By using this site, you agree to our Privacy Policy and our Terms of Use. Close
makingmusic476 on 03 September 2011
Edit Thread
Darth Tigris said:
NYANKS said:
Darth Tigris said:
NYANKS said:
Darth Tigris said:
Without specific examples of how this has hurt the consumer, this just sounds like corporate whining that panders to fanboy wars more than the truth.

In others words, Mission Accomplished.

Hasn't there been a barrage of stories over the last few months of indies complaining about MS's practices and on top of Gabe's comments to validate the "problem moving up to B and A tier" devs comment, there's at least some people who would agree.

Well of course there will ALWAYS be someone unhappy with any and every situation.  And they are usually very opinionated and vocal.  But there are obviously many that have benefited from the way that MS has handled XBL and XBLA games.  If not, it's doubtful they would have as much content and be as successful.  But you can't win them all (and you know with Gabe he has Valve's best interest in mind with all of his talk, as he should since it's his company; discussion for another thread ...).

Of course any dev given a chance by MS will probably benefit, but the thing is I haven't heard those comments leveled against Sony.  I'm not refuting that MS helps devs, just proposing that Sony might have a slightly better situation.

Then why does PSN lag so far behind XBLA when it comes to the volume of quality downloadable titles?  I personally have never understood that considering some of the supposed advantages of PSN that some of those aforementioned vocal developers have talked up ...

Actually, it's probable the underlined is partially a result of the bolded.

Eurogamer posted an article the other day discussing how Microsoft's strict Xbox Live policies can prevent PSN games from ever appearing on the platform, while Sony's more open policies allow for former Xbox Live exclusives to appear on PSN.  This is why games like Castle Crashers, Braid, and Limbo eventually become cross platform, while games like Comet Crash and Soldner-X do not.  Then there was Trine, which was announced and even demoed for 360 by Atlus but ultimately never released due to such policies.

When given the option, it's not surprising that small developers may focus what little funds they have on XBL, hoping to port to PSN down the road with whatever income they recieve from the initial release, given the reverse could mean no XBL release at all.

Jonathan Blow actually came out after Braid's release and expressed much disdain for Microsoft's XBL policies, but he said XBL is where the money is, so there's not much you can do.