MS regulating developers choices on other platforms *spawn

[BadTB25]

Bullshit. If i wanted to go fanboy on the 360 you could find a million more posts from me about how the 360 sucked in "this and that" and other stupid shit which i just don´t give a fuck about. I could not care less it´s useless to discuss shit like that on the interweb. It was fun with the XBOX vs PS2 because it was so easy

And you even mannaged to ignore the point of my post and just repeat the post i responded to, why even bother to post if that is the best you can do? Of course i should just have ignored the original post since he wasn´t even on topic.

Just answer this simple question, do you think the 360 games would have been better and different if there was a 75GB drive in the 360?

Why are you getting so worked up? I'm not calling you "fanboy", I'm saying, based on the post I quoted, it appears that you have a vendetta against MS the company. If another company, one that you support, made the same decisions, would you be singing the same tune?

And btw, I'm not ignoring your posts, but it bears repeating and with clarification that companies are in it to make money. Their decisions, is logical to follow, is what will net them the most profit.

As to your question, I'd love for the system to have more capacity, but the reality is, and others have pointed out, the tech wasn't available in the capacity, price or performance that made sense at the time.

 

[-tkf-]

Why are you getting so worked up? I'm not calling you "fanboy", I'm saying, based on the post I quoted, it appears that you have a vendetta against MS the company. If another company, one that you support, made the same decisions, would you be singing the same tune?

And btw, I'm not ignoring your posts, but it bears repeating and with clarification that companies are in it to make money. Their decisions, is logical to follow, is what will net them the most profit.

As to your question, I'd love for the system to have more capacity, but the reality is, and others have pointed out, the tech wasn't available in the capacity, price or performance that made sense at the time.

Because you have nothing but a post about profit to base your worthless "vendetta" shit on

but it hardly allows a person to take your posts seriously when such bias is so blatant.

I should argue that more space is good because i don´t like the way Microsoft makes money on licenses?

I love Windows 7, i prefer my MS based servers/network over anything. I avoid apple as much as i can i prefer Android phones and besides my Consoles i only have one Sony branded device in my house, everything else is from different brands. And i have no problem criticizing Google, Sony and Microsoft plus the other brands if i want to, i am not married to anything except technology

Bonus for being a politician and not answering straight to a simple question.

 

[BadTB25]

Because you have nothing but a post about profit to base your worthless "vendetta" shit on



I should argue that more space is good because i don´t like the way Microsoft makes money on licenses?

I love Windows 7, i prefer my MS based servers/network over anything. I avoid apple as much as i can i prefer Android phones and besides my Consoles i only have one Sony branded device in my house, everything else is from different brands. And i have no problem criticizing Google, Sony and Microsoft plus the other brands if i want to, i am not married to anything except technology

Bonus for being a politician and not answering straight to a simple question.

I based my "vendetta" opinion on this statement:
"Some companies actually have to fight for it and isn´t able to print money like Microsoft is. I buy what i need from Microsoft but i search for all the alternatives there is if it means i can avoid buying something from Microsoft."

And I thought I answered your question fine, but let me repeat it more clearly for you. I'd love more disc capacity. I can't think of anyone that wouldn't. I do, however, understand the limitation of what was available at the time.

 

[-tkf-]

I based my "vendetta" opinion on this statement:
"Some companies actually have to fight for it and isn´t able to print money like Microsoft is. I buy what i need from Microsoft but i search for all the alternatives there is if it means i can avoid buying something from Microsoft."

And I thought I answered your question fine, but let me repeat it more clearly for you. I'd love more disc capacity. I can't think of anyone that wouldn't. I do, however, understand the limitation of what was available at the time.

That is not a vendetta that is many years of experience as a "customer" of microsoft. If there is an alternative i pick that based on that experience.

And thanks for the straight answer

 

[mrcorbo]

Well it does seem that the extra cost for more than one DVD is substantial so much that it matters to the developers.

That's just it, though. Without knowing how much more it actually costs to produce them, you really don't know if the fees MS is charging to put additional discs in the package are unreasonable. You are just assuming they are and then basing a theory on that assumption. Kind of shaky ground, IMO. Though for the same reason, I can't really say you're wrong either.

Consider, however, that even a small additional manufacturing cost per unit - passed on by MS in additional fees - when multiplied over 100s of thousands of units could end up being quite significant.

I don't know how familiar you are with how multiple discs are packed in 360 game cases but even two discs necessitate adding a hinged platform to the case for the 1st disc to sit in. This adds cost and complexity to the manufacturing the case and placing the discs in the case also becomes a more complex operation. Now add a third disc, which requires a different, more costly, hinged platform which can accommodate discs on both sides and placing the discs in the case becomes a yet more complex operation.

Further, with the vast majority of games being single-disc, producing a multi-disc release is effectively a custom operation. This would be especially true for releases with more than 2 discs. Maybe there is some ramp-up required before there are production lines all set to go to make these and this cost is passed on?

 

[Shifty Geezer]

The physical costs should be next to nothing. These cases are made en masse for DVDs already. Printing the second DVD won't cost more than the first, which is supposed to be in the order of tens of pennies going by the old DVD vs BRD debates. The original rumours were that MS levied a significant extra fee for an extra disk, but I don't think that's ever been substantiated. I don't think anyone who knows is really in a position to talk as that sort of info is covered by NDA.

 

[Jedi2016]

Wait a second...

I had something written up a minute ago about having to purchase the three-disc cases and such, but something else just occurred to me.

Why is MS involved in this process at all, beyond first-party games? Don't the game publishers (EA, Activision, etc) foot the entire bill for manufacturing and distribution anyway? Why would MS charge something else on top of that, when they're not even involved in the process?

 

[AlNom]

Quality assurance/certification?

 

[Arwin]

The physical costs should be next to nothing. These cases are made en masse for DVDs already. Printing the second DVD won't cost more than the first, which is supposed to be in the order of tens of pennies going by the old DVD vs BRD debates. The original rumours were that MS levied a significant extra fee for an extra disk, but I don't think that's ever been substantiated. I don't think anyone who knows is really in a position to talk as that sort of info is covered by NDA.

Didn't Carmack flatout say publicly that the per disc fee was a concern for them?

Also don't forget that even a 50 cent difference amounts to half a million for a game that sells one million. In terms of the full price of the game it seems little, but in terms of the profit margin on a game it quickly becomes significant - covers two full time programmers for a few years, after all.

 

[BRiT]

Did Carmack explicitly say the fee was charged by MS? Or was it just a general "it costs more to make more dvds" sort of thing, like possibly be the fee is the overall cost to them from their publisher for the material and handling?

 

[NavNucST3]

Wait a second...

I had something written up a minute ago about having to purchase the three-disc cases and such, but something else just occurred to me.

Why is MS involved in this process at all, beyond first-party games? Don't the game publishers (EA, Activision, etc) foot the entire bill for manufacturing and distribution anyway? Why would MS charge something else on top of that, when they're not even involved in the process?

Are you asking why the platform holder is involved in the disc creation process for its platform?

 

[-tkf-]

Did Carmack explicitly say the fee was charged by MS? Or was it just a general "it costs more to make more dvds" sort of thing, like possibly be the fee is the overall cost to them from their publisher for the material and handling?

He mentioned millions and then there was a substantiel PR backtrack from Tim Willits.

http://www.shacknews.com/article/54795/ids-tim-willits-on-rage

But what of the compression issue? During his QuakeCon speech in August, Carmack put pressure on Microsoft to drop its royalty fees for additional Xbox 360 discs in order to free up more space for the game's content, saying the title would look worse on the Xbox 360 due to compression. Now Willits says the whole thing was a classic misunderstanding.

"Microsoft is not being dickheads," he said. "It was a simple kind of miscommunication. Microsoft does not charge a royalty per disc, but there is a cost of goods that goes along with manufacturing. "

If i read that as a politician the price pr disc is the same no matter how many is produced and that price is high enough to cost millions acording to carmack. But there isn´t an extra fee as such on the 2nd disc on the other hand it isn´t cheaper either than the first.

I found it hard to believe that John C would say millions without knowing it is true since it is pretty obvious they planned and made the game with a certain amount of DVD´s as target.

 

[BRiT]

Sounds like simple economics to me, it will cost you more to make more.

 

[-tkf-]

Sounds like simple economics to me, it will cost you more to make more.

I think the question is how much, unless the 360 DVD is done in a strange weird way compared to ordinary dvd´s the price pr dvd is really really low.

 

[Tchock]

So are we going to factlessly presume that every dev is getting less margins out of the Blu-ray platform because the discs are more expensive to press (and have exotic coating to boot)?

If you even set +1 DVD as 50 cents, I bet the Bluray markup starts from $1. But of course that's mindless wishful accounting at its best...


The publisher covers all this, and judging by how PC games have been shipping for a while with multiple discs, funky packaging while selling $10+ less MSRP (royalties don't take all of that), it's a complete utter non-issue.

 

[joker454]

Also don't forget that even a 50 cent difference amounts to half a million for a game that sells one million. In terms of the full price of the game it seems little, but in terms of the profit margin on a game it quickly becomes significant - covers two full time programmers for a few years, after all.

True, so does anyone know the cost of duplication of a dual layer dvd compared to a single layer blu-ray?

 

[Jedi2016]

Are you asking why the platform holder is involved in the disc creation process for its platform?

I'm asking why, if the publisher is already paying extra to the manufacturer to create a third disc, why is Microsoft charging them for the same thing? Microsoft doesn't manufacture the discs or the cases.

Unless it's part of Microsoft effectively "punishing" developers for making games that can't fit on a single DVD, by forcing them to pay some kind of extra "licensing fee" for a large game.

 

[-tkf-]

True, so does anyone know the cost of duplication of a dual layer dvd compared to a single layer blu-ray?

10k prices

$0.414 for a dual layer dvd (this has a glass master fee included which is substantial cheaper than a Blu-Ray master afaik)

$1.44 for a bluray (excluding the $500 master fee)

These are both online prices and small numbers compared to what should be expected for "million sellers".

And should be taken with hefty dosis of hmm.. considering that this quote is from 2009:

$3.15 per disc in August 2007 to $1.47 per disc now, or a drop of over 50 percent.

Which indicates that a BD25 has only dropped 3 cents in 2 years...

 

[BRiT]

I'm asking why, if the publisher is already paying extra to the manufacturer to create a third disc, why is Microsoft charging them for the same thing?

And once again I'm here to ask are you certain it's MS charging an extra fee? Everyone who does not know better keeps saying extra fee, but I have yet to see any evidence that it's an extra fee. I'm making an educated guess that they need to pay MS a set fee per disc for certification and processing as part of their QA.

Would those without definitive evidence please stop shoveling this same crap?

 

[Arwin]

I didn't know about Willits backtrack. Carmack says a lot of things and I for one don't imagine he's never wrong. Thanks for mentioning it.