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Forums - Sony - 3rd Parties: Why Would They Pick The PS3 Anymore?

jammy2211 on 20 January 2009
misterd said:
As long as the split between the 360 and PS3 remains roughly 5:4 or 3:2, development costs for both consoles remains very high, and both consoles retain relatively small user bases (both still lag behind the N64!), companies will try to maximize profits by being multiplatform.

The danger for Sony will be if MS gains a more substantial lead over the PS3, so that it will be relatively safe for 3Ps to publish on the 360 alone.

 Engines are multiplatform now, porting takes next to know time or money if planned for the project from the off.

 Even if the 360 has a 100x lead on PS3, a PS3 port would always generate lots more money then the cost of making it, thus, third parties would still do it. (Please don't be pickety with if that was the lead PS3 would be dead etc, it was just an extreme example).

But yeah, no realistic 360 lead will lead to exclusive developement.

 



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amirnetz on 20 January 2009

A couple of points of consideration here:

First, for most western 3rd parties, the relevant gap between the 360 and the PS3 is really 27M to 17M.

The reason: for most 3rd parties Japan does not matter. The majority of western games are not released in Japan due to the high translation costs and the traditionally very poor sales. Only the top tier AAA western titles get released in Japan.

Second: The multi-platform release cost is significantly higher than 10%. The only productive way to develop a multi-plat is useing the Unreal Engine. The royalties to Epic for the use of the engine alone are around that cost and this is before taking into account the seperate platform optimizations.

Building optimized software for the PS3 and the 360 requires very different architecture and very high level of experience and skills from the get-go. You need more people, with higher degree of expertise and higher costs. Doing the PS3 port at the end is super-hard, error-prone and costs an arm-and-leg and months off your schedule.

The bottom line: If you are a smaller developer with a limited budget then focusing on a single platform is not such an bad option. In fact, there are around 50 third party titles due to release this year that will skip the PS3 to save these costs. Are they all fools? No. Just doing their math.



Prediction made on 11/1/2008:

Q4 2008: 27M xbox LTD, 20M PS3 LTD . 2009 sales: 11M xbox,  9M PS3

KatinJin on 20 January 2009
amirnetz said:

A couple of points of consideration here:

First, for most western 3rd parties, the relevant gap between the 360 and the PS3 is really 27M to 17M.

The reason: for most 3rd parties Japan does not matter. The majority of western games are not released in Japan due to the high translation costs and the traditionally very poor sales. Only the top tier AAA western titles get released in Japan.

Second: The multi-platform release cost is significantly higher than 10%. The only productive way to develop a multi-plat is useing the Unreal Engine. The royalties to Epic for the use of the engine alone are around that cost and this is before taking into account the seperate platform optimizations.

Building optimized software for the PS3 and the 360 requires very different architecture and very high level of experience and skills from the get-go. You need more people, with higher degree of expertise and higher costs. Doing the PS3 port at the end is super-hard, error-prone and costs an arm-and-leg and months off your schedule.

The bottom line: If you are a smaller developer with a limited budget then focusing on a single platform is not such an bad option. In fact, there are around 50 third party titles due to release this year that will skip the PS3 to save these costs. Are they all fools? No. Just doing their math.

Interesting, wasn't aware of that many.

 



neotea on 20 January 2009
jammy2211 said:
A few low-key Japanese developement projects will be exclusive to PS3, which will eventually come to the USA. Stuff like Blazblue, Cross Edge, Disgaea 3 etc. We'll see a few of these every year but er, that's gonna be it for non-Sony influenced exclusives.

Other then that, everything is going to be PS360, no ones going to support either platform exclusively without Microsoft or Sony giving them a reason to.

The major publishers seem happy at the moment to keep their higher tier teams on PS360 developement and their more inexperienced teams on the Wii. I honstly don't see that changing in the west, not so sure about Japan though.

 

This is kinda risky though.  Niche games like these would be better on psp,ds or wii.  otherwise i see them going multi if they were for hd console.

In Japan theres already a huge shift of 3rd party going to wii or sticking to the ds since a bad sale on HD console can sink their company.

Otherwise I agree with the rest of what you say.



I TAKE NO SIDES

KatinJin on 20 January 2009

Yea that is true.



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BTFeather55 on 20 January 2009

Because third party games sell much better on the PS3 in Japan and sometimes in Europe than the 360 versions. Look at how much better GTA IV did in Europe and Japan on the PS3 than the 360.  And how this past week Fallout 3 PS3 is one of the best selling games in Japan while the 360 version isn't even on the chart. 



Heavens to Murgatoids.

Jo21 on 20 January 2009

japan market sales hello, still bigger than the UK. and ps3 will likely continue being the dominant HD console there.

also europe market its tracking well with the 360, even 360 costing way less.



vthokiesrmoo on 21 January 2009

@ amirnetz

the sales aren't 27m to 17m. its 28m to 20m. 360 had a 1 year head start. Developers know the PS3 is selling and is most definitely worthy of their time to develop for. Since the PS3 came out sales for it and the 360 have been neck and neck.

I think you're wrong, most developers have been working with the PS3 for a while now and can program for it. I think they realized if they didn't invest a little time in learning the hardware they were going to lose a lot of possible sales.

Also, the future of gaming is programming games with a multi-threaded approach and supporting the latest multi-core processors (ask Crytek). If developers have any mind for the future, which I'm sure they do as the gaming industry is a business, they would definitely want to get themselves acquainted with the PS3.



PSN ID= bigdaddymoo

 

MSI GT725-074 owner..... TRUE BEAST.. COD4 is a different game on PC.

twingo on 21 January 2009
amirnetz said:


The bottom line: If you are a smaller developer with a limited budget then focusing on a single platform is not such an bad option. In fact, there are around 50 third party titles due to release this year that will skip the PS3 to save these costs. Are they all fools? No. Just doing their math.

 

lmao well what are these 50 3rd party tiels bud.

yahh got none do you.

Any samll dev will skip 360 all together and develop a Psn title, just doing their math.



amirnetz on 21 January 2009
twingo said:
amirnetz said:


The bottom line: If you are a smaller developer with a limited budget then focusing on a single platform is not such an bad option. In fact, there are around 50 third party titles due to release this year that will skip the PS3 to save these costs. Are they all fools? No. Just doing their math.

 

lmao well what are these 50 3rd party tiels bud.

yahh got none do you.

Any samll dev will skip 360 all together and develop a Psn title, just doing their math.

You might want to do your research bud.

Look in the thread http://www.vgchartz.com/forum/thread.php?id=50914

Here is a summary for your convinience. Look for the inclusion rules in the thread. the list dates back to October and covers the period to the end of 2009 .

 

Showing on the 360 but denied on the PS3:

 

  1. Age of Conan: Hyborian Adventures
  2. Age of Pirates: Captain Blood
  3. Battlestations: Pacific
  4. Blood Bowl
  5. Brave: A Warrior’s Tale Total
  6. Champions Online
  7. Command & Conquer: Red Alert 3
  8. Crash Bandicoot: Mind Over Mutant
  9. Crusaders: Invasion of Constantinople
  10. Dance Dance Revolution Universe 3
  11. Darksiders: Wrath of War
  12. Dead Island
  13. Deer Hunter Tournament
  14. Demons of Mercy
  15. Destroy All Humans! Path of the Furon
  16. Divinity 2: Ego Draconis
  17. Dog Tag
  18. Dungeon Explorer
  19. Dungeon Hero
  20. Galactic Command - Excalibur
  21. Guilty Gear 2: Overture
  22. High School Musical 3: Senior Year Dance!
  23. Huxley
  24. Indianapolis 500 Evolution
  25. Left 4 Dead
  26. NARUTO: THE BROKEN BOND
  27. NecroVisioN
  28. Onechanbara: Bikini Samurai Squad
  29. Owlboy
  30. PDC World Championship Darts 2008
  31. Possession
  32. Puzzle Quest: Galactrix
  33. RACE Pro
  34. Raven Squad: Operation Hidden Dagger
  35. R-Type Dimensions
  36. Secret Service
  37. Shadow Harvest
  38. Star Ocean: The Last Hope
  39. Stoked
  40. The King of Fighters: Maximum Impact 2.5
  41. The last Remnant
  42. The Maw
  43. The Outsider
  44. The Precursors
  45. The Shadow of Aten
  46. The Tale of Despereaux
  47. Theseis
  48. Tom Clancy's Splinter Cell: Conviction
  49. Two days to Vegas
  50. Underwater Wars
  51. Urban Mysteries
  52. Velvet Assassin
  53. Venetica
  54. Warhound
  55. Winter Sports 2: The Next Challenge

 



Prediction made on 11/1/2008:

Q4 2008: 27M xbox LTD, 20M PS3 LTD . 2009 sales: 11M xbox,  9M PS3