There was nothing stopping them from having games ship with specific code paths or even game packages on the same disc except for their own lack of technical foresight, and package size. Microsoft did it with the Burger King games. There are Xbox and 360 versions of those game on the disc. I also believe some Demo discs worked in both consoles and had different demos depending on what console you put them in. Xbox and 360 had radically different hardware as well.
Sony's Cross-Generation Game Messaging [2021]
- Thread starter eastmen
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You did exactly the same thing with the Phil Spencer quote a few pages back. And in that case it wasn't even non specific, you just straight up failed to read it correctly.
(He does not ever say that MS only simultaneously releases titles across console, pc and cloud, he says that only MS simultaneously releases titles across console, pc and cloud. Since MS definitely does simultaneously release titles across all three, examples of other platform holders doing the same is required to contradict it. MS failing to do simultaneous releases on PC first/only titles, something they have never committed to, is irrelevant to the entire statement, which also touches on gamers not needing to wait years for a pc release, but says nothing about having to wait for a console release. The statement was not wrong or stupid. Your interpretation was definitely wrong though.)
So maybe lay off the insulting invective.
But the real problem with Sony's PR isn't that it's ambiguous, it's that they've been using a lack of transparency to allow misconceptions that benefit them to persist. They regularly announced things in ways that hid the scope of things that were smaller than you'd expect from the announcement (Miles Morales, SSD expansion options) and every title that ended up being cross gen was not announced in a way that made that clear, leaving that to a later announcement. In this case, for GoW and GT, much later. And there's no way those games weren't always being developed cross gen, even if they were maybe planning on making them PS5 exclusive to try to boost sales while leaving themselves an out to release to the bigger target platform if they needed it. Whether they technically broke a promise or made a statement that was an outright lie is irrelevant. All they needed to do was say what platform titles were going to be on when they announced them, just like MS has been doing. There wouldn't have been room for misinterpretation.
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Splitting a disc's capacity across two formats was a thing done for a few 16-bit games on the Amiga and Atari ST but it halves the disc storage at the lowest common denominator. This is certainly viable if your game does not contain a lot of data, otherwise there is no benefit as you're increasing the number of disc required at which point you just include one disc for each target system.
Like I said, package size would be a limitation. Although, not so much in the current console market. Not only are blurays usually big enough, you can just include a code for the next gen version of the game. Sony allowed this for PS3->ps4 cross gen titles, but I don't know if any first party games ever supported it. Not that there were any first party cross gen titles outside of The Show at launch.
2 seconds of research - couldn't find a mention of The Show having a code, and it looks like the codes allowed you to get a digital PS4 version for $10, which would be the price difference between PS3 and PS4 games.
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There were some games that if you bought them on PS3 you got then on PS4 and/or Vita but I cannot remember what that programme was called, but I recall Flow, Journey and Flower supported it. The difference between the generational leaps between Sony consoles, except for PS4 to PS4 Pro to PS5 was that the hardware (and capabilities) were orders of magnitudes different in some regards so it wasn't the case of writing a game once and adding in some features for more powerful hardware, it was writing completely different versions of the same game for vastly differently capable hardware. Nobody wanted to do that. I think every developer was keen to drop 360 and PS3 - particularly PS3 with its 256/256mb split RAM.
And as far as I can recall Microsoft didn't develop any original Xbox games to play better on 360, or 360 games to play better on Xbox One. What they did was go back and revisit some old games and change them to work which also wasn't due to "lack of technical foresight". It's just how console development was done until the last generation.
It doesn't matter what technical differences exist between hardware generations if you are releasing the same game for both consoles. The only thing you are really doing is allowing the license to transfer from the older generation to the newer generation, which is exactly the type of technical foresight I was referring to in my post. I mean, Sony didn't have the technical foresight to imagine that PSN users may want to change their name, either. Their system simply didn't allow it without modification.
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It's that much more work. How easy do you think it was to get WATCH_DOGS working on than ancient consoles? Things than faster hardware can do effortlessly is always harder to pull on hardware with less RAM, and less computational power. Every hardware platform to add to any game's roster is more testing and Q&A. Another bespoke set of assets. It's an endless list of differences which takes time and costs money to deliver.
If anybody could have done this at scale it would be Microsoft and yet they didn't. Ryse was originally a game developed for the 360 but became a Xbox One launch title with no 360 version. ¯\_(ツ)_/¯
There's actual hardware support(textures or something) in the Xbox One for Xbox 360 right? So they had plans, but the upper management at the time of launch, cancelled it. Phil was promoted in March 2014 & made BC a priority & it launched June 2015. Had he been there from the start there's a possibility BC would have been there at launch. That could have changed how Microsoft handled cross-gen. Go ahead & release games on 360(after Xbox One launch) with the idea that the Xbox One would run them even better.
Tommy McClain
Tommy McClain
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I don't know, but even if it is that don't help run 80x86 (Xbox) code run on 360 (PowerPC) or PowerPC (360) code run on Xbox One (x64), even if they were using the same compilers (they weren't) or binary format (also different). What I'm really drilling into is the comment that Sony didn't do this because of the "lack of technical foresight" whereas Microsoft also did not do this even when they are setting foundations for backwards/forwards compatibility.
When you are developing hardware, it's risky to anchor yourself to technical decisions not just for the life of that hardware (the console) but into the next as well because now you're taking options off the table. Microsoft couldn't have switched from 80x86 to PowerPC to x64, nor would Sony have gone from MIPS (PS1 and PS2) to PowerPC/Cell (PS3) to x64 (PS4).
It's not lack fo technical foresight at all, it's not investing too heavily in one technical base. Microsoft do have platforms where you have more options and that's Windows, but even then unless software explicitly supports fat binaries (which almost none does) you can't just swap CPU architectures either.
It happened, though, didn't it. There isn't a reason that Microsoft or Sony couldn't have transferred a license to play Watch_Dogs from your 360 or PS3 (assuming Ubisoft was on board, of course) to Xbox One or PS4. Those versions existed as well. That's what I'm talking about here. You are fixating on the technical work to get a game running on one console or another, and I'm not trivializing that. It's a lot of work. But that work will or won't happen regardless of allowing games licenses to be transferred across generations. Sony dabbled with this concept with Vita, but they never had the foresight to carry that over to PS4 with PS3 licenses. They simply relied on remasters and rereleases. They wouldn't even ley you transfer the licenses for the PSOne Classics you purchased, which they had done for every Playstation hardware released since they launched the program, until the release of PS4. Alright, so maybe foresight isn't the right word. Maybe they just decided not to respect our previous investments into the Playstation ecosystem. Choose whatever verbiage you prefer.
Again, we are talking about licenses here. They could have easily allowed you to transfer a PS3 license to a PS4 if they wanted to do so. They didn't want to. You are caught up trying to argue points about binary compatibility. That's not really relevant. If they are already making a PS3 and PS4 version of a game, why can't it be crossbuy like they did with PS3 and Vita. Maybe technical foresight is too forgiving. There's no technical reason they couldn't do it. They decided not to. On purpose.
Actually you are wrong there. There were several game licenses transferred from PS3 to PS4. I distinctly remember I had several games I could play on PS4 that I had bought on PSN for PS3. Hard to remember which ones though. Wasn’t Fl0w one of them? And maybe Super Stardust?
Edit: yes, they were called Cross Buy back then, the term that was also used for games that you could buy for Vita and PS4 but it also applies to some PS3 titles released on PS4.
Edit: yes, they were called Cross Buy back then, the term that was also used for games that you could buy for Vita and PS4 but it also applies to some PS3 titles released on PS4.
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I was principally talking about "code paths" because that's what you were talking about. And by that I mean the ease with with the developers can support two PlayStation or two Xbox platforms. That was a massive amount of work to support PS3 and 360 (512mb PowerPC consoles) in addition to PS4 and XBO (8Gb, x64 consoles) and only a tiny handful of games bothered; WATCH_DOGS, Assasin's Creed 4, CoD on lastgen was half what you got with nextgen.
But in terms of licences, Sony offered "Cross Buy" since 2012 so your one licence could cover as many as three versions (PS3, Vita and PS4) but there isn't much of an incentive for developers to have to make distinct versions of their games for these platforms with no recompense which for the extra work.
Except you're wrong, they did. It was just that publishers didn't want to support it because it was lost revenue. During the PS3 to PS4 transition, Sony also offered the PlayStation 3 to PlayStation 4 Digital Upgrade Programme for those publishers who wanted to charge a small fee and I recall there was also a programme to swap/upgrade PS3 game discs to PS4 game discs that publishers also had to give approval for.
Sony were willing, it was publishers who were not. I think all of the games Sony launched for PS3 and/or Vita and/or PS4 had a transferrable licence - it was only full remasters that were not. Sorry to bust your balloon.
edits/typos/grammar.
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Again, if they already are making a game for last generation anyway, this isn't some extra work they are doing. They are already doing it. So any technical considerations for cross generation ports isn't really part of this conversation. This about licenses being transferred for games you already purchased to the next generation version.
And yes, I'm aware of the games that allowed you to do it. In fact, I brought it up a few posts ago. None of those games are 1st party games, though. They are all 3rd party games.
And I think I don't understand your argument anymore. You are saying that the only cross gen games we got were Watch_Dogs, Assassin's Creed 4 and Cod, claiming it isn't worth developers time/effort to do cross gen games and allowing license transfers, while also providing a list that includes all of those games as games that allow license transfers. I'm talking about what Sony is doing as a first party. Their only cross gen games were The Show and Little Big Planet 3. LBP3 could read your cloud saves and purchase history from LBP 1/2/3 on PS3 and transferred those licenses, but not for the base game.
Again, there is nothing stopping Sony from allowing license transfers. They choose not to do it. There are mechanisms in place that allow 3rd parties to do it. But not Sony. They choose not to.
And yes, I'm aware of the games that allowed you to do it. In fact, I brought it up a few posts ago. None of those games are 1st party games, though. They are all 3rd party games.
And I think I don't understand your argument anymore. You are saying that the only cross gen games we got were Watch_Dogs, Assassin's Creed 4 and Cod, claiming it isn't worth developers time/effort to do cross gen games and allowing license transfers, while also providing a list that includes all of those games as games that allow license transfers. I'm talking about what Sony is doing as a first party. Their only cross gen games were The Show and Little Big Planet 3. LBP3 could read your cloud saves and purchase history from LBP 1/2/3 on PS3 and transferred those licenses, but not for the base game.
Again, there is nothing stopping Sony from allowing license transfers. They choose not to do it. There are mechanisms in place that allow 3rd parties to do it. But not Sony. They choose not to.
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Sony allow licences transfers. All of the That Game Company's games - which were funded and publishers by Sony - had cross-platform licences. I don't know why LBP3 and The Show were not CrossBuy but equally I don't recall Sony every saying all games would be CrossBuy. I guess it depends on the economics of each title. ¯\_(ツ)_/¯
They are in the videogame business to make money. They're pretty good at it.
I still think the pc edition is real and that the slide wasn't a mistake. I think Sony pushed the game out on pc to make the narrative they believe in generations more believable
that would anger me.
If you follow my post history, when I found out DS was coming to PC, I was dead set on 3080 no next gen consoles.
Because of what was going down, I switched to dual next gen consoles, skipped the 3080.
Sorry to hear that . Demon Souls was the only game on the ps5 that interested me and was excited when that slide hit. Then they retracted it. I guess we will see what the future brings
It was an error from the marketing services because it was like Demon's souls was a console launch exclusive on PS5 and will release on PC and Xbox.
The game will release one day in PC maybe in two years(3 years after release) or 4 years(5 years after release). All depends of Sony policy before they have a PS4 backlog to release to PC and it sold well.
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And somehow, despite being a filthy-casual gamer, I ended up with a Switch, PS5, Series X, 32Gb i9 3080 PC and 32gb Ryzen9 3060 laptop - the later mostly for RTS/4X games once the world gets back to normal and I resume travelling internationally most of the time.
So that makes sense.
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