Capcom laments DVD capacity - Lost Planet 2 compromised

[Reasonable]

WilliamWatts said:

Reasonable said:

WilliamWatts said:

The IHV's do have a lot of sway over developers. I would say the two major rules Sony implemented "Though shalt not make the PS3 version worse than the Xbox 360 version" has really set the tone for the generation as far as multiplatform games are concerned. As well as "Though shalt put more content into thine PS3 version if it be late" so its not a hard stretch that "Thine shall not make games which span two discs unless thine desires additional royalties" Is a significant stop for them to use more than one disc and represents a significant expense. Lost Planet 2 doesn't have the same sway as say Rage because they expect up front that the sales will be heavily biased towards the Xbox 360 anyyway and the designer doesn't have the same sway with the media as Carmack - Tech god and extraordinary gentleman who drives a Tesla roadster. 

I don't see them as needing a justification for DLC and no reasonable game developer speaking to the media would court controversy, especially controversy which puts the main SKU into a negative light. In the case of Rage it was a case of 3 discs vs 2 and the embarrassment of multiple discs (for their image) escalates with the number of discs required. In addition to this, the engine was earmarked as something which multiple developers would use. So they compromised.

So if the developer courts controversy for no real gain then why does he do it? I suspect the content may have actually been important enough for him to feel the need to tell people about.

 

Your last point is what interests me about the comments the most.  It may just be me but if I was Capcom and I had all this extra cut content I'd keep quiet, release the game, state how bloody good it is, imply that I'd love to support the title further, then proudly annouce all this great DLC that's going to be delivered to expand an already great game.

With Rage I can understand how things crept out - and Carmack I love preciesly because he always speaks his mind and never spins stuff (he does have nice cars, doesn't he?) - but in this case Capcom, since they've clearly made the choice to stick to 1 DVD, could simply have kept their mouth shut, which would seem more sensible from a business perspective, but they didn't.

Now they've given the impression that:

1 - the game was comprimised because of 360 HW, which ain't going to please 360 fans nor MS

2 - the PS3 version didn't need to be comprimised but was anyway to remain consistent on each HD console, which ain't going to please PS3 fans nor Sony

3 - that they're going to make us buy the cut content which we'd actually have got with the title if they hadn't had to fit it on 1 DVD, which shouldn't please anyone who thinks about it whether you prefer 360 or PS3

 

Really odd thing to do IMHO.

 

Also, I know the HW guys have a lot of sway, but with PS3 struggling relative to PS2 and 360 down a bit YOY and reliant on third parties the most I reckon if they actually got together they could push back pretty heavily.

The PS3 examples you gave are actually not for all titles, nor rules the PS3 launched with so far as I know, but really a reaction to timed exclusives, and somewhat risky although they've paid of for Sony in the end.  I think those rules were aimed more at jRPG developers who Sony knew would look at 360 HW/SW sales in Japan and realize they had to bow down at bit and add stuff for the PS3 versions after going timed for MS initially - as I'd argue the 360 in the end never delivered enough sales for those titles to allow the developers to push back on Sony's ruling.

I know, or at least I accept there seems to be, pressure to stick to 1 DVD, but clearly it's not the same kind of rule Sony's mandatory ones (or other MS mandatory rules) as plenty (in ratio to the genre itself) of RPGs on 360 have had multiple disks, so clearly the precedence is there.  All the developers need to do is put pressure on the relaxation of any penalties for doing so.

I'm pretty sure if Capcom said LP2 was going to release with more content on PS3 due to BR MS would be more than happy to head that off by making it easy for them to use more disks for 360.  I honestly think the 360 needs the third party titles more than ever in its lifecycle so far, as it's already had it's big franchise launches, and with PS3 always essentially pacing it launch adjusted and growing in influence with developers after a shaky start MS simply can't have the DVD seen as limiting at this point.  If the PS3 were to start seeing more and more titles with better assets due to storage limitations it would really hurt the console at exactly the wrong moment pre-Natal and just after it dipped YOY raising the though it might just have passed the peak of its lifecycle curve.

Really, I doubt there will be a point again where third parties could push to change the rules/charges around DVD so readily if they wanted to try to.

 

I suspect this is what happened:

1. Capcom approached Microsoft looking to get a reduction/removal in royalties on a 2nd disc.
2. Microsoft told Capcom to go to hell (no compromises).
3. Capcom capitulated and relayed news to designer.
4. Lost Planet 2 designer makes interview in hopes of forcing Microsofts hand like the Rage/Carmack event.

If there was a compromise then they would not want to jeapordise it by speaking to the media in this fashion. My suspicion is that Microsoft ceded no ground on this issue.

In this case Microsoft holds the cards, unlike with the JRPGs in Japan they have the largest market for this kind of game. In addition to this, they also have the largest shooter release coming this year which Capcom will not want to release against and further to that they are the publisher of Gears of War and as Lost Planet 2 is effectively Marcus and Dom at the Winter Olympics they don't exactly have a leg to stand on in relation to this content which further increases the importance of the Xbox 360 version in relation to any alternatives the PS3 may offer.

Microsoft doesn't tell developers that they cannot release more than one disc but its almost typically a false choice because to do so would effectively double the royalties paid by the developer from say $7.50 per game to $15 on top of another dollar in packaging costs. The games which did release on multiple disks have the signature of Microsoft involvement somewhere, they are the only publisher which has released more than one game on multiple discs -> Lost Odyssey, Blue Dragon, Forza 3, and Halo: ODST off the top of my head.

Im pretty sure there are firm rules about releasing games which have significant content differences, this goes beyond Joker Challenge missions in Batman AA. Microsoft has the trump card here in that they can refuse to 'certify' the game for release on Xbox 360 which effectively makes the game a PS3/PC console exclusive. But given the effort to secure Marcus and Dom this would probably hurt Capcom far more significantly than it would help Sony or hurt Microsoft.

The quality of the assets is really determined by more factors than just disc space. We have seen multiple examples of Xbox 360 games which have higher resolution textures etc due to factors outside of disc storage space such as streaming speed and memory. So to make a big varried game with a lot of different environements it would be expensive to implement and game developers have been scaling back their efforts and not increasing them as the generation has progressed.

Yah, good points.

I'll be curious whether this sort of thing remains the exception or we see more of this.  With Rage it simply seemed the odd game out, but now with FFXIII having space issues (although to be fair that's very specific to that title/genre and the amount of hi-res CG Cut Scenes the game has) and now this from Capcom there is a bit more weight to the DVD holding back content arguement.

The key factors for game assets are, so far as I'm aware, compression and capacity.  The resolution isn't a factor except in terms of how it relates to the other two.  I could have a game with just four textures, and they could be pretty damn hi-res then - although at some point the memory and bandwidth to support the texture would then become an issue.

I think a DVD of content still affords plenty of scope for assets, but on the other hand the examples are growing of developers feeling it as a definate constraint vs what they'd like to do with regards to game assets and the scale of the locales and variety of textures they can use.

Clearly Sony will attempt to make more of this, and presumerably will continue to push for big AAA games to have more content and asssets to put the pressure on to have more capacity or, as in the case of FFXIII, to rely on heavier compression.  They will be all too aware that enough compression would cause 360 versions of titles to look a little worse even though the 360 HW could handle better simply because capacity caused the assets to be shrunk in resolution.

I'm guessing this isn't going to go away as a hot topic but likely to grow in discussion.

Anyway, that's it for me for tonight!  Thanks for the chat.