| Aielyn said:
Admittedly, I didn't read beyond the relevant part, the part where you misinterpreted what I said. As for what you've said in this post, you're actually wrong. I mean, your initial observations are right, but your conclusions are incorrect due to a failure to factor something important into the equation. The vast majority of the gaming audience doesn't want to own multiple consoles unless they have to. While multiple-system ownership isn't uncommon, there's a large portion of the audience that own just one console, or at least want to. And therefore, so long as there are top-quality exclusives on platforms, the market will be fractured. In the case of the PS2, that wasn't too big a deal, as the other systems represented a far smaller fraction of the market, and thus only a relatively small fraction of the market would be missed by targetting the PS2 more. Note, however, that many developers still put their games on more than just the PS2, even in that lopsided case. This doesn't conflict with what I said at all. With the PS2 controling that majority of the market lots of third partie developers developed for the system exclusively. The games that did span all systems were the ones that could afford to split their effort without negatively impacting the game or where contractually obligated to such as licensed and sports titles. The titles that were exclusive to the other systems from third parties were much less common and mostly due to deals from MS and Nintendo or thanks to the PC like API and architecture of the XBOX making it easy to bring titles over, and games like Halo established that there was an audience for more PC like games on the system. But none of that conflicts with my point that publishers don't inherently want to be multiplatform unless they have too. While the market share of Xbox and Gamecube were small they still established their own market niches that were big enough that they were worth supporting for some titles. They weren't supported because publishers wanted the market to be split up, but because the audience was already split up. When the market shares are a lot closer, such as in the seventh generation, splitting development is the smarter plan, as people are unlikely to choose a platform based on one game when there are exclusives on each system. It's different if the game is an exclusive to begin with. In that case, you're building a fanbase on a specific system, and are likely to draw people to that system. But if your game is multiplatform, spreading it across all of the available platforms (or all of the appropriate ones - meaning, those that can run the game as it was intended - no point putting a game designed around touch on the Xbox 360, for instance) is better than having it across only some of them. Why? Because if your game isn't going to be the deciding factor in which platform to get (and multiplatforms won't make that decision for a person unless one version is far better than the others), then you want to make sure that people who own all systems experience it, in order to maximise the exposure and to build fanbases. Again it's not up to third parties to build a userbase on any system, but to find the ecosystems where there is an audience for the game. When you've grown a large fanbase, you can consider going the exclusive route, and draw all of your fans to the same system. THAT would make sense, and would serve to minimise costs. But if it's already multiplatform, it can't do that. So, bringing it back to Metro, here's the question to ask: what is the benefit of skipping the Wii U, given that it's capable of running the game (perhaps with some minor modifications to shift work from CPU to GPU)? It does reduce development costs, but only by a fractional amount - the majority of development costs go to art assets, game logic, etc, not to porting, and that's stuff that doesn't get duplicated on additional systems. It might delay the game's release a little, but when you're targetting early in the year, a bit of a delay doesn't do any harm at all (as opposed to releasing in November vs delaying to December or January). The concern about splitting the fanbase isn't a concern, because fanbases go where the game goes - if it became a PS4 exclusive, the fans would go to that platform. The benifit is that you reserve the limited resources of a small dev team that is already stretched thin, and the dev team (or at least the engine lead) thought that the Wii U version would be inferior and show the teams work in a poor light. Add to the fact that the Wii U has yet to prove that it can build an audience for that type of game big enough to support the port there is very little incentive. It might sound like I'm making as much of an assumption as you. But here's the thing - if your assumptions were consistent, and your conclusion sound, then multiplatform games would be the exception, not the rule. Now, tell me - what is the biggest criticism that the Xbox 360 and PS3 get in terms of criticisms of both simultaneously? That's right - that they're too similar. That they're the "HD Twins". That they pretty much get 90% of the same games. If your reasoning were valid, and your conclusions sound, developers and publishers would have chosen one of the two, and focused everything on that platform. The failure to include the Wii in many games was somewhat reasonable - the Wii couldn't handle various things that could be done on the other platforms (an example being Dead Rising's number of foes on screen at once - as demonstrated by Chop til you Drop). My criticism on that front was always failure to do anything solid for the Wii, not failure to include it in multiplatform releases. But that reasoning cannot apply to the Wii U when it comes to 360/PS3 titles, as the Wii U is entirely capable of doing what those platforms do, and then some. The PS3 and X360 both managed to foster very similar audiences which meant that the audience was esentially split so devs had to serve both platforms. Publishers didn't support both because they wanted the audience to be on both but because the audience supported both. That and they were very similar in terms of capablities. As you yourself say 3rd party games don't (usually) decide the platforms the audience picks up, the 1st partys are the ones that decide that, 3rd parties just follow the crowd. My reasoning is consistant if there is a viable market for the types of games on a system then publishers will support that audience, but the audience has to be there (or at least they have to belive that the audience will be there). Oh, and I knew full well that you aren't Matzy. Hence why I referred to Matzy by name when replying to you, and spoke in third person about him (or her, I guess, I honestly don't care enough to check). |
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