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Forums - Gaming Discussion - Which of the big three consoles manufactures put the most big name devs out of business this gen?

lilbroex on 21 October 2012
Kynes said:
I think lilbroex refers to this: http://news.cnet.com/sony-ps3-is-hard-to-develop-for-on-purpose/

Hard to develop on purpose=costlier development. I don't think it's Sony's fault, the development teams knew it is a bitch to develop for, so it's their fault they developed games for PS3 when there were cheaper consoles to develop for.


Not just that. People expected the PS3 to have the PS2's success and wanted to cash in earlier on the fame. Sony's marketing and advertisment made it look like a guaranteed success but reality ran counter to projections.

Take Grasshopper Manufacture. They went with the Wii and had their best selling game "ever" come out of it because they made a proper investment. Second best selling game was the sequal to it. They jumped ship to the HD consoles and their and the games bombed. Lollipop Chainsaw is there biggest success on the PS3/360 though its not much of one comparitively because it gave them no where near the profit that NMH yielded.

The console's failure in success leads to dev failure in success. It goes much deeper than this as well like when you get into demographics created by marketing and what not.



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M.U.G.E.N on 21 October 2012
Kynes said:
I think lilbroex refers to this: http://news.cnet.com/sony-ps3-is-hard-to-develop-for-on-purpose/

Hard to develop on purpose=costlier development. I don't think it's Sony's fault, the development teams knew it is a bitch to develop for, so it's their fault they developed games for PS3 when there were cheaper consoles to develop for.

Bolded, Bingo! I mean they have so many potential platforms to make games for now. PS3, 360, Wii, psv/psp, 3ds/vita, steam, other pc platforms etc etc. It's just horrible mismanagement of resources, lack of proper vision and ultimately crappy products the main culprits here



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Kynes on 21 October 2012
M.U.G.E.N said:
Kynes said:
I think lilbroex refers to this: http://news.cnet.com/sony-ps3-is-hard-to-develop-for-on-purpose/

Hard to develop on purpose=costlier development. I don't think it's Sony's fault, the development teams knew it is a bitch to develop for, so it's their fault they developed games for PS3 when there were cheaper consoles to develop for.

Bolded, Bingo! I mean they have so many potential platforms to make games for now. PS3, 360, Wii, psv/psp, 3ds/vita, steam, other pc platforms etc etc. It's just horrible mismanagement of resources, lack of proper vision and ultimately crappy products the main culprits here


So you agree only AAA games and first party games should be developed for the PS3, as it's a high risk, low reward console? (only joking)



ECM on 21 October 2012

Indirectly, Nintendo: they created a machine that deprived the HD Twins of oxygen, which caused a ripple effect in lost sales and development investment by publishers that killed lots of smaller devs who geared up for the HD gen only to see it become the Wii gen.

(This, incidentally, is why so many devs *hate* the Wii with a burning passion--in a way it took food from their mouths, but that's what happens when you put all your eggs in one basket as a business.)



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M.U.G.E.N on 21 October 2012
Kynes said:
M.U.G.E.N said:
Kynes said:
I think lilbroex refers to this: http://news.cnet.com/sony-ps3-is-hard-to-develop-for-on-purpose/

Hard to develop on purpose=costlier development. I don't think it's Sony's fault, the development teams knew it is a bitch to develop for, so it's their fault they developed games for PS3 when there were cheaper consoles to develop for.

Bolded, Bingo! I mean they have so many potential platforms to make games for now. PS3, 360, Wii, psv/psp, 3ds/vita, steam, other pc platforms etc etc. It's just horrible mismanagement of resources, lack of proper vision and ultimately crappy products the main culprits here


So you agree only AAA games and first party games should be developed for the PS3, as it's a high risk, low reward console? (only joking)


YES!

in fact...even AAA won't cut it anymore! Like those devs (I frogot who :S) it has to be AAAA...and hopefully with a bald marine lol



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lilbroex on 21 October 2012
ECM said:

Indirectly, Nintendo: they created a machine that deprived the HD Twins of oxygen, which caused a ripple effect in lost sales and development investment by publishers that killed lots of smaller devs who geared up for the HD gen only to see it become the Wii gen.

(This, incidentally, is why so many devs *hate* the Wii with a burning passion--in a way it took food from their mouths, but that's what happens when you put all your eggs in one basket as a business.)


How in the world did you come to this conclusion? That doesn't make any sense.

From what I'm readling, all of these comapnies went out of business because Nintendo didn't fail to suceed and that makes it Nintendo's fault...



Kynes on 21 October 2012
ECM said:

Indirectly, Nintendo: they created a machine that deprived the HD Twins of oxygen, which caused a ripple effect in lost sales and development investment by publishers that killed lots of smaller devs who geared up for the HD gen only to see it become the Wii gen.

(This, incidentally, is why so many devs *hate* the Wii with a burning passion--in a way it took food from their mouths, but that's what happens when you put all your eggs in one basket as a business.)


But that's absurd, I mean, let's make a console we don't develop games for, the culprit of our problems. The problem is they don't want to accept they are the main culprits of their problems, due to non economical decisions. I think most developers are fanboys, instead of reasonable people who want to make games for the console that makes them earn more money. It's like developing for the Wii isn't considered, because you can't make the prettiest or more realistic games. When did the developers abandon the most important factor, fun?



Kynes on 21 October 2012
M.U.G.E.N said:
Kynes said:
M.U.G.E.N said:
Kynes said:
I think lilbroex refers to this: http://news.cnet.com/sony-ps3-is-hard-to-develop-for-on-purpose/

Hard to develop on purpose=costlier development. I don't think it's Sony's fault, the development teams knew it is a bitch to develop for, so it's their fault they developed games for PS3 when there were cheaper consoles to develop for.

Bolded, Bingo! I mean they have so many potential platforms to make games for now. PS3, 360, Wii, psv/psp, 3ds/vita, steam, other pc platforms etc etc. It's just horrible mismanagement of resources, lack of proper vision and ultimately crappy products the main culprits here


So you agree only AAA games and first party games should be developed for the PS3, as it's a high risk, low reward console? (only joking)


YES!

in fact...even AAA won't cut it anymore! Like those devs (I frogot who :S) it has to be AAAA...and hopefully with a bald marine lol

Dead Space 3, AFAIK



NightDragon83 on 21 October 2012
Kresnik said:

NightDragon83 said:

Free Radical with a sequel to Timesplitters that fans have been clamoring for, then odds are they're both alive and kicking today.


I feel like people still don't fully understand what went on with Free Radical.  If you get chance, read the Eurogamer article I linked earlier in the thread.

Now, no doubt Haze's lukewarm reception and average sales didn't help things for FR.  Absolutely no doubt.  There was another massive factor at play here though, namely Star Wars Battlefront 3.  I think they'd been developing it for about 2 and a half years before LucasArts pulled the plug on a nearly complete product.  Without any way of making any money back from that game, it put them in a really precarious position.

Also, I think it's pretty hard to say that Timesplitters 4 would have kept them in business.  Don't get me wrong - Timesplitters is my favourite first-person-shooter series ever and I would have loved to have seen Timesplitters 4.  But Future Perfect managed less than 500k sales across 3 platforms:

http://www.vgchartz.com/gamedb/?name=timesplitters%3A+future+perfect&publisher=&platform=&genre=&minSales=0&results=200

Those are genuinely really awful figures, no two ways about it.  There would be no guarantee that T4 would have done any better.  And if it had bombed like FP did with the increased development costs, that would almost certainly have spelled the end of Free Radical.

I think TS4 would done very well because of the FPS boom experienced during this generation, coupled with online multiplayer now being fully realized for console gaming after going through some growing pains the previous gen.  TS3 had the misfortune of being released late in the cycle last generation with little attention or fanfare, and being overshadowed by much bigger games like Halo 2.  Like one of the posts after this one said... Haze on PS3 alone outsold TS3 which was released across all 3 platforms last gen, so I have no doubt that TS4, which would most likely have been on PS360, would have done very well for itself.

And you're right about SW:BF3 being a big factor.  I totally forgot about that, but I didn't know the game was under development for so long before LucasArts pulled the plug.  I always thought it was under the rumored/planning stages and never materialized passed that point, because nothing was confirmed and we never saw any actual footage of it until it got leaked out years later.



On 2/24/13, MB1025 said:
You know I was always wondering why no one ever used the dollar sign for $ony, but then I realized they have no money so it would be pointless.

lilbroex on 21 October 2012
pezus said:
pezus said:
lilbroex said:
pezus said:


Funnily enough, Haze sold far better on PS3 only.

Funny enough, you aren't factoring in the much higher cost of development for the PS3 as compared to the other consoles. The amount of sales needed to profit is higher, WAY HIGHER.

For a A+ quality games on the PS3, the developement costs are so high that a million seller isn't even enough to break even.

On the other hand, dev costs on the Wii were so low that even you only needed to 150-300k sells to make a profit.

Uhm, Haze is not A+ quality...

But right, Wii dev costs are 10 times lower of course (source needed). Maybe that's because most Wii games were throwaways and not big projects (Non-nintendo games of course)?

I want lilbro to answer this post


There is no specific source. Its something you will have to research on your own as its not carved in stone and has a range.

Most of what you will find are allusions like this: http://www.google.com/url?sa=t&rct=j&q=&esrc=s&source=web&cd=1&cad=rja&ved=0CDQQFjAA&url=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.theverge.com%2Fgaming%2F2012%2F7%2F19%2F3170432%2Fubisoft-says-wii-u-development-cost-not-a-huge-investment-plans-more&ei=hEeEULH2J4O-9QTbyoCYBA&usg=AFQjCNGTsdJOBOyODYgg5tol41mIbD6SOQ

 

This is the best I can find, and no, I'm not debating it with you. I ashamed of myself for even putting in the effot (it was on the first page in google search) I used to look for it. If you really want the truth that badly you would look for it yourself.

http://www.neoseeker.com/news/6299-wii-development-costs-remain-low/

The low dev cost was the reason for all of the shovelware that people complained about. I thought that would be common sense by now, but live and learn...