If they had an equally skilled, but bigger team, why would it matter if there is more work?
Do exclusive developers push visuals more than AAA developers?
- Thread starter VFX_Veteran
- Start date
- Status
If they had an equally skilled, but bigger team, why would it matter if there is more work?
Exclusive teams aren't tiny too. 300 for Naughty Dog... I don't think all team have two teams(one PC/ another for console or one for common development for Xbox One/PC and other for PS4) or three teams (one PS4, PC and Xbox One).
They probably have some common code and so on...
I think CDPR a multiplateform dev saying than if they can work on only one platform they will push it further is significant and CPDR is a very good studio...
Last edited:
Or sometimes you need to outsource one version and it gives the problem with Batman AK. I think multiplateform development is a difficult task maybe more than exclusive development. Find the good compromise is difficult...
Or we never see some games without AF on PS4 and so on...
Or we never see some games without AF on PS4 and so on...
Read https://forum.beyond3d.com/threads/...than-aaa-developers.57116/page-3#post-1859187
It wasn't meant to discredit multi-platform developers, I've said that multiple times in this thread already. There has to be some advantage of going first party no matter how skilled you are. And if anything, many of you actually discredit first party developers here, i guess these people aren't part of the B3D community?
I'm sorry but it's absolutely ludicrous to claim that Dice hasn't improved Frostbite simply because the resolution and frame rate of each of it's subsequent games hasn't changed.
The graphics difference between BF4 and Battlefront is significant. The fact that Dice chose to leave the resolution and the frame rate the same is a pure design choice and has no baring whatsoever on their technical capability compared to Sucker Punch.
There are first party developers here as well as 3rd party developers.
There are many different types of programmers here on this board (I've think I've identified most of the render guys, but there are others here too), and there are many types programmers involved in the production of the game.
For that example you have there for TLOUR - it wasn't free optimization. The game comes at a cost of triple buffer latency. Update code, render code, GPU - all of it operates at 16.6ms, but by the time you see the frame from the GPU, you are 2 full frames behind the update code. Not all games have that luxury, some games require instant snap response.
Hence, as per my previous post, first party exclusives can freely design over bottlenecks when it fits their purposes, but multiplatform games may not have that type of freedom. If PS4 had a processor that was 2x more powerful, it could have completed the update + render code in 16ms like a PC would have done (no additional optimization required), and than just be a single frame behind as the GPU does it work (this is the way most games are).
Lets be hypothetical here, what if it's possible that Xbox had just enough juice to bring the game from 24ms (as this is all CPU side) to 16ms due to the extra 1/2 available 7th core + additional 150 Mhz (per core), what would a multiplatform developer do then right? What if they need that controller response and the game cannot be designed the way TLOUR is, then compromises need to be made, because PS4 can't fit the game in 16ms.
I'm not here to discredit, or I think anyone here is discrediting the talent of first party developers - but it's unfair to say that they face exactly the same type of challenges or problems, or that the same solution can be applied in both situations equally.
Thanks for that, I'm an IT PM myself and am currently considering moving into the games industry. It looks like that's the role I need to be targeting, good to have some solid info about it!
Seriously?? There are tons of multiplatform games out there that have very stable frame rates. Perhaps not 100.0% which I know from your previous posts is what you consider to be stable - but many exclusives wouldn't hit that target either despite being considered by most to have very stable frame rates. I'm not going to start reeling off lists of games but a couple of pertinent examples would be the Trials series and Rage/Wolfenstein series.
CDPROJEKT said than if they developed an exclusive version of The Witcher 3 it will be better than the current version for each platform. An exclusive PS4 version would be better than a PS4 multi version, same thing for Xbox One or PC...
Edit: And the word they used is "focused"Multi platform is a compromise for all platform...
In making that statement they're probably assuming they have the same game budget to focus on 1 platform rather than 3. In that case they are obviously going to get better results on that 1 platform. But then they rightly say they couldn't afford to do that. In other words, that's not how things work in the real world. If you go exclusive, you reduce your market, and therefore you must reduce your budget accordingly. And a reduced budget is naturally going to impact the game. The question is will that impact be more or less than the advantage you gain from focusing all your teams effort on a single platform. To be honest, we're over complicating this whole argument. Game quality is dependent on 4 factors:
1. Team quality (skill, knowledge, dedication, leadership)
2. Number of platforms you need to focus on
3. Timescales
4. Budget (which includes how you choose to spend it)
I would say there is no fundamental difference in the first point between exclusive studio's and the top tier third party studio's. The second point will naturally improve quality the lower that number is *all other things being equal* but since you are restricting your market size, clearly other things will not be equal. The third point may well be an advantage that 1st party studio's who may be under a bit let pressure to release on a specific date. The last point will depend on the game but clearly with a bigger market to sell to, multiplatform games should be able to afford a bigger budget unless exclusives are subsidized by the console manufacturer. You also need to factor in how that budget is spent since a first party studio may choose to spend much of it on a customer developed engine while a multiplatform studio may choose to leverage a third party game engine at a much lower cost, but which may do just as good, if not an even better job.
They probably reduce the number of intensive CPU job now. They were doing the raycasting on CPU side. They probably do like Guerrila Games port the raycasting on GPU side in Horizon. It was one of their priorities post KZ SF with compute full resolution DOF.
It is not because you sold an exclusive games than your sales are low. UC3 sales(9 millions minimum and 12 millions max) are better than Tomb Raider sales(8,5 millions) even including the last number we had after the remaster.
Uncharted, TLOU, Gran Turismo and God of war are pretty good franchise sellers. LBP too... Killzone and Infamous not so much(2 to 3 millions...)... This is why Guerrila do a new franchise and Sucker Punch will probably create a new franchise too...
Quantic Dreams is profitable and it is different it is a 2rd party studio...
Last edited:
UC3 is in the very upper echelons of exclusive sales though (Nintendo games excluded which operate in a market with different rules). Compare that to the highest selling multiplatform games like GTAV with 30 million or the Call of Duty games which often get up into the 20's.
I'm sure UC3 could have sold more as a multiplatform game and I doubt that quality would have had to be compromised much, if at all on the XBO aside from the standard drop in resolution to 900p.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_best-selling_video_games
GTA 5 budget(250 millions with marketing expense) is much higher than UC3 (5 or 6 times more) and often from what I heard 1rst party budget are not so big on Sony side, less marketing budget far from COD, GTA or Battlefront, Assassin's Creed marketing expense...
GT5 sales were 9 to 10 millions adding GT 5 prologue and GT 5 sales...
For the quality it will have been better on Xbox One. UC3 is a PS3 title... For UC4 I don't know what they do exactly on the title maybe 900p on Xbox One or not???
Last edited:
GTA 5 is an Open world more expensive to make and the marketing expense is just crazy. The biggest title by far not only compared to UC3 but COD, Assassin's Creed or Battlefront are not on the same level at all...
Tomb Raider and Uncharted are more comparable the same type of title probably the same budget...
Tomb Raider and Uncharted are more comparable the same type of title probably the same budget...
Last edited:
That's supporting the point I was trying to make. With a larger potential market you can afford a larger budget for your game. And that budget increase can potentially more than make up for the additional cost incurred from targeting multiple platforms without having to scrimp on quality for any of those platforms. GTAV is a perfect case in point for that but you don't have to look to the ultra high sales games for that effect to apply. Just take any high quality multiplatform game, then ask how much less it would have sold as a PS4 exclusive, then ask how much it's budget would have had to reduce to remain just as profitable with the smaller sales, then ask whether the cost savings of having to only focus on a single platform would outweigh the reduction in budget. I'm willing to be that in most cases it wouldn't. And that's why most exclusives are either from 1st party studio's or heavily subsidized by the console manufacturer (and then often only timed exclusive).
Or put in more straightforward terms, exclusives don't necessarily have a budget/manpower advantage on account of focusing on a single platform as that can easily be outweighed by the disadvantage of a smaller overall budget made necessary by having a smaller market to sell to - all other things being equal.
Platform loyalty though will of course boost sales of exclusive games relative to the overall size of the market. Just as it will boost the perceptions of some regarding the games technical and/or visual prowess. So that's certainly one advantage of going exclusive vs multiplatform.
That's cherry picking. In a general comparison of exclusive sales vs multiplatform sales you can't compare one of the highest selling exclusives with a moderately successful multiplat. If doesn't matter that they are comparable in genre/style. We can easily reverse the comparison by comparing something like Call of Duty Ghost and Killzone 4. But then I'd be cherry picking. Simply compare highest with highest, or top 10 with top 10 etc...
Even if true, I'm not sure of the relevance.
GTA 5 is an Open world game with much more content than an Uncharted or Tomb Raider game. UC3 exclusive or not will not have more content. Content creation is the most expensive part of a AAA games... This is why each AC or Watchdog or other Ubi Open world are expensive to make...
The budget is much bigger than Infamous an Open world exclusive... Infamous content is on the low side for an Open world...
I don't see the interest to compare two very different type of game linear TPS and Open world games...
Killzone is comparable to COD but you can compare a much better exclusive title with Halo against COD. The budget are not so far from the other out of marketing part...
Do you actually know what these budgets are and how they compare to each other, or are we just throwing statements and figures around just for the hell of it?
This thread lost the plot a long time ago.
This thread lost the plot a long time ago.
You can indeed:
http://www.vgchartz.com/game/6964/halo-3/
http://www.vgchartz.com/game/51758/halo-4/
http://www.vgchartz.com/game/70716/call-of-duty-black-ops-ii/ (XB360 only sales)
and then the extra sales from it being multiplatform:
http://www.vgchartz.com/game/70715/call-of-duty-black-ops-ii/
http://www.vgchartz.com/game/70717/call-of-duty-black-ops-ii/
http://www.vgchartz.com/game/70961/call-of-duty-black-ops-ii/
- Status