Perfect Dark [XBSX|S, PC, XGP]

[AzBat]

I'm sure it is the initiatives game, but the perception now will be that its a joint venture.

Joint billing compared to supporting role kind of thing.
Not sure if that's how you want your first title from your self proclaimed AAAA studio to be perceived as. But better that than struggling with relevant resources.

Those are kind of my thoughts too. Thanks for the video. Will check it out later.

I know a lot of my Xbox brethren out on the socials are banging on the drum about outsourcing is done on all the time & it they're right, but this type of deal & the way it was announced is something altogether different. We're talking about a brand new first party studio that has not even shipped their first game. Sounds like this game may not come out until 2024. I will be cautious until the first in-game footage is out.

Tommy McClain

 

[BRiT]

but this type of deal & the way it was announced is something altogether different. We're talking about a brand new first party studio that has not even shipped their first game.

I think they said it in the beginning, that this will be a different sort of studio, being small and agile and doing things differently.

https://www.windowscentral.com/xbox-game-studio-initiative-talks-staying-small-staying-agile

However, The Initiative also looks to set expectations going forward, claiming "staying small, and staying agile, will actually be our strength." Followed by words from Gallagher, the studio lead states "the bar is high" and "the challenge for us is making sure we deliver on those expectations." It indicates The Initiative is starting small for its early projects, leveraging a tight team focused on innovation – not scale.

 

[mr magoo]

https://gamerant.com/god-of-war-ragnarok-valkyrie-entertainment/

It seems like this kind of deals are normal. The whole buzz is (as always ) people freaking over nothing and just fanboys war.

 

[AzBat]

Bringing in CD & already having 70 employees themselves? Staying small doesn't sound like worked for their first project. Sounds like they needed to grow bigger in shorter amount of time in order to meet expectations. This is coming from a huge Xbox fanboy. And one that absolutely loved Tomb Raider & Splinter Cell. This game should have everything I want. Let's hope they are able to make the collaboration work.

Tommy McClain

 

[BRiT]

Bringing in CD & already having 70 employees themselves?

I took that to mean staying small (direct hires) and doing a lot of outsourcing coordination because everything takes time, mainly

1. Growing a studio take a long time
2. Hiring dozens or even hundreds of folks take time
3. Forming a cohesive team takes time
4. Creating in house technical tools takes time

 

[ChuckeRearmed]

I wonder how people will react when they learnt about huge amount of support studios and co. that Sony provides to their internal studios...Oh, wait. They will shrug it off.

They are AAAA because they employ AAA studio as their support one.

 

[Silent_Buddha]

What I get from this is you keep your core dev team small and agile. You can quickly change gears, change genres, etc. You aren't locked into a perceived specialty due to past hires combined with ingrained minset from delivering on X large project.

That means that when you pivot genre's you don't have a large portion of your development house invested in X genre and they are unhappy that you are pivoting to Y genre.

OK, but what does this MEAN?

Well, you keep your core dev. team small. The idea people, the lead artists, etc. Then you look and see who would be best to hire (or partner with) to achieve the vision that the core dev. team wants for the game.

Say you just made an RPG but now you want to make an FPS. If everything is in house, that's quite the pivot. But if you have a small core team you can then partner with an RPG specialist dev studio for an RPG and later an FPS specialist dev team for an FPS. Extend to other genres.

One way to think of it, IMO, is a hybrid between a 1st party exclusive developed internally and a 2nd party exclusive where you hire another studio to make an exclusive for you.

Here it's like a 1.5 st/nd? party exclusive. The IP, story, look, everything is determined by your core dev team. Then your partner or hired dev. studio works to realize that with heavy interaction with the core team.

In theory, it seems like a good idea, IMO. We'll see how it works out in practice.

But at least in theory this allows you 1st party control while having 3rd party flexibility. And you don't have to wonder what to do with 100's of employees at any given part of development. Like when a project is starting up or winding down and you don't need all the artists and level designers.

Of course, the flip side is that you don't have direct control over hires or who works for you. But then that's why you partner with someone who you believe already has all that handled and you trust their judgement when it comes to who they hire to work on your project.

It's an interesting approach.

You have more control than if you just paid a 3rd party studio for an exclusive. However, you have less control than if the title was mostly in house.

Regards,
SB

 

[Parrish]

Nope, I actually mean Turn 10. Playground do fantastic work as well, but they are just improving on what Turn 10 has done.

Forza 7 was the first AAA effort to get their game running on PC and the scalability of it was phenomenal, even compared to developers who had been working on PC for a long long time. This shows a deep underlying understanding of the hardware. Also considering that at a time when they were (still are I guess) competing with Gran Turismo and how close they got to GT's graphics when the latter ran at 30 FPS on PS3 while they ran at 60 FPS on X360. That's incredibly impressive, IMO. Far more so than any other MS team. Forza Horizons was 30 FPS on X360. And the Gears games on X360 were also 30 FPS, IIRC.

Making a 30 FPS game look good on PS3/X360 isn't even remotely as impressive to me as making a 60 FPS game look good on PS3/X360. I know others may disagree, and that's fine. But talk to most developers and they'll almost always say that making something look good in a screenshot is much easier when you have 16.6 ms per frame than if you only have 8.3 ms per frame.

The ability to make a game scale seemlessly and well across a large range of disparate hardware is also incredibly impressive, IMO. Just look at how many developers can't do that. Turn 10 not only did it well, but they also did it while looking good.

While Gears of War 4 came out on PC before Forza 7, it wasn't nearly as accomplished an engine as what Turn 10 did with Forza 7 on PC. Of course, The Coalition then came out with Gears 5 which really showed their mastery of the hardware.

It's one thing to make something look and run well on one piece of hardware. It's especially impressive if you can fully leverage that hardware and make it do things others can't do. It's something else entirely to not only be able to do that with one piece of hardware, but to then have it work virtually flawlessly with thousands of combinations of different pieces of hardware.

That shows a deep understanding of hardware and not only what do do on that hardware but what not to do. Considering MS' aspirations WRT the distribution of their games, it can't be understated just how important this is.

We'll see what Playground Games can do now that they have their own IP that they get to work on, rather than just modifying and extending an existing IP and engine.

Regards,
SB

I find this post and all the like it received kind of weird because one the initial premise is completely false : Forza Motorstorm games on 360 target the same framerate of the GT ones on PS3. Both are 60fps during gameplay and 30 fps in replay. It's true that the Forza one are way more faithful to the target while the framerate in GT fluctuates easily in the low 50's, but GT run at higher resolution with dynamic time and weather,much more liberal use of alpha effects and a higher polygonal count on the car (well, at least the premium ones, obviously not the models directly inported from the PS2 games)

 

[Silent_Buddha]

I find this post and all the like it received kind of weird because one the initial premise is completely false : Forza Motorstorm games on 360 target the same framerate of the GT ones on PS3. Both are 60fps during gameplay and 30 fps in replay. It's true that the Forza one are way more faithful to the target while the framerate in GT fluctuates easily in the low 50's, but GT run at higher resolution with dynamic time and weather,much more liberal use of alpha effects and a higher polygonal count on the car (well, at least the premium ones, obviously not the models directly inported from the PS2 games)

Thanks for that correction. It's been a while and I just remembered that GT didn't have as good performance as Forza at the time. I'm glad Polyphony were also targetting 60 FPS on PS3.

Regards,
SB

 

[stu11]

Don't be expecting this game anytime soon, it probably won't be out till almost time for the Next Xbox.

Speaking with 13 sources familiar with the project's development, IGN's Rebekah Valentine retraced the game's development through the years, including its stints with Certain Affinity and Crystal Dynamics on board as supporting studios, years of wheel-spinning, an exodus of talent, and a 2022 decision to basically start over from scratch in Unreal Engine 5.

"I blame The Initiative," one former Initiative employee said. "I don't blame our development partners. We chose not to hold anyone accountable to the vision, and we just let people keep trying things."

Sounds like a complete disaster.. Hopefully Crystal Dynamics can fix this completely FUBARed game and get it out.

 

[cheapchips]

Don't be expecting this game anytime soon, it probably won't be out till almost time for the Next Xbox.



Sounds like a complete disaster.. Hopefully Crystal Dynamics can fix this completely FUBARed game and get it out.

Oh, the burn rate! Not sure what the avg salary per developer is, but internally and with CA and CD, you must be look at tens of millions spent so far.

 

[Johnny Awesome]

Pocket change really.