Steve Ballmer talks XBOX 2

[London Geezer]

What did people expect? PR is his job!

I for one really am interested to see the good games that apparently MS will release on the Xbox2. If there are any, it will be nice to play them. If not, there are another 2 consoles which will definately have good games on them.

Let's just wait and see what happens, without getting too heated up by an over-enthousiastic cheerleader. If they can deliver, good for all of us!

 

[Evil_Cloud]

I'm not sure about Nintendo, but Sony seems to be working on something similiar for their console better known as Open GL. But as you said, I wonder how effective it'll be to what Microsoft seems to be whipping up with XNA. In any case, the two seems to resemble one another in a few ways. But, I agree, the library is what matters most.

Nintendo has made an effort to make developing GameCube easy, and they will also make an even bigger effort to make Revolution very easy, quick and as low-cost as possible. They might have their own variant of XNA, but of course very differently.

 

[Magnum PI]

and for this gen J. Allard "predicted" sales of 100 million xbox...

why care to do topics about propaganda ?

edit: allard instead of ballmer

 

[Inane_Dork]

I'm not sure about Nintendo, but Sony seems to be working on something similiar for their console better known as Open GL.

It's quite possible they paraphrased incorrectly, but this article says otherwise: http://www.xbitlabs.com/news/multimedia/display/20041228125957.html

 

[Pozer]

By golly MS might not be the idiots most make them out to be. Out of the big three MS is the only one publically declairing the need to help developers. I do not know how many times I have read about the rising costs of development and the money/gamble it will be to develop a next gen game. Serious issues that need serious solutions. And MS is not just blowing smoke, they are doing something about it: XNA. Now, whether that will be enough to gain marketshare, I do not know. And obviously Sony and Nintendo are not sitting around doing nothing, but I do wonder how developer friendliness plays into the console designs. I think we would all agree that losing all the smaller developers and having them assimilated by no-risk publishers who want to push tried and true sequals is no fun. Especially when they push out games that given 3-6 more months could be A titles, but end up being C titles with a lot of bugs and small tweaks and features that would have made the product significantly better.

agreed, MS certainly has the upper hand in making the Xenon more easy to develop for. Sony is an appliance maker and they seem to be playing on that strength next gen, just as MS is playing on the software side and going the Gamecube route with the hardware. Nintendo still has the highest licensing fees and sells the least SKUs on multiplatform releases by a good margin. Capcom is probably not gonna sign any exclusive deal with them again and probably kicking themselves at the money they lost by not having RE series multiplatform. Even in the interview for that new Sega/monolith developed "Condemned" they state Xenon is easier to develop for than Gamecube or PS2. Being cheap to develop for I think helped the Xbox alot this generation in the beginning and Sony has already shown having the best hardware/visuals wont get you #1 spot IF 1. You get enough units in the houses before the other guys. 2. The visuals are relatively close (which ps2/xbox/GC are)

Also I think MS has a few games up their sleeves for launch other than Perfect Dark 0. Nobody knows about. [/b]

 

[Teasy]

Capcom is probably not gonna sign any exclusive deal with them again and probably kicking themselves at the money they lost by not having RE series multiplatform.

Like Sega and MS you mean?

 

[London Geezer]

I'm not sure about Nintendo, but Sony seems to be working on something similiar for their console better known as Open GL. But as you said, I wonder how effective it'll be to what Microsoft seems to be whipping up with XNA. In any case, the two seems to resemble one another in a few ways. But, I agree, the library is what matters most.

Nintendo has made an effort to make developing GameCube easy, and they will also make an even bigger effort to make Revolution very easy, quick and as low-cost as possible. They might have their own variant of XNA, but of course very differently.

Oh u mean they made it easy for themselves to develop on GC? Cause not many other people do...
They should have made it POSSIBLE for many people to develop for it. Whole different ball.

 

[jvd]

The problem with capcom on the gamcube only is simple .

THe titles they picked sucked .

You had re remake which was good but was a remake of a game form last gen . Of course its not going to sell well. Now if they had remade something from the nes or superness days it would have sold better .

Then you had re2 and re3 which were simply ports. Ports priced insanely high. If they had sold 2&3 together for 30-40$ things would have been diffrent

Then viewtifull joe which sold well but was a 2d game in a 3d world

Viewtifull joe 2 which sold okay but since they ported part 1 and announced part 2 for the ps2 it sold worse than expected.

Then you had the tittle re4 which should have been released a year or two ago not at the end of the systems life time . Not only that but announcing it for anothe rsystem also hurt its sales .

Its not that the exlusivity was bad . Its that they weren't exclusives that was screwed up.

 

[pc999]

XNA(like) is also good to the smalls companys which will launch their first(s) game , and this game became a kick-ass game, this already hapen a little, with corrent gen but 4X the consoles(PS2) is overkill, a more balanced market we should see that.

 

[Tuttle]

XNA(like) is also good to the smalls companys which will launch their first(s) game , and this game became a kick-ass game, this already hapen a little, with corrent gen but 4X the consoles(PS2) is overkill, a more balanced market we should see that.

How exactly?

 

[jvd]

Your post has absolutely no relation to reality in any way. You are simply regurgitating hype

It is based somewhat in reality .

Game costs are going up. The average cost of a game has gone up greatly since last generation . The future generation will see a increase too.

With 512 megs of system ram who is going to create the textures and art to fill it ?

How good will the tools be ? What librarys will be there ? ALl these things are important and will become more and more important each generation.

Now if xna does a good job of helping with some of these problems is anyones guess . But at least its a try. What sony is doing ? who knows .

 

[Pozer]

Like Sega and MS you mean? Smile

No, not at all. The Sega/MS exclusives arent huge franchises, they were either cult classics like Panzer Dragoon or gimick games like House of the Dead, or unknowns like Jet Set Radio. Actually Sega doesnt have any AAA franchises at all. They got a bunch of A and AA ones. RE was ALOT bigger franchise last gen and could have made capcom alot more money this gen by releasing on other consoles where people actually buy 3rd party software. RE is/was a AAA franchise (like Halo, Gran Turismo, Metal Gear, etc ) but by only being available on one system hurt potential sales for Capcom. Granted the quality may have suffered from a cross platform release but it just wasnt in Capcoms best interest to be exclusive to the 3rd most popluar system in software sales. Im not putting down Gamecube it has some great games, some of the best this generation. But most of them are milder in violence and are 1st party. RE would have hit a bigger demographic somewhere else. RE4 is an amazing game though.

 

[pc999]

How exactly?

Look at some titles like Ridick, Deathrow, Super MonkeyBall, Fable, UC, Full Spectrum Warrior ...

Those games are or from small companys or first atempts in consoles, why they did not had made for PS2 , probably they decide no fighthing the HW and with the same money make a great game, wich play,l ooks and sells great, it is that I am refering if you have Y money to make a game you could use it in MS or N and care a lot more with gameplay or in Sony a spend a good part of them fighting the HW and a game not so good.

Think this way you could contract + 5 programers to use Cell well, or you could contract + 5 artists and get more NPC maps weapons etc..., the later would add value to the game by their own.

 

[DeanoC]

Think this way you could contract + 5 programers to use Cell well, or you could contract + 3 programmers + 2 artist and get more NPC maps weapons etc..., the later would add value to the game by their own.

Fixed that for you, who do you think writes all the weapon code, level specific stuff?
Even if technically they are "designers", if you program (even script) your a programmer.

 

[London Geezer]

Your post has absolutely no relation to reality in any way. You are simply regurgitating hype

It is based somewhat in reality .

Game costs are going up. The average cost of a game has gone up greatly since last generation . The future generation will see a increase too.

With 512 megs of system ram who is going to create the textures and art to fill it ?

How good will the tools be ? What librarys will be there ? ALl these things are important and will become more and more important each generation.

Now if xna does a good job of helping with some of these problems is anyones guess . But at least its a try. What sony is doing ? who knows .

See, the thing is that the cost of programming a game is nothing compared to the money spent for content creation. Well, not nothing, but very small. And content creation will cost the same from platform to platform. No matter how easy a platform is to develop for, game development cost will go up.

 

[DeanoC]

See, the thing is that the cost of programming a game is nothing compared to the money spent for content creation. Well, not nothing, but very small. And content creation will cost the same from platform to platform. No matter how easy a platform is to develop for, game development cost will go up.

Wrong! where do people get this idea from? programming costs account for 30-70% of the development budget (dependent on company). Currently we are something like 13 programmers, 3 designers and 9 artists...

 

[pc999]

Yes , Ridick and DeathRow (e.g.) are great games and small teams, and they are from one of the easier console to programe.

 

[Teasy]

Pozer

Spin it anyway you want. Sega put some big titles exclusively on XBox and they bombed, far worse then any Capcom exclusive on GC. By you're logic Sega won't be making anymore exclusive games on MS's consoles in the future..

BTW no way did RE start this generation as a hugely hyped franchise of the size of GTA: SA or Halo 2. RE fizzled out at the end of last generation. Its still a very big franchise (and will get bigger now that RE4 has saved the series), but sales for it on PS2 before the GC exclusivity announcement were similar to its sales of Remake and 0 on GC.

 

[Farid]

Viewtifull joe 2 which sold okay

If by "sold okay" you mean that it bombed like shiznit, then we agree.

Viewtiful Joe 2, although being the best selling Capcom game in the December NPD, moved, IIRC, ~55K SKUs on the GC and 18K for the PS2 (Ridiculously low sales). It also bombed in Japan, and if it does like Viewtiful joe #1, Europe will see VJ2 bomb as well.

Out of the big three MS is the only one publically declairing the need to help developers.

They're pushing the whole "developer friendly" thing because they're the kings in this sector. And you always talks about the forte and advantages you have over your competitors.
And since next-gen, MS may have the "less powerful" (All, in relative terms, of course) hardware, they're then, smartly, centering their marketing around the software.

And MS is not just blowing smoke, they are doing something about it: XNA. Now, whether that will be enough to gain marketshare, I do not know.

To gain marketshare, you need to sell to customers, in order to attract consumer you need software, that's true. The situation is that XNA is relevant to the developers only, the publishers, malheuresement, don't care if the developer #1547 like or not the devkit he have to work with.

Also, most big publisher will use their in-house tools (developed internally, or 3th party tools), to facilitate the inevitable multi system developement. Making XNA redundant, and incomplete (lack of PS3 and Revolution support), for them.

An independent dev house, on the other hand, may be attracted by XNA.
And that works, we already saw a bunch of independent developers announcing theirs Xenon projects lately.

That said, all in all, I agree on the fact that it's great to see MS not neglecting developers (Like Sony did with the engrish approved PS2 Tool) by offering them very nice dev environement package like XNA.

Wrong! where do people get this idea from? programming costs account for 30-70% of the development budget (dependent on company). Currently we are something like 13 programmers, 3 designers and 9 artists...

Yes, it's actually dependent of the size of the company and the nature of the project, that said, your developers/ game designers/ artists ratio might be one of the strangest I have ever seen (If everybody works on the same game).
Are You, guys, working on multiple engines, or on some developement tool? And when the job is done you'll decrease the number of programmers for the project? Or actually, you really need 13 programmers for Heavenly Sword only?

 

[wco81]

So XNA is for Xbox/Xenon exclusives or Xbox/Xenon/PC games. Third-parties are looking to leverage across at least 2 consoles?

Is MS going to give XNA away? Guessing no.