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Forums - Sony Discussion - Cross-play on PlayStation 4 is now available for all developers to use in their games

Cerebralbore101 on 18 October 2019

@LudicrousSpeed I'll get to your post on monday. 

Azzanation said:

There are tons of Indies that crush AAA games in reviews. For an Indie with a small budget to get better reception than a AAA is not uncommon at all. Look at Stardew Valley, Celeste, Hollow Knight, etc. Days Gone was a new IP. SoD2 was not. The gap between 66 and 71 is wider than the grand canyon. Most reviewers prefer not to rate a game below 7/10, because that is usually the point at which consumers stop buying the product. For one, Nintendo and Sony develop majority of there games in house so comparing an Indy game to a AAA studio is differently far fetched. 66 vs a 71 and one game probably costs 6x more to developer is not a good sign for a AAA developer.

Yes, KI was good. No argument there. 

Was Sea of Thieves bad? Have you played it to cast that judgement? The game is incredibly popular just like SoD2 which only got criticized due to its buggy launch. SoTs lacked content at launch which was rightfully criticized for. Today if the game got reviewed again, the results would be different but you wouldn't know that because you most likely have not played it. GTS lacked content at launch so did SF5 and majority of other games this gen with a MP focus. 

No, I haven't played it. I also haven't used a telescope to personally verify the orbit of Jupiter. Guess I can't believe astronomers since I didn't personally verify it myself right? Do you agree that it had little content at launch? If so, then what's the issue? As far as playing it now goes, you have a good argument, when it comes to those early launch reviews not being a good barometer of the game as it is now. The game could have gotten better over time. Or it could have gotten worse. I should play it, and plan on playing it eventually. 2019 is a crazy year for games though, so it might take me until the middle of next year to get around to it. But again, at launch the reviews were accurate and trustworthy. At launch it was a bad game. And that was what I was arguing for. 

Sea of Thieves sales included Game Pass members? What? Fastest selling and most played are two differently things.

"A week after release, the game has hit 2 million players - although it's not clear how much of a proportion of that player base is accessing the game through the Xbox Game Pass, which offers Sea of Thieves as part of a monthly subscription. IGN has contacted Xbox for comment on that." - IGN 

I slightly misread the above, and should have gone to the source article on  Xbox.com. Anyway, fastest selling new IP isn't very impressive because wtf did SoT have to compete with? 

Don't need to make excuses for TLOU MTX, doesn't matter about when it comes out, its the thought behind it that matters more and they thought pay to win was the way to go to make the easy dollar. So if you hate MTX's in games than expect to put TLOU on that list because it has MTX in its MP mode, just like majority of MP modes.

I currently look at TLoU as a game that has had its multiplayer servers shut down. Just like how you can't play Uncharted 2 multiplayer anymore. But does that make Uncharted 2 a game not worth enjoying? No, because Uncharted 2 is still a great single player experience. Same goes for TLoU. Do I hate that they added them in a year and a half after launch? Yes. Am I going to throw away my copy, even though I flat out don't care about multiplayer? No. 

Multiplayer is easy to make? If thats the case than Sony would add it in.. but they don't because majority of games that include MP modes get critized due to it so there goes your point of MP is easy to make. Its a lot easier removing MP from games as it is including it. Sorry but that logic made me chuckle.

No, Sony would not add it in due to it being easy to make. Tacking on Multiplayer to games intended largely as single player experiences is a waste of development time, and a trend that thankfully ended in the PS3/360 era. Look at Metroid Prime 2's multiplayer. Did that add anything of worth to MP2? Nope. The majority of games that include MP get criticized due to it? Care to elaborate? I'm not going to address that point without you explaining what you meant by it in detail. 

Uh no, because if you remove the MP element from a game you have to make the single player even better in order to account for it. So, no taking MP out of a game is not easier than adding it in. 

Good on Nintendo, they are the Disney of the gaming industry and they know how to get there sales and profits. Not sure how that point affects this debate. 

Because you were trying to use MS's gaming division overhaul as an excuse for their lack of good 1st party games. But Nintendo proved that that isn't a valid excuse. 

Comparing Days Gone, made by one of Sonys AAA devs team with a massive AAA budget behind it, to a game that was made by a small indy team with alot less budget behind it is not a fair comparison. Its like comparing Mario Odessey to Knack or Luckys Tails. Also 71 to 66 to me is only 5 points off and since most of the poor reviews with SOD2 was its bugs, now the game has been iron out over the years, those scores look alot closer. Look at the Zombie market, majority of Zombie games this gen havnt scored well. But credit to where credit is due, SOD2 offers both SP and MP modes and the game has a ton of replay value.

I agree Indy games can outpreform AAA games in many cases, Ori is one of my favourite games this gen. Except when you look at those Indy games, they follow a similar trend like Metroid Vania or Minecraft styled games that dont require tons of money or people to make. SOD2 is not a Metroid Vania or Minecraft game, its an open world Sandbox game that does require a big budget and team to get right. From my personal experience i will tell you SOD2 is a superior game to SOD1 even though the review scores are light years different. If you are going to play a SOD game many will say play SOD2.

SOTs lacked content at launch like most big ambishest titles this gen. Thats how service games work. If you base your review on someone else's than you are only assuming its bad because you might actually like it. Iv played games that didnt score well and actually enjoyed them. Everyone has different tastes. As they say, One mans trash is another mans treasure.

Adding MP in games is not easy. If you tack it on than expect critics to criticize the games. Metroid Prime 2 copped criticism for its tacked on MP and lost overall points in its total review score. So if companies tack it on with little to no effort they lose points, so Sony removing it,  avoids that extra critisizm. Thats playing it safe. MP requires alot of balancing, modes and they need to be good just like the SP mode. 

Uh, Nintendo rebuilt its brand during the WiiU era and came out firing with the Switch, MS rebuilt there brand during the X1 era and expect something similar with the Scarlett. These things can take years to plan out not at launch day on a console release. Thank the WiiUs failures for the Switches success.



I'd say those 5 points are a large gap considering that most reviewers don't want to issue a score below 70/100. Every point below 70/100 is like two points. But I guess I said that already. 

Sure SoD2 could be a good game now. Could be worse. But on release it was bad. 

Eh, just because the rest of the Zombie market is bad is no excuse. A bad game is a bad game regardless of how the rest of the genre is bad. 

its an open world Sandbox game that does require a big budget and team to get right.

That just backs up my original point that MS doesn't care enough, because their games are meant to be filler for Gamepass, and then put on as many platforms as they can get them on. If they cared why didn't they put a bigger team or more money into it? 

We agree that SoT lacked content at launch, and that SOD2 was extremely buggy at launch. Then why didn't MS give those games more time to reach a completed state at launch? Real question here. Not wholly hypothetical. Please answer. 


SOTs lacked content at launch like most big ambishest titles this gen. Thats how service games work. If you base your review on someone else's than you are only assuming its bad because you might actually like it. Iv played games that didnt score well and actually enjoyed them. Everyone has different tastes. As they say, One mans trash is another mans treasure.

I see a common theme here of trying to say that its okay for MS to do these bad things with their games because other games do them. That just doesn't work. Just because some bad players in the industry are doing things a certain way, is no excuse for another company to copy them. 

Should I just personally verify everything for myself? Do I need to whip out a telescope and do some math before I take Nasa's word for it on the orbital path of Jupiter? If I read a review by somebody that shares similar tastes to my own, then that is good enough for me. And if there's an overall consensus of reviewers saying that game X is bad, then that is good enough for me. 

Adding MP in games is not easy. If you tack it on than expect critics to criticize the games. Metroid Prime 2 copped criticism for its tacked on MP and lost overall points in its total review score. So if companies tack it on with little to no effort they lose points, so Sony removing it,  avoids that extra critisizm. Thats playing it safe. MP requires alot of balancing, modes and they need to be good just like the SP mode. 

By that logic avoiding extra single player levels in games is playing it safe. And since extra single player levels require vastly more work than extra multiplayer levels it is not Sony that is playing it safe overall. Single player games require balancing too. So that point is moot. Single player has way more levels than multiplayer has modes. Another moot point. 

 



Last edited by Cerebralbore101 - on 18 October 2019

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Azzanation on 19 October 2019
Cerebralbore101 said:

I'd say those 5 points are a large gap considering that most reviewers don't want to issue a score below 70/100. Every point below 70/100 is like two points. But I guess I said that already. 

Sure SoD2 could be a good game now. Could be worse. But on release it was bad. 

Eh, just because the rest of the Zombie market is bad is no excuse. A bad game is a bad game regardless of how the rest of the genre is bad. 

its an open world Sandbox game that does require a big budget and team to get right.

That just backs up my original point that MS doesn't care enough, because their games are meant to be filler for Gamepass, and then put on as many platforms as they can get them on. If they cared why didn't they put a bigger team or more money into it? 

We agree that SoT lacked content at launch, and that SOD2 was extremely buggy at launch. Then why didn't MS give those games more time to reach a completed state at launch? Real question here. Not wholly hypothetical. Please answer. 


SOTs lacked content at launch like most big ambishest titles this gen. Thats how service games work. If you base your review on someone else's than you are only assuming its bad because you might actually like it. Iv played games that didnt score well and actually enjoyed them. Everyone has different tastes. As they say, One mans trash is another mans treasure.

I see a common theme here of trying to say that its okay for MS to do these bad things with their games because other games do them. That just doesn't work. Just because some bad players in the industry are doing things a certain way, is no excuse for another company to copy them. 

Should I just personally verify everything for myself? Do I need to whip out a telescope and do some math before I take Nasa's word for it on the orbital path of Jupiter? If I read a review by somebody that shares similar tastes to my own, then that is good enough for me. And if there's an overall consensus of reviewers saying that game X is bad, then that is good enough for me. 

Adding MP in games is not easy. If you tack it on than expect critics to criticize the games. Metroid Prime 2 copped criticism for its tacked on MP and lost overall points in its total review score. So if companies tack it on with little to no effort they lose points, so Sony removing it,  avoids that extra critisizm. Thats playing it safe. MP requires alot of balancing, modes and they need to be good just like the SP mode. 

By that logic avoiding extra single player levels in games is playing it safe. And since extra single player levels require vastly more work than extra multiplayer levels it is not Sony that is playing it safe overall. Single player games require balancing too. So that point is moot. Single player has way more levels than multiplayer has modes. Another moot point. 

You couldn't be any more wrong with your post. 

1) You need to stop comparing AA to AAA games. SOD2 is a AA game that cost half the price of a game like Days Gone. It was also produced with a much smaller budget and Team. There is no excuse for buggy launches and the game got criticised for it. Days Gone got criticised for other reasons. Also I don't disagree with you in saying MS could have funded more money into Undead Labs however Undead Labs was not owned by MS at that time. Now that Undead Labs is under MS, lets see how there next title turns out. From what we know, MS has been allowing extra time and funds for there new studios so lets judge them on there next release.

2) I don't understand how you think a game like SOD2 is considered a bad game because it sits on a 66 Meta. For starters Meta clearly showcases in colour what is a Poor, Average and Good game via Red, Yellow and Green. SOD2 sits in the Yellow so for you to come out calling it bad is hilarious and its even more funny since you haven't even played it to cast that judgement. SOD2 has a lot of mixed reviews from 4s to 9s and a lot in between. If every review gave the game a 66 than you might have a point however it shows some people like it and many think its average and some think its poor. Which one are you? You haven't played it so instead, you base it off its lowest review score.. do you do this with every game? Also the PC version of SOD2 sits on a 69, only 2 points off Days Gone, a game made with a AAA focus and a major inhouse dev team.

How would you feel if a reviewer gave a game a similar score based on another reviewers score without even playing the game? That is exactly how you sound. 

4) So are you saying games like Forza Horizon 4, Gears 5 and Halo Infinite are AA budget titles only to fill the gaps in GamePass? You think Obsidian, Ninja Theory, The Initiative, Playground Games, Rare etc are only there to create AA standard games? That's a very interesting foresight you have.

3) You clearly know nothing about Multiplayer games. no one said SP games are easy to make however building scripted events and having full control on a player and what they see compared to basically a warzone where balancing between players can be extremely difficult to implement. Iv been playing WoW since 2005, I can tell you 15 years afterwards they still haven't been able to balance the MP in that game, the SP content isn't exactly rocket science to create however the MP is on another level of difficult. Its a lot easier taking MP out of games so the devs don't get criticised for tacking on MP than it is trying to implement a fun and balanced experience on top of offering a good SP. 

SP games requiring Balancing? No where near as much as MP games require them. There is a reason why companies outsource to make RTS games or games that have heavy MP modes. Because its actually a specialty to create something with good game modes, good maps and locations, respawning and MP rules. Not every company can do it or do it right.

Last edited by Azzanation - on 19 October 2019

DonFerrari on 21 October 2019
Cerebralbore101 said:

@LudicrousSpeed I'll get to your post on monday. 

Azzanation said:

Comparing Days Gone, made by one of Sonys AAA devs team with a massive AAA budget behind it, to a game that was made by a small indy team with alot less budget behind it is not a fair comparison. Its like comparing Mario Odessey to Knack or Luckys Tails. Also 71 to 66 to me is only 5 points off and since most of the poor reviews with SOD2 was its bugs, now the game has been iron out over the years, those scores look alot closer. Look at the Zombie market, majority of Zombie games this gen havnt scored well. But credit to where credit is due, SOD2 offers both SP and MP modes and the game has a ton of replay value.

I agree Indy games can outpreform AAA games in many cases, Ori is one of my favourite games this gen. Except when you look at those Indy games, they follow a similar trend like Metroid Vania or Minecraft styled games that dont require tons of money or people to make. SOD2 is not a Metroid Vania or Minecraft game, its an open world Sandbox game that does require a big budget and team to get right. From my personal experience i will tell you SOD2 is a superior game to SOD1 even though the review scores are light years different. If you are going to play a SOD game many will say play SOD2.

SOTs lacked content at launch like most big ambishest titles this gen. Thats how service games work. If you base your review on someone else's than you are only assuming its bad because you might actually like it. Iv played games that didnt score well and actually enjoyed them. Everyone has different tastes. As they say, One mans trash is another mans treasure.

Adding MP in games is not easy. If you tack it on than expect critics to criticize the games. Metroid Prime 2 copped criticism for its tacked on MP and lost overall points in its total review score. So if companies tack it on with little to no effort they lose points, so Sony removing it,  avoids that extra critisizm. Thats playing it safe. MP requires alot of balancing, modes and they need to be good just like the SP mode. 

Uh, Nintendo rebuilt its brand during the WiiU era and came out firing with the Switch, MS rebuilt there brand during the X1 era and expect something similar with the Scarlett. These things can take years to plan out not at launch day on a console release. Thank the WiiUs failures for the Switches success.



I'd say those 5 points are a large gap considering that most reviewers don't want to issue a score below 70/100. Every point below 70/100 is like two points. But I guess I said that already. 

Sure SoD2 could be a good game now. Could be worse. But on release it was bad. 

Eh, just because the rest of the Zombie market is bad is no excuse. A bad game is a bad game regardless of how the rest of the genre is bad. 

its an open world Sandbox game that does require a big budget and team to get right.

That just backs up my original point that MS doesn't care enough, because their games are meant to be filler for Gamepass, and then put on as many platforms as they can get them on. If they cared why didn't they put a bigger team or more money into it? 

We agree that SoT lacked content at launch, and that SOD2 was extremely buggy at launch. Then why didn't MS give those games more time to reach a completed state at launch? Real question here. Not wholly hypothetical. Please answer. 


SOTs lacked content at launch like most big ambishest titles this gen. Thats how service games work. If you base your review on someone else's than you are only assuming its bad because you might actually like it. Iv played games that didnt score well and actually enjoyed them. Everyone has different tastes. As they say, One mans trash is another mans treasure.

I see a common theme here of trying to say that its okay for MS to do these bad things with their games because other games do them. That just doesn't work. Just because some bad players in the industry are doing things a certain way, is no excuse for another company to copy them. 

Should I just personally verify everything for myself? Do I need to whip out a telescope and do some math before I take Nasa's word for it on the orbital path of Jupiter? If I read a review by somebody that shares similar tastes to my own, then that is good enough for me. And if there's an overall consensus of reviewers saying that game X is bad, then that is good enough for me. 

Adding MP in games is not easy. If you tack it on than expect critics to criticize the games. Metroid Prime 2 copped criticism for its tacked on MP and lost overall points in its total review score. So if companies tack it on with little to no effort they lose points, so Sony removing it,  avoids that extra critisizm. Thats playing it safe. MP requires alot of balancing, modes and they need to be good just like the SP mode. 

By that logic avoiding extra single player levels in games is playing it safe. And since extra single player levels require vastly more work than extra multiplayer levels it is not Sony that is playing it safe overall. Single player games require balancing too. So that point is moot. Single player has way more levels than multiplayer has modes. Another moot point. 

 

You are forgetting another thing that makes the gap even bigger on the review.

The bar for Indie or AA games is much lower than AAA games. Or would you say Resogun (84 score) is that much better game than Days Gone?



duduspace11 "Well, since we are estimating costs, Pokemon Red/Blue did cost Nintendo about $50m to make back in 1996"

http://gamrconnect.vgchartz.com/post.php?id=8808363

Mr Puggsly: "Hehe, I said good profit. You said big profit. Frankly, not losing money is what I meant by good. Don't get hung up on semantics"

http://gamrconnect.vgchartz.com/post.php?id=9008994

Azzanation: "PS5 wouldn't sold out at launch without scalpers."

Cerebralbore101 on 22 October 2019
LudicrousSpeed said:
Cerebralbore101 said:

????

Switch has the best 3rd party support of any Nintendo home console in the last 13 years. GBA, DS, and 3DS all had phenomenal 3rd party support, yet Nintendo games still sold well. 

Saying the Switch has great third party support compared to past Nintendo platforms is saying nothing at all, because past Nintendo platforms have had very very bad third party support. It would be like if I could somehow guarantee here that Microsoft first party next gen would be their best since the OG Xbox days. People would rightfully just reply that MS first party hasn't been all that good, so that's not really saying much. Nintendo does have better third party support on Switch than consoles like Wii or WiiU or even GCN. But it still pales in comparison to MicroSony consoles.

Cerebralbore101 said:

Again though, even accounting for Nintendo's abnormally high sales BotW is a sales monster. It doubled the old sales record set by OoT, before it ever even went on sale. 

I'm not comparing Microsoft/Sony sales to Nintendo in this argument. I'm comparing Nintendo sales to Witcher 3. 

And by comparing them to a title like Witcher 3 you are by default comparing them to MicroSony titles because you're harping on the game going on sale, and literally every publisher not Nintendo does that. I made the point that you can make more money selling games to multiple platforms and you replied with Zelda, one of the best games of all time and one of the most beloved franchises of all time that also happens to benefit from the Nintendo pricing strategy. If you have to stack the deck that hard just to support your argument, maybe you don't have much of an argument? 99% of games are not Breath of the Wild.

Cerebralbore101 said:

Sony's titles get price cuts, because Sony would rather make less money directly on sales and more money from pumping up their YTD platform totals and raking in more publishing fees from 3rd parties as a result. They discount their games to entice people to buy a PS4, and then when those people get four or five 3rd party games Sony makes more than its money back from publishing fees and/or console royalties. 

uh... huh? You make money on software, not hardware. This is literally the exact opposite of how reality works. Once again you are making stuff up to support this crazy theory about games being better because they're "designed to sell consoles" lol.

Cerebralbore101 said:

Witcher 3's heavily discounted 20+ Million is way way way less money than BotW's full priced 15 million. BotW has to have made at least double the amount of money as Witcher 3, if not triple or quadruple. 

That's awesome. Irrelevant to what I said. Do you want Witcher 3 to have been designed from the ground up to run on the WiiU? And be published by Nintendo? That's the only way it's getting a price strategy like Zelda. Who cares?


Cerebralbore101 said:

I'd basically have to have a crystal ball to know. Any specifics would be speculation on my part so I'll pass. 

In other words you have literally nothing to support your argument.

Cerebralbore101 said:

Compared to the previous games in the series for SoD2, and Crackdown 3. Compared to what MS's 1st party output was like in the 360 era.

There's no doubt the games were received worse than previous entries. What's up for debate is the reason. With each of these games you can point to a reason why it got the reviews it did, backed up with logic. For example, CD3 went through development hell. SoD2 was a $30 AA title marketed like a AAA exclusive and launched with some crippling bugs for some users and reviewers. OR, you can ignore that and maybe you're right, they just "weren't designed to sell consoles", whatever that means.

Cerebralbore101 said:

Media Molecule helped an undisclosed amount on LBP3. It wasn't a solely Sumo Digital Effort. Unless they are making a racing game Sumo Digital can't make a good game on their own. 

There are always reviews like that on MC. I bet I could find a bunch for Days Gone too. 

Saying the Switch has great third party support compared to past Nintendo platforms is saying nothing at all, because past Nintendo platforms have had very very bad third party support. It would be like if I could somehow guarantee here that Microsoft first party next gen would be their best since the OG Xbox days. People would rightfully just reply that MS first party hasn't been all that good, so that's not really saying much. Nintendo does have better third party support on Switch than consoles like Wii or WiiU or even GCN. But it still pales in comparison to MicroSony consoles.

And yet, Nintendo games still sold well on their handhelds, despite having 3rd party support just as strong as home console contemporaries. 

And by comparing them to a title like Witcher 3 you are by default comparing them to MicroSony titles because you're harping on the game going on sale, and literally every publisher not Nintendo does that. I made the point that you can make more money selling games to multiple platforms and you replied with Zelda, one of the best games of all time and one of the most beloved franchises of all time that also happens to benefit from the Nintendo pricing strategy. If you have to stack the deck that hard just to support your argument, maybe you don't have much of an argument? 99% of games are not Breath of the Wild.

If Nintendo did a Sony/Microsoft pricing strategy of heavy sales BotW would have sold 40-50 million by now. BotW debuted on a dead system and a newly launched system. Witcher 3 launched on three platforms all with pre-established install bases. Witcher 3 has had nearly two more years on the market than BotW. And yet BotW absolutely crushes it in revenue. You claim that I'm stacking the deck, but are forgetting two severe handicapps that BotW had. 

uh... huh? You make money on software, not hardware. This is literally the exact opposite of how reality works. Once again you are making stuff up to support this crazy theory about games being better because they're "designed to sell consoles" lol.

You literally have no clue how the console market works. 

That's awesome. Irrelevant to what I said. Do you want Witcher 3 to have been designed from the ground up to run on the WiiU? And be published by Nintendo? That's the only way it's getting a price strategy like Zelda. Who cares?

Uh, you tried arguing that 1st party games can't get as much revenue as multiplat titles. It is relevant, because it shows that 1st party games can indeed get as much revenue. In fact they can crush multiplat games in sales revenue. Witcher 3 is an open world action adventure RPG. So is BotW. And yet despite launching on basically one system BotW has way more sales revenue. It isn't even a contest. 

In other words you have literally nothing to support your argument.

Oh, I could go into that, but its' not the main argument. Our main disagreement is over whether or not 1st party games can get the budget of multiplat games. Obviously they can, and then some. 


There's no doubt the games were received worse than previous entries. What's up for debate is the reason. With each of these games you can point to a reason why it got the reviews it did, backed up with logic. For example, CD3 went through development hell. SoD2 was a $30 AA title marketed like a AAA exclusive and launched with some crippling bugs for some users and reviewers. OR, you can ignore that and maybe you're right, they just "weren't designed to sell consoles", whatever that means.

CD3 went through develpment hell because MS didn't care about the game, because it was always intended to be gamepass fodder. SoD2 launched with crippling bugs for the same reason. Who was it that started the phrase "designed to sell consoles"? Scroll up. The answer may surprise you. 

Yeah I'm sure there are user reviews like that for Day's Gone. That was my point. That's why it's pointless to even bring them up.

Yes, both games had their fair share of troll reviews. And yet Days Gone has a higher user score. Why? Because there were more people coming in to give it a high score of 8/9/10, than there were troll reviews. Where are the 8/9/10 reviews for SoD2? User scores tell me that it's universally hated. 



Cerebralbore101 on 22 October 2019
DonFerrari said:

You are forgetting another thing that makes the gap even bigger on the review.

The bar for Indie or AA games is much lower than AAA games. Or would you say Resogun (84 score) is that much better game than Days Gone?

 I think an Indie game with a team of 4-10 genuinely talented people has a much better chance of being a better game. Scope kind of scales in an uncanny valley sort of way. I'll elaborate on that some other day though. 



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Cerebralbore101 on 22 October 2019
Azzanation said:
Cerebralbore101 said:

I'd say those 5 points are a large gap considering that most reviewers don't want to issue a score below 70/100. Every point below 70/100 is like two points. But I guess I said that already. 

Sure SoD2 could be a good game now. Could be worse. But on release it was bad. 

Eh, just because the rest of the Zombie market is bad is no excuse. A bad game is a bad game regardless of how the rest of the genre is bad. 

its an open world Sandbox game that does require a big budget and team to get right.

That just backs up my original point that MS doesn't care enough, because their games are meant to be filler for Gamepass, and then put on as many platforms as they can get them on. If they cared why didn't they put a bigger team or more money into it? 

We agree that SoT lacked content at launch, and that SOD2 was extremely buggy at launch. Then why didn't MS give those games more time to reach a completed state at launch? Real question here. Not wholly hypothetical. Please answer. 


SOTs lacked content at launch like most big ambishest titles this gen. Thats how service games work. If you base your review on someone else's than you are only assuming its bad because you might actually like it. Iv played games that didnt score well and actually enjoyed them. Everyone has different tastes. As they say, One mans trash is another mans treasure.

I see a common theme here of trying to say that its okay for MS to do these bad things with their games because other games do them. That just doesn't work. Just because some bad players in the industry are doing things a certain way, is no excuse for another company to copy them. 

Should I just personally verify everything for myself? Do I need to whip out a telescope and do some math before I take Nasa's word for it on the orbital path of Jupiter? If I read a review by somebody that shares similar tastes to my own, then that is good enough for me. And if there's an overall consensus of reviewers saying that game X is bad, then that is good enough for me. 

Adding MP in games is not easy. If you tack it on than expect critics to criticize the games. Metroid Prime 2 copped criticism for its tacked on MP and lost overall points in its total review score. So if companies tack it on with little to no effort they lose points, so Sony removing it,  avoids that extra critisizm. Thats playing it safe. MP requires alot of balancing, modes and they need to be good just like the SP mode. 

By that logic avoiding extra single player levels in games is playing it safe. And since extra single player levels require vastly more work than extra multiplayer levels it is not Sony that is playing it safe overall. Single player games require balancing too. So that point is moot. Single player has way more levels than multiplayer has modes. Another moot point. 

You couldn't be any more wrong with your post. 

1) You need to stop comparing AA to AAA games. SOD2 is a AA game that cost half the price of a game like Days Gone. It was also produced with a much smaller budget and Team. There is no excuse for buggy launches and the game got criticised for it. Days Gone got criticised for other reasons. Also I don't disagree with you in saying MS could have funded more money into Undead Labs however Undead Labs was not owned by MS at that time. Now that Undead Labs is under MS, lets see how there next title turns out. From what we know, MS has been allowing extra time and funds for there new studios so lets judge them on there next release.

2) I don't understand how you think a game like SOD2 is considered a bad game because it sits on a 66 Meta. For starters Meta clearly showcases in colour what is a Poor, Average and Good game via Red, Yellow and Green. SOD2 sits in the Yellow so for you to come out calling it bad is hilarious and its even more funny since you haven't even played it to cast that judgement. SOD2 has a lot of mixed reviews from 4s to 9s and a lot in between. If every review gave the game a 66 than you might have a point however it shows some people like it and many think its average and some think its poor. Which one are you? You haven't played it so instead, you base it off its lowest review score.. do you do this with every game? Also the PC version of SOD2 sits on a 69, only 2 points off Days Gone, a game made with a AAA focus and a major inhouse dev team.

How would you feel if a reviewer gave a game a similar score based on another reviewers score without even playing the game? That is exactly how you sound. 

3) So are you saying games like Forza Horizon 4, Gears 5 and Halo Infinite are AA budget titles only to fill the gaps in GamePass? You think Obsidian, Ninja Theory, The Initiative, Playground Games, Rare etc are only there to create AA standard games? That's a very interesting foresight you have.

4) You clearly know nothing about Multiplayer games. no one said SP games are easy to make however building scripted events and having full control on a player and what they see compared to basically a warzone where balancing between players can be extremely difficult to implement. Iv been playing WoW since 2005, I can tell you 15 years afterwards they still haven't been able to balance the MP in that game, the SP content isn't exactly rocket science to create however the MP is on another level of difficult. Its a lot easier taking MP out of games so the devs don't get criticised for tacking on MP than it is trying to implement a fun and balanced experience on top of offering a good SP. 

SP games requiring Balancing? No where near as much as MP games require them. There is a reason why companies outsource to make RTS games or games that have heavy MP modes. Because its actually a specialty to create something with good game modes, good maps and locations, respawning and MP rules. Not every company can do it or do it right.

1. Games with smaller budget and scope actually have a better chance of being good games. Once a game's scope and/or funding gets closer to AAA status quality drops like a rock. Until funding reaches a point where the team and budget are big enough to handle the game again. Bend Studio went from making PSP/Vita games directly into HD development. That is a very hard move. The fact that Days Gone got the scores it did is a testament to their herculean effort. On the flip side SoD2 was a sequel, and not Undead Lab's first foray into making a game of this scope. Yet it dropped a full 10 points from the original game. 

2. Meta showcases lies in color. You haven't doublechecked Jupiter's orbit. Why believe Nasa? I'm not using it's lowest review score. I'm using the average of all the XB1 reviews. PC version may be a little better, but that hardly excuses MS from allowing the XB1 version to release in such a sad state. And as I said above, it's much easier to make a sequel than it is to make an all new game after developing on handhelds for years. Also, a good PC CPU can hide sub-20 framerate crashing bugs, because a gaming PC usually has a much better CPU than a console. 

3. Strawman argument. 

4. Modern game engines have sliders that can access the code. Nerfing a certain gun takes all of 20 seconds in modern game design. You may have experience in multiplayer, but you have zero game development experience. Multiplayer games use a fraction of the assets that single player games use. And it's those 3D modeling, sound/music, animations, etc. that take up the vast majority of development time/effort. Balancing is a drop in the bucket in comparison. 

Outsourcing teams are the bench-warmers of the game development world. 



Azzanation on 22 October 2019
DonFerrari said:

You are forgetting another thing that makes the gap even bigger on the review.

The bar for Indie or AA games is much lower than AAA games. Or would you say Resogun (84 score) is that much better game than Days Gone?

Bar? What Bar? Indy games receive good and bad reviews based on its quality. The thing here is some Indy games do alot of things right where as the AAA market tend to do alot of things wrong.

Yes i would say Resogun is a better game than Days Gone however i havnt played either to cast that judgment but i will say Ori (88) is a better game than Gears 4 (84) and thats based on playing both and completing both. Meta is only a guide line to me anyway.



LudicrousSpeed on 24 October 2019
Cerebralbore101 said:

Saying the Switch has great third party support compared to past Nintendo platforms is saying nothing at all, because past Nintendo platforms have had very very bad third party support. It would be like if I could somehow guarantee here that Microsoft first party next gen would be their best since the OG Xbox days. People would rightfully just reply that MS first party hasn't been all that good, so that's not really saying much. Nintendo does have better third party support on Switch than consoles like Wii or WiiU or even GCN. But it still pales in comparison to MicroSony consoles.

And yet, Nintendo games still sold well on their handhelds, despite having 3rd party support just as strong as home console contemporaries. 

1. Nintendo handhelds haven't gotten third party support as strong as MicroSony home consoles. Not even close.
2. What do sales of handheld games have to do with third party support on their consoles? lol you don't even know what you're arguing here.

Cerebralbore101 said:
And by comparing them to a title like Witcher 3 you are by default comparing them to MicroSony titles because you're harping on the game going on sale, and literally every publisher not Nintendo does that. I made the point that you can make more money selling games to multiple platforms and you replied with Zelda, one of the best games of all time and one of the most beloved franchises of all time that also happens to benefit from the Nintendo pricing strategy. If you have to stack the deck that hard just to support your argument, maybe you don't have much of an argument? 99% of games are not Breath of the Wild.

If Nintendo did a Sony/Microsoft pricing strategy of heavy sales BotW would have sold 40-50 million by now. BotW debuted on a dead system and a newly launched system. Witcher 3 launched on three platforms all with pre-established install bases. Witcher 3 has had nearly two more years on the market than BotW. And yet BotW absolutely crushes it in revenue. You claim that I'm stacking the deck, but are forgetting two severe handicapps that BotW had. 

Oh man that's so good for BotW that it could have sold 40-50 million on a MicroSony strategy. Again, who cares? Irrelevant to anything I said. I brought up Witcher 3 having less of a return on investment could have resulted in a smaller, cheaper game. For some reason you replied with sales numbers for Zelda, as if they're related somehow.



Cerebralbore101 said:
uh... huh? You make money on software, not hardware. This is literally the exact opposite of how reality works. Once again you are making stuff up to support this crazy theory about games being better because they're "designed to sell consoles" lol.

You literally have no clue how the console market works. 

I know how the console market has worked ever since Sony entered it. They and MS lose money on hardware with the intent on making up for it on software, both their own and licensing fees from third party software. Are you honestly not aware that this is how they operate or are you just faking ignorance?

Cerebralbore101 said:

That's awesome. Irrelevant to what I said. Do you want Witcher 3 to have been designed from the ground up to run on the WiiU? And be published by Nintendo? That's the only way it's getting a price strategy like Zelda. Who cares?

Uh, you tried arguing that 1st party games can't get as much revenue as multiplat titles. It is relevant, because it shows that 1st party games can indeed get as much revenue. In fact they can crush multiplat games in sales revenue. Witcher 3 is an open world action adventure RPG. So is BotW. And yet despite launching on basically one system BotW has way more sales revenue. It isn't even a contest. 

lol I never said zero first party games ever could not possibly get as much revenue as multiplat games. There are literally hundreds of smaller titles released every gen and lots of super big first party titles that outsell them. It's adorable to see you go to freaking Zelda to try and disprove some point I never made.

Cerebralbore101 said:

In other words you have literally nothing to support your argument.

Oh, I could go into that, but its' not the main argument. Our main disagreement is over whether or not 1st party games can get the budget of multiplat games. Obviously they can, and then some. 

No, there is no main disagreement there. Of course a first party game can get the budget of a multiplat. I'm playing through Outer Worlds right now. I doubt its budget was even 1/4 of Last of Us 2. See? Easy. The "main disagreement" was this idea you put forth that some games are designed to sell consoles and some aren't and they aren't as good because of that. An idea you've backed up with zero evidence or logic btw


Cerebralbore101 said:
There's no doubt the games were received worse than previous entries. What's up for debate is the reason. With each of these games you can point to a reason why it got the reviews it did, backed up with logic. For example, CD3 went through development hell. SoD2 was a $30 AA title marketed like a AAA exclusive and launched with some crippling bugs for some users and reviewers. OR, you can ignore that and maybe you're right, they just "weren't designed to sell consoles", whatever that means.

CD3 went through develpment hell because MS didn't care about the game, because it was always intended to be gamepass fodder. SoD2 launched with crippling bugs for the same reason. Who was it that started the phrase "designed to sell consoles"? Scroll up. The answer may surprise you. 

Sure, if you want to be ignorant about CD3 development, sure. It's a waste of time to correct you. It was you who said "made to sell consoles". Not surprised.



Cerebralbore101 said:

Yeah I'm sure there are user reviews like that for Day's Gone. That was my point. That's why it's pointless to even bring them up.

Yes, both games had their fair share of troll reviews. And yet Days Gone has a higher user score. Why? Because there were more people coming in to give it a high score of 8/9/10, than there were troll reviews. Where are the 8/9/10 reviews for SoD2? User scores tell me that it's universally hated. 

Both games have their fair share of troll user reviews. That's all that needed to be said for you to prove my point for me, thanks. All the more reason to ignore something as stupid as user reviews.

I'm just gonna bow out until you can actually provide some depth to that nonsense about games selling consoles.



Cerebralbore101 on 24 October 2019
LudicrousSpeed said:
Cerebralbore101 said:

Saying the Switch has great third party support compared to past Nintendo platforms is saying nothing at all, because past Nintendo platforms have had very very bad third party support. It would be like if I could somehow guarantee here that Microsoft first party next gen would be their best since the OG Xbox days. People would rightfully just reply that MS first party hasn't been all that good, so that's not really saying much. Nintendo does have better third party support on Switch than consoles like Wii or WiiU or even GCN. But it still pales in comparison to MicroSony consoles.

And yet, Nintendo games still sold well on their handhelds, despite having 3rd party support just as strong as home console contemporaries. 

1. Nintendo handhelds haven't gotten third party support as strong as MicroSony home consoles. Not even close.
2. What do sales of handheld games have to do with third party support on their consoles? lol you don't even know what you're arguing here.

Cerebralbore101 said:
And by comparing them to a title like Witcher 3 you are by default comparing them to MicroSony titles because you're harping on the game going on sale, and literally every publisher not Nintendo does that. I made the point that you can make more money selling games to multiple platforms and you replied with Zelda, one of the best games of all time and one of the most beloved franchises of all time that also happens to benefit from the Nintendo pricing strategy. If you have to stack the deck that hard just to support your argument, maybe you don't have much of an argument? 99% of games are not Breath of the Wild.

If Nintendo did a Sony/Microsoft pricing strategy of heavy sales BotW would have sold 40-50 million by now. BotW debuted on a dead system and a newly launched system. Witcher 3 launched on three platforms all with pre-established install bases. Witcher 3 has had nearly two more years on the market than BotW. And yet BotW absolutely crushes it in revenue. You claim that I'm stacking the deck, but are forgetting two severe handicapps that BotW had. 

Oh man that's so good for BotW that it could have sold 40-50 million on a MicroSony strategy. Again, who cares? Irrelevant to anything I said. I brought up Witcher 3 having less of a return on investment could have resulted in a smaller, cheaper game. For some reason you replied with sales numbers for Zelda, as if they're related somehow.



Cerebralbore101 said:
uh... huh? You make money on software, not hardware. This is literally the exact opposite of how reality works. Once again you are making stuff up to support this crazy theory about games being better because they're "designed to sell consoles" lol.

You literally have no clue how the console market works. 

I know how the console market has worked ever since Sony entered it. They and MS lose money on hardware with the intent on making up for it on software, both their own and licensing fees from third party software. Are you honestly not aware that this is how they operate or are you just faking ignorance?

Cerebralbore101 said:

That's awesome. Irrelevant to what I said. Do you want Witcher 3 to have been designed from the ground up to run on the WiiU? And be published by Nintendo? That's the only way it's getting a price strategy like Zelda. Who cares?

Uh, you tried arguing that 1st party games can't get as much revenue as multiplat titles. It is relevant, because it shows that 1st party games can indeed get as much revenue. In fact they can crush multiplat games in sales revenue. Witcher 3 is an open world action adventure RPG. So is BotW. And yet despite launching on basically one system BotW has way more sales revenue. It isn't even a contest. 

lol I never said zero first party games ever could not possibly get as much revenue as multiplat games. There are literally hundreds of smaller titles released every gen and lots of super big first party titles that outsell them. It's adorable to see you go to freaking Zelda to try and disprove some point I never made.

Cerebralbore101 said:

In other words you have literally nothing to support your argument.

Oh, I could go into that, but its' not the main argument. Our main disagreement is over whether or not 1st party games can get the budget of multiplat games. Obviously they can, and then some. 

No, there is no main disagreement there. Of course a first party game can get the budget of a multiplat. I'm playing through Outer Worlds right now. I doubt its budget was even 1/4 of Last of Us 2. See? Easy. The "main disagreement" was this idea you put forth that some games are designed to sell consoles and some aren't and they aren't as good because of that. An idea you've backed up with zero evidence or logic btw


Cerebralbore101 said:
There's no doubt the games were received worse than previous entries. What's up for debate is the reason. With each of these games you can point to a reason why it got the reviews it did, backed up with logic. For example, CD3 went through development hell. SoD2 was a $30 AA title marketed like a AAA exclusive and launched with some crippling bugs for some users and reviewers. OR, you can ignore that and maybe you're right, they just "weren't designed to sell consoles", whatever that means.

CD3 went through develpment hell because MS didn't care about the game, because it was always intended to be gamepass fodder. SoD2 launched with crippling bugs for the same reason. Who was it that started the phrase "designed to sell consoles"? Scroll up. The answer may surprise you. 

Sure, if you want to be ignorant about CD3 development, sure. It's a waste of time to correct you. It was you who said "made to sell consoles". Not surprised.



Cerebralbore101 said:

Yeah I'm sure there are user reviews like that for Day's Gone. That was my point. That's why it's pointless to even bring them up.

Yes, both games had their fair share of troll reviews. And yet Days Gone has a higher user score. Why? Because there were more people coming in to give it a high score of 8/9/10, than there were troll reviews. Where are the 8/9/10 reviews for SoD2? User scores tell me that it's universally hated. 

Both games have their fair share of troll user reviews. That's all that needed to be said for you to prove my point for me, thanks. All the more reason to ignore something as stupid as user reviews.

I'm just gonna bow out until you can actually provide some depth to that nonsense about games selling consoles.

Go look at the DS library. While, it didn't have as many games as 360/PS3 it had a much more varied and original library. Gone was the yearly GuitarHero/SportsGames/Racing/FPS/Ubisoft bloat. 

There was a vast sea of fantastic 3rd party games on DS, GBA, GB, etc. And yet Nintendo games still sold well on those systems. So again, your theory that Nintendo games only sell well because of a lack of 3rd party support is bunk. 

Oh man that's so good for BotW that it could have sold 40-50 million on a MicroSony strategy. Again, who cares? Irrelevant to anything I said. I brought up Witcher 3 having less of a return on investment could have resulted in a smaller, cheaper game. For some reason you replied with sales numbers for Zelda, as if they're related somehow. 

It is relevant. They are related. 

Our main argument here has to do with budget for games. You said that Witcher 3 would have been a less ambitious game because of a lack of sales from being exclusive. 

I countered with Zelda sales, which you continually attempt to brush off because "Nintendo games don't count."

Fine by me though. Playstation exclusives sell stupidly high amounts as well. Just look at God of War for example. It's passed 10 million sales in a little under a year. That's half of Witcher 3's lifetime sales in a fraction of the time. 

Consider that God of War fueled the sales of more PS4s. Which in turn fueled platform royalty fees. Which means that the overall money made from a single copy of GoW is much higher than the overall money made from a single copy of Witcher 3. 

But I'm sure that "doesn't count" either. 

I know how the console market has worked ever since Sony entered it. They and MS lose money on hardware with the intent on making up for it on software, both their own and licensing fees from third party software. Are you honestly not aware that this is how they operate or are you just faking ignorance?

That is literally what I was arguing for. They lose money on hardware (and pump extra time/money into their exclusives) with the intent of pumping up their total number of platforms sold, and then making all that money back on licensing fees. What you said earlier made me think you were denying these basic facts about how the console market worked. Oh well, at least we agree on something. 


The "main disagreement" was this idea you put forth that some games are designed to sell consoles and some aren't and they aren't as good because of that.

It was you who said "made to sell consoles". Not surprised.

Made to sell consoles =/= designed to sell consoles. You are the one that started saying "designed to sell consoles" in order to pose the question of "what would have been better about Witcher 3?"

Yes, some games are made to sell consoles, and because of that they get extra development time, and budget. This in turn makes those games far better than their 3rd party brethren. 

But again, this is mostly a budgeting issue. And despite providing a game in the same genre, on a console that isn't even at the halfway point yet, you want to deny it. Funny. 



Last edited by Cerebralbore101 - on 24 October 2019

LudicrousSpeed on 25 October 2019

Go look at the DS library. While, it didn't have as many games as 360/PS3 it had a much more varied and original library. Gone was the yearly GuitarHero/SportsGames/Racing/FPS/Ubisoft bloat. 

There was a vast sea of fantastic 3rd party games on DS, GBA, GB, etc. And yet Nintendo games still sold well on those systems. So again, your theory that Nintendo games only sell well because of a lack of 3rd party support is bunk. 

This is revisionist history. There was stronger third party support on older Nintendo handhelds than more recent ones but lol, you're going all the way back to the Game Boy. My point is proven, especially considering that MicroSony consoles didn't even exist back then. Either way at the end of the day the home consoles still saw far superior third party support.

 It is relevant. They are related. 

Our main argument here has to do with budget for games. You said that Witcher 3 would have been a less ambitious game because of a lack of sales from being exclusive. 

I countered with Zelda sales, which you continually attempt to brush off because "Nintendo games don't count."

Fine by me though. Playstation exclusives sell stupidly high amounts as well. Just look at God of War for example. It's passed 10 million sales in a little under a year. That's half of Witcher 3's lifetime sales in a fraction of the time. 

Consider that God of War fueled the sales of more PS4s. Which in turn fueled platform royalty fees. Which means that the overall money made from a single copy of GoW is much higher than the overall money made from a single copy of Witcher 3. 

But I'm sure that "doesn't count" either. 

No. Again, the main argument is the idea that some games are designed to sell consoles and thus are better than ones that aren't. You're spinning it off into this Witcher vs Zelda budget crap. Yes, Witcher 3 could have been a less ambitious game had CDPR knew their potential sales were one platform versus four. You don't need to "counter" that idea, it's common sense.

Hold up, you're telling me Sony makes more money per copy of their own  title, of which they recoup 100% of the money a retailer spends to buy it, versus a third party title, where all Sony gets per copy sold is a licensing fee? Wow, my mind is blown. Please make some more irrelevant game comparisons, I love reading them.

Made to sell consoles =/= designed to sell consoles. You are the one that started saying "designed to sell consoles" in order to pose the question of "what would have been better about Witcher 3?"

Yes, some games are made to sell consoles, and because of that they get extra development time, and budget. This in turn makes those games far better than their 3rd party brethren. 

But again, this is mostly a budgeting issue. And despite providing a game in the same genre, on a console that isn't even at the halfway point yet, you want to deny it. Funny. 

lol are you really harping on "designed" vs "made"? In this context they are literally synonyms.

Congratulations on trying to provide substance to your silly theory about games made to sell consoles, but all you're describing there are big budget games vs smaller budget games. For every amazing first party title you list that got extra love and care and got great reviews, I can list at least one third party title that the developer made with zero intentions of selling consoles.

Did Sony try less with a title like Concrete Genie or Medievil than they're trying with Last of Us 2? In all cases they're trying to make great games that will make you want to buy a PS4. No different than what MS does with their games. When they make CD3 or Horizon 4, they're trying to make great games that will pull you to Xbox. They just didn't have the stable of quality developers this gen that Sony had. That's why they went out and bought some. The idea that they don't care about moving hardware with the games is complete nonsense.