to another system years after the original product was done.


The costs should also be low so alot f people will buy the system for the classics they grew up with .

 

[expletive]

Well the rev should have an itunes type system from most reports .



The major problem with the industry is old games. You make games each generation and if your lucky you can port it to a portable and thats about it .

With the rev every game on every nintendo system can easily be offered by the developer or publisher through this download service . This is fast cash for a developer . There is basicly no work done from them and even at a 1$ if nintendo takes a quarter for it that is still 75cents per download that they are making for a game that has sit in thier vault for a couple decades now


Portables like the gba has made a sucess of this even while at full retail price (30ish)

Of course those were nes and supernes games .

The ds now offers a platform for the psone , saturn and n64 era games to get ported to and of course the psp offers a good platform for playstation 2 games .


Of course the rev will use emulation which is much easier and cheaper than porting to another system years after the original product was done.


The costs should also be low so alot f people will buy the system for the classics they grew up with .

HOw is this different from XBL arcade? Last i heard games on XBL were from $5-$15, is it the price range different?

 

[jvd]

HOw is this different from XBL arcade? Last i heard games on XBL were from $5-$15, is it the price range different?

You'll have to develop new games for xbl arcade .


Nintendo lets you simply run your old nintendo games in emulation

 

[Shifty Geezer]

I think the main difference is the games are old, and already written, whereas XBLive Arcade needs the games to be written, hence costing the developers. Revolution offers money for old rope, Live! offers money for new rope.

 

[Powderkeg]

You'll have to develop new games for xbl arcade .

Joust is a new game? I could have sworn I played that in the arcades in the early 80's.

 

[pc999]

The author mentions something about nintendo doing something for lower cost games. Is this the same thing as XBL Arcade? If not, how is it different?

I think is because of 2 main reasons.

1- No need to do HD content.

2-There is much more room for inavation, as long as a dev make innoavtive games that people want to try the gfx are not so important like in a game that brings very little inovation.

 

[Powderkeg]

I think the main difference is the games are old, and already written, whereas XBLive Arcade needs the games to be written, hence costing the developers.

You've never looked at a list of Live Arcade titles, have you?

Joust
Gauntlet
Robotron 2085

Almost half the games are from 80's arcade machines. Another 25% or so are the Popcap.com java games like Bejeweled 2 and Zuma.

Out of the 20 games on Live Arcade at laumch, I think only 5 of them are new.

 

[jvd]

Joust is a new game? I could have sworn I played that in the arcades in the early 80's.

There are some platform games u can put on there. however nintendo dominated for two generations basicly . So all the games from the nes and supernes era can't be ported to xbox arcade.

Same with sega , they would have to get the okay from sega to port the games to xbox live arcade.


So i guess pre nes era games will be okay since the platforms are dead and the companys are dead .

 

[g35er]

Don't they say this in every new generation? Didn't Square once say something like only a few developers are qualified to make games for the PS2 when the PS2 was first announced?

 

[London Geezer]

Don't they say this in every new generation? Didn't Square once say something like only a few developers are qualified to make games for the PS2 when the PS2 was first announced?

Yeah and they were kinda right, considering the amount of technically crappy games on PS2, when you compare them with the best ones, they look like 2 different generations...

 

[Shifty Geezer]

You've never looked at a list of Live Arcade titles, have you?

Joust
Gauntlet
Robotron 2085

Almost half the games are from 80's arcade machines. Another 25% or so are the Popcap.com java games like Bejeweled 2 and Zuma.

There's a difference. For these games to run on XB360 someone had to either rewrite them or write an emulator. For any game on Live! Arcade some work is going to need to be done writing/rewriting code. For Revolution with emulation inbuilt, all the old NES, SNES and N64 games can be resold to people without the developers having to do anything.

 

[expletive]

You'll have to develop new games for xbl arcade .


Nintendo lets you simply run your old nintendo games in emulation

You think joust and robotron arent running under emulation?

EDIT: AH i see, all the old games will run under the SAME emulator which is slightly different. I think the spirit of both is the same however, even tho the pricing scale may be a little higher on XBL Arcade.

 

[fearsomepirate]

There are some platform games u can put on there. however nintendo dominated for two generations basicly . So all the games from the nes and supernes era can't be ported to xbox arcade.

Same with sega , they would have to get the okay from sega to port the games to xbox live arcade.

You mean kind of like how Square had to get the OK from Nintendo to publish FF VI for the PSx? OH WAIT.

So i guess pre nes era games will be okay since the platforms are dead and the companys are dead .

Yeah, because Mattell and Atari don't exist anymore. OH WAIT.

 

[jvd]

You mean kind of like how Square had to get the OK from Nintendo to publish FF VI for the PSx? OH WAIT.

Actually they had to make sure the contract was up . Part of the lisencing deal is that certian games could only apear on nintendo systems , there is a time limitation and some companys may have gotten out of them earlier with new content deals .

Yeah, because Mattell and Atari don't exist anymore. OH WAIT.

Atari doesn't exist anymore. It was split up and sold to other companys . Who knows who still owns the rights to the system names .

Mattell of course exists but other companys don't from back in the day .

Many sold off thier video game operations to other companys and some went out of busniess .

 

[Shifty Geezer]

the current Atari is Infograme I believe. Bought the name Atari and rebranded themselves to an iconic gaming firm from a mulicoloured armadillo.

 

[Teasy]

epic just now thought up the idea? there are dozens of games that run on the unreal engine this generation, including high profile games like the splinter cell series, star wars republic commando, deus ex (1&2), and rainbow 6, along with smaller titles like land of the dead, dead mans hand, XIII, and rune. unreal engine games have apperaed on every home console since (and including) the dreamcast.

You've mis-read his post. He said its not like epic just thought up the idea.

 

[Powderkeg]

There's a difference. For these games to run on XB360 someone had to either rewrite them or write an emulator. For any game on Live! Arcade some work is going to need to be done writing/rewriting code. For Revolution with emulation inbuilt, all the old NES, SNES and N64 games can be resold to people without the developers having to do anything.

Please tell me you don't actually believe that.

Even when the emulation is done in hardware, a-la PS2, you don't get 100% automatic backwards compatibility. The Revolution will have to use software emulation, which is exactly what the xbox 360 is using, and they will run into the exact same problems. That is, it is virtually impossible to write an emulator that works on every single game.

I think you can count on every single game requiring custom coding to get it to work.