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Sal.Paradise on 22 October 2012
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happydolphin said:
Sal.Paradise said:

Honestly I don't know how they work on those systems - there doesn't seem to be info on it that I can find - but the fact is that those features are all OS level and standard in every game, and so I wouldn't expect it to cost the devs anything to add it in as it's just present and working on the hardware already, they most likely don't have to touch it. Maybe a single line of code to integrate it into the game? I don't know how that works. 

Obviously Sumo have found that adding it on their own on the Wii U version takes time they don't have, so it must involve some sort of coding/individual implementation. 

Sal, my guess would be that setting up that infrastructure requires more robust servers and networking hardware, something that Sumo can't afford.

If MS offers voice chat (forget x-game chat) for a price that Sumo would like to pay, then I agree with you MS is offering value to their 3rd parties.

If MS forces that cost on all 3rd parties, then that's an issue.

If Sony offers that for free, then that's a big value offered at no cost.

We just don't know, and until we know we can't judge. That's what I've been trying to say since the begining of this thread, but nobody wants to talk about it with me and just blabber out their usual spiel.

I don't think they're paying for voice chat on a dev-by-dev basis, otherwise all those indie games made by teams of two people on PSN/Live would not have that functionality.

But you're right we're just speculating. All we know is the present situation; Nintendo handle it differently, it is standard and OS level on other systems, and now that one game on Wii U straight up won't have it. I'm just drawing what I see is the most likely conclusion.

I suspect Nintendo may make it a standard tool in future, just as PSN/Trophies/XMB functionality etc were all in flux and hastily revised on the PS3. I remember Insomniac's reason that their first R&C game never got a trophy patch after release was because they had to code some crazy workarounds to get the game functional with PSN features (just PSN messaging being accessible in-game or something) and that going back in to tinker with the code might just flat out break it, whereas later on all that functiionality was standard and available for every game without having to code something on your own. I think this is the same sort of situation.