By using this site, you agree to our Privacy Policy and our Terms of Use. Close
SvennoJ on 09 January 2017
Edit Thread
JRPGfan said:

 

From Neogaf:  by ShockingAlberto.

"Ah, here's what I was looking for



July 2015: "Those shits at MS...are they fucking with me?"

So, let's set a timeline HEAVY with speculation. Game was announced at E3 2014 without much notice. It skipped E3 2015, but showed up at Gamescom that year in August with an announcement of four-player co-op, which was shown off with a much rougher game in E3 2016's conference. The game was then cancelled soon after.

My guess is that, in July, Kamiya was told he had to rejigger the game into a four-player co-op thing. There were never any hints he wanted to make the game a Monster Hunter-like, but I am guessing people in charge of money were expecting him to do so. It gets announced, shown off, and the response is tepid. Changing tides at Microsoft, a desire to free up the UE4 team they put together to work with Kamiya, and being unhappy with the state of the game lead to it being cancelled.

If my guess is correct, that's really sad."

MS probably bares a big part of the burden of why this game ended up as it did.

 

mutantsushi said:
SvennoJ said:
Perhaps Nintendo is right and it is time to scale down to more manageable hardware.
It seems the market isn't big enough to sustain games that aren't a guaranteed hit, and thus can't make back their AAA budget. 

Uh... Or maybe it was just a crap game whose developer couldn't manage it with the number of other games on their plate?
And honestly speaking, I am rather dubious of calling Scalebound "AAA", it honestly felt from the beginning to be a "AA" effort.
What "AAA" developer manages the number of simultaneus titles that Platinum does?  That's a hint for you.

More hardware power doesn't need to translate to huge development costs.
Take any Nintendo game, add more hardware, and get better resolution, AA, lighting, material rendering... With little extra dev costs.
Having one or a few extra engine programmers is really little cost inthe scope of total development (and promotion) costs.
Sure, hardware power can enable games not possible without it, but EQUALLY is usable for simple upgrades of game experience.
Specifically in Platinum's case, hardware power can EASE development for a studio stretched with many projects,
where we see them successfully going forward with Nier on PS4 while dropping Scalebound on Xbone.  Think about it.
PC is known for hardware performance, even at low end.  Yet indies which are not performance centric thrive on PC.

But realistically speaking, the vast majority of AAA games are of genres which existed 10 years ago.  
Applying your "Grand Theory of Everything" of videogames to every single case is just circular logic.
And I hardly see how that relates to Nintendo or their choice to NOT use modern fab for a simple 20-30% performance:watt boost.
(which would not challenge Xbone performance, but would give alot more performance headroom, incl. for "Nintendo style games")
But I suppose that is the conundrum with Nintendo fans, who do not understand tech, but create grand theories hinging on it.

You forgot to quote the rest of my reasoning. It's not just the extra work for the graphics, it's that the game needs to be a jack of all trades to justify the budget for the looks. Much less graphical details to fill out the world with, results in needing smaller budgets and less development time. Ofcourse it's their own fault for showing off a target render before being clear on the scope of the game. (Or maybe MS is to blame there)

More hardware power doesn't have to translate to huge development cost, yet sadly, hugely detailed open worlds is what is expected nowadays to justify that hardware power. Add 4 player co-op with endless gameplay and development soon spirals out of control. Plus these mid gen refreshes are adding extra strain, not making it easier with a bit more headroom.

I'm fine with the smaller more simplictic looking PSVR games that utilize the hardware to better present those far less detailed worlds. Yet there's plenty that write it off as ugly and not worthy to be called real games.

I hope Horizon Zero dawn turns out allright. Another dev taking a shot at openworld. Hopefully GG didn't get overwhelmed with feature creep and has a decent core game.