| Zod95 said: Very interesting points and reasoning... although I don't see how an earlier release of Gran Turismo in a console (thus having a smaller userbase) would hurt the IP. GT3 came out only 1 year after PS2's launch and it became the most successful game in the series. As the console sells, the game sells too. Is this hard to believe? In my opinion, the reason for the GT6 to have been launched on PS3 was because that was Poliphony's plan since the beginning. Like they ended a cycle with GT4 on the PS2, they wanted to do the same on the PS3. Plus, they didn't have yet any next-gen concept to deliver so, as you said, to launch GT6 (a game that only consolidates what GT5 attempted to do) on PS4 would have been strange at least. As for the symbiotic relationship between Evolution Studios and Poliphony Digital, I don't know how real it is. What you said makes sense, these two can benefit from each other. But I'm not sure whether the shorter production cycles of GT games have anything to do with that. GT6 took only 3 years after the 5.5 years of GT5 and, like you, I expect GT7 to come after 2 years or so. But the reason for that I think it's not about cooperation with other devs. Japanese game studios have been realizing that controlled production cycles like the Western does (for example with Call Of Duty, Assassin's Creed and Forza) are much better for profits and even for the sake of the series than launching the game only when the initial ambition is achieved, not matter how long it takes (like it happened with Gran Turismo 5, Final Fantasy XIII, Tekken 6 and The Last Guardian that didn't even came out at all). Therefore, some of them are already adopting the Western good practices, including Square Enix (which launched FF XIII-2 after 2 years and Lightning Returns again after 2 years) and Poliphony (which is starting to shorten GT's development cycle). |
Hey and thanks for your response and input.
I agree that GT might not have hurt the IP, but I think we can both agree that it would certainly be safer for the IP (both sales wise and recognition wise) to release after Forza and Need for Speed. PD are kind of a prestigious group...sorta like the old Pixar...a virtual-independant studio dedicated to the craft. One of the reasons why they never had car damage was because car makers didn't want to show the realism of what their safety looked like, or so the legend says. Maybe not a smarter choice, but surely wiser. But yeah, you have a point about the sales. I just have a strong feeling that this is a 2-fold solution. 1) Image maintenance 2) evolving standards
As for the relationship, I would imagine that it's actually Evolution that would benefit more from the shortened cycle. I mean, this is a launch game with so much attention paid to detail. It's not impossible, or even improbable, but one does wonder how they can manage such attention to detail without having any of the previous equipment. I mean, they're starting from scratch...compared to the Forza or GT people.
There's also argument I could see about just how willing PD would be willing to share its jealously guarded assets, a very limited fashion would make sense to me though.
I also agree about the controlled production cycles aspect, however, the controlled production cycle would say release gt6 on both consoles. That would be the Western standard, which was what we saw with the western multiplats. It's funny that you mention this because this question actually started off in my head as "why didn't PD release GT6 on ps4". Sure it makes sense that gt6 should be on ps3, not only from a 'best-practices' standpoint, but also from a fan standpoint. Only one GT on a console is kind of a let down....but also gt6 this crazy late in the gen is awkwardly placed, at best. My quickshot to take from this thread would be PD released GT6 late as a quick installment that would serve as a mockup for their next-gen title while Evolution went in and scouted around first, possibly giving Sony a fresh new IP in the process from a dev whose major franchise was not doing so well.
