makingmusic476 on 26 July 2008
Here's the entire segment on exclusivity from the interview:
In terms of reaching more people, you're releasing this game only on the PS3, and the audience for that is necessarily limited, because only a certain number of people have it. Do you feel that consoles are a limitation for you? I don't know how many adults who want this kind of experience have a PS3.
DC: Honestly, working on one platform is the best thing we could dream of, and it's a choice. When we signed this game, we had a choice between different publishers, some of them being only one platform and other being all. After the experience we had with Fahrenheit, where the multiplatform was kind of painful on all levels, it makes the development more complex, but you also end up with the feeling that you've taken the best of none. You had to do something on three platforms, and you couldn't really affect the time and efforts to one platform to make it the best game on this platform, because you've got three platforms to pick.
I think regarding especially the PC, the PC is generally a frustration for me, both as a developer and as a player. As a player, when I buy a game, it's quite expensive. I come back home, but the CD in, and you've got to install it. Fine - it starts to be the same with consoles these days. And then you realize that you're missing a driver. It doesn't work. It doesn't play the video, or it crashes, or it doesn't have the right version of DirectX, or it's not compatible with your video card or whatever. Whew! Well, I bought this thing, and it's supposed to work.
I don't want to fight with my computer just to make this bloody thing work. And then you need to go on the Internet, download the drivers, and you know what? The framerate is not what it's supposed to be, or you don't have the level of detail in the graphics because you don't have the right video card or you don't have the right controller because the developer wanted you to play this game with a certain controller, and you only have a keyboard and a mouse, or whatever. And in the end, the experience is not what the developer wanted, and it's not satisfying for you as a user.
And as a developer, I'm frustrated, because when I design an experience, I have framerates in mind, certain graphic rendering in mind, a certain controller in mind, and I'm frustrated if people can't play it. On Fahrenheit, the game was designed for the PlayStation 2 controller. It works okay on Xbox, but honestly, I don't think it works with a keyboard and a mouse on PC. It's really difficult and challenging to find a game that can work with any device.
On PlayStation 3 now, there's no problem. It's pretty clear. You know what the control is, you know the rendering, you know what framerates you get, and you know everything, because this is exactly what you designed. You say it's a limited audience - yeah, it's true at the moment, but by the end of the PlayStation 2, I think there are 120 million units in the world, so I don't call that a limited market. There's no reason why the PlayStation 3 can't reach these numbers.
DC: Honestly, working on one platform is the best thing we could dream of, and it's a choice. When we signed this game, we had a choice between different publishers, some of them being only one platform and other being all. After the experience we had with Fahrenheit, where the multiplatform was kind of painful on all levels, it makes the development more complex, but you also end up with the feeling that you've taken the best of none. You had to do something on three platforms, and you couldn't really affect the time and efforts to one platform to make it the best game on this platform, because you've got three platforms to pick.
I think regarding especially the PC, the PC is generally a frustration for me, both as a developer and as a player. As a player, when I buy a game, it's quite expensive. I come back home, but the CD in, and you've got to install it. Fine - it starts to be the same with consoles these days. And then you realize that you're missing a driver. It doesn't work. It doesn't play the video, or it crashes, or it doesn't have the right version of DirectX, or it's not compatible with your video card or whatever. Whew! Well, I bought this thing, and it's supposed to work.
I don't want to fight with my computer just to make this bloody thing work. And then you need to go on the Internet, download the drivers, and you know what? The framerate is not what it's supposed to be, or you don't have the level of detail in the graphics because you don't have the right video card or you don't have the right controller because the developer wanted you to play this game with a certain controller, and you only have a keyboard and a mouse, or whatever. And in the end, the experience is not what the developer wanted, and it's not satisfying for you as a user.
And as a developer, I'm frustrated, because when I design an experience, I have framerates in mind, certain graphic rendering in mind, a certain controller in mind, and I'm frustrated if people can't play it. On Fahrenheit, the game was designed for the PlayStation 2 controller. It works okay on Xbox, but honestly, I don't think it works with a keyboard and a mouse on PC. It's really difficult and challenging to find a game that can work with any device.
On PlayStation 3 now, there's no problem. It's pretty clear. You know what the control is, you know the rendering, you know what framerates you get, and you know everything, because this is exactly what you designed. You say it's a limited audience - yeah, it's true at the moment, but by the end of the PlayStation 2, I think there are 120 million units in the world, so I don't call that a limited market. There's no reason why the PlayStation 3 can't reach these numbers.
