My random musings...
First, on the "multiplatform = bad" crowd. It can be, no doubt. But there is also this: Multiplatform means potentially more sales. If you sell more units you can invest more into the game. So there are benefits to multiplatform that can improve a game and compensate for lack of focus.
For example, DMC sales have trended downward in Japan, so NA was going to be a vital market for this product. DMC also has to face Heavenly Sword and NG Sigma on the PS3. As a project accountant how much money do you put into this title knowing that the PS3 doesn't have a large NA install base and most game sales are done in the first couple months following release? Financially this would be shakey at best. By moving this to the PC/360 you have now expanded your potential consumer base by 10M+ consumers. Sure, you may lose some diehards who are ticked off at losing an exclusive or the "Nintendo" syndrom where multiplatform games don't tend to sell well on Nintendo consoles, but hitting a much bigger market and one possibly with less competition in the genre should mean a large increase in sales. Based on 360 fan reaction and Capcom's 360 successes I would say it is a safe bet DMC4 on the PS3/360 will sell more than a PS3 exclusive DMC4. So as a bean counter I feel a little more comfortable giving the team more resources to make a better game knowing it has a greater potential to sell well. The fact the Framework engine already has 2 games out the door on the 360 should also ease development costs so as a bean counter I go and ask the boss for a raise
Second... GTAIV, Assassin's Creed, Unreal Tournament 2007, Virtua Fighters 5, Mercanaries 2, and so forth. Exclusives, Perceived Exclusives, or last gen Exclusives of some sort... perceptually Sony has lost significant ground from last gen in regards to their hold on the market. And while they still may be the leader in console software exclusivity and major IPs the fact is people are drawn to "trends". e.g. Company A has 100 exclusives and Company B has 10 exclusives. If Company A loses 10 exclusives and Company B loses 1 exclusive it is 10% for each, but perception wise Company A has been hit bigger. And in some ways this is true as Company B has seen a larger relative jump in new software, but in the grand scheme of things Company A is still in good shape... lest perception which can feed this cycle. I think in the broader picture Sony has made a couple key missteps (price being the central one) that has had a tendancy to feed these trends, even if skewed in the grand scheme of things which act as a form of self fulfilling prophecy. The market is fickle and when at the top there really isn't anywhere to go but...
It's not like we haven't seen that before! UT2007, Assassin's Creed, Mercenaries 2 to name a few...
I heard it refered to as a marketing exclusive before, I think that's a good way to describe it. It certainly does happen.
I think we have seen 2 things happen.
1. Sony has used some marketing exclusives to promote their platform. UT2007 is an example; clearly a PC game as well (if not first) and very likely to be a 360 game as looong rumored. AC as well; there has been talk about Ubi trying to work something out with Sony and it fell through but the fact is MS announced it at X05 and I have a hard time believing MS would announce a game and then Sony would get a jab at snatching it away. I think Sony had entered an exclusivity period to talk about the game and it worked as a lot of people thought it exclusive and a compelling reason to purchase a PS3. Of course in ACs case I think the results were more negative than positive.
2. Sony has lost some [timed] exclusives due to MS's market share and the slower than expected PS3 sales.
Btw, the cross marketing goes both ways. GTAIV is an example of MS hyping a cross platform game, but slightly different of course as it was never a MS exclusive and gets hypes only due to the significance it means to the industry and their portfolio (i.e. getting one of the 3 biggest names in the industries to ship day 1 is a big coup).
oh, was there a patch? Haven't played it for ages now..
Out of the box online support on launch day.
It's the talent of the developer that matters; especially when hardware is this close. If there's anything to learn through working in the industry, it's this.
Very true. I agree I personally felt and expressed before we knew the specs of any of the consoles that art, and not technology, would be the primary element in what next gen games looked best. I think we are beginning to enter a zone where the hardware is more abstract and talent and tools become the primary forces in regards to software complexity and quality.
Laa I'm just going to ask you a yes/no question here - do you think that there will be instances this gen where the game being viewed is possible only due to the SPEs?
I am not Laa-Yosh, but my answer would be no.
Putting aside the fact software is what makes hardware go and market forces influencing development budgets to design and deploy complex software designs I don't think the SPEs will offer
gameplay only possible on SPEs. I believe this for two reasons. The first is that games are a product of systems and not specific features and the hardware isn't as far apart as most thing, even in worse case scenarios. While local stores can offer performance higher in select scenarios much higher than even the flops metrics so loved on these forums the end of the day is that gains are often offset by losses on any platform. And where this dovetails with gameplay is that, like graphics, you can do a lot of scaling. e.g. LOD was discussed in the Edge thread, but this isn't just a graphics technique. As Minty mentioned a long time ago, lets say the PS3 is ripping the 360 in cloth physics and at the end of the day, all gains and losses aside, the PS3 is pulling ahead 2x due to cloth physics. So the programmer may have to cut down on percision, say take the 200x200 cloth on the PS3 and make it a 141x141 grid on the 360. You could go quite extreme with this example, but I have a hard time seeing gamplay that is
impossible on Xenon. Slower? Definately yes. Less complex? Yes. Undoable? No. And that is point two, namely that we have seen some ports of games that surely should NOT have been possible on weaker hardware happen. Corners were cut and a lot was invested in making it happen but publishers have figured ways to get titles to work when push comes to shove on pretty different hardware.
The last gen (GCN/PS2/Xbox) had some pretty big differences in hardware. Looking at the processors, memory, and storage mediums and you would think that we would have seen many ground breaking gameplay implimentations not possible on the other platforms. For the life of me I really cannot think of a single game on any of the consoles that could NOT be done on the other systems when, in theory, the lack of memory (PS2, GCN), lack of large storage (PS2, GCN), low peak flop performance (Xbox, GCN), small optical media (GCN), and so forth should have been major contraints. They did lead to some cut back quality and such, but did not forbear any gameplay.
There is only 1 technology last generation that altered gameplay that could not be had on one console over the others, and that was online. And that was mainly a market choice as the GCN could have had more online access and the PS2 could have supported it even more as well (although many games did).
I do not see areas where the SPEs will open up gameplay not feasible on the Xbox 360
system.
I could be wrong of course. But the software thus far isn't showing it and with market trends it will be squarely on Sony's shoulders to deliver this revolutionary gameplay experience. My money is on the PS4 where I think software development will catch up as well as code base to begin really pushing SPEs in ways traditional CPUs cannot. If I am wrong I owe you a nickle
No doubt it's the developer that matters, but at the same time, the hardware provides the sandbox for the artist to work in.
And it is the consumers who provide the cash to fund ambitious projects.
There's no question that PS3 owners do not suffer from the announcement.
But there's also no question that potential PS3 owners do suffer.
I think thwat Dual's complaint was that the PS3's
potential suffers. The potential of the PS3 has been a major point brought up by a lot of posters about why they bought the PS3 and when they see events that tarnish that perceived potential it has them re-evaluate the perceived potential of their purchase. Every gamers mileage will vary. e.g. for myself this move doesn't decrease the PS3's potential nor increase the 360's potential for me at all, although abstractly it does confirm my perception that the market is leveling out and that the PS3 and 360 are on more level ground with publishers than last generation.
Going forward, it seems that first party games will be the main difference between the 360 and PS3. Even though I knew that was coming, it's still kind of weird to see the market shift.
In feel more validated than weird
I just try to read the market signs and in doing so I got a nasty green X label on my forehead!
I agree it has been 1st party vs. 1st party, but as another already pointed out in this thread another factor is when each company believed next gen started (i.e. when they began investing in that 1st party software). It seems pretty clear to me that Sony and MS had totally different ideas about when next gen "started" in terms of sales and consumer adoption, even when the other would enter the market. Of course much of this was dictated by MS wanting out of last gen and Sony enjoying the windfall of a massive and well deserved victory.