@Kasz216

People only started caring when Value said when L4D was announced as a "Console" exclusive, i didnt hear squat when HL2/TF2 came out.

And to be honest EVERYONE agrees PS3 was a mess at launch, even CGI-QUALITY said the same thing, are we gonna burn him to? Face it PS3 sucked at launch but its 1 million times better.

First off, here's my official response to Pitchford's continuing war against Valve:

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Item: Borderlands [Xbox 360]
Condition: Used - Like New
Condition Note: Great Condition!
Listing ID: 1105EMJ0JQD
SKU: FV-DK80-55GI
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Order date: 11/05/2009
Buyer's Price: $47.99
Shipping Credit: $3.99
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Your Earnings: $42.44

As for the lack of support for the PS3 by Valve....can somebody explain to me WHY every developer must support all platforms.  Because, then they will need to explain to me why Insomniac isn't developing for the 360...if it is simply a matter of sales, any developer making a FPS exclusive to the PS3 would be absolutely crazy!  The PC and 360 are far superior choices from a sales perspective.  Why do Japanese developers make games exclusive to the PS3, when they would chart well on the 360...as DMC4 and other illustrated?  Valve is in a comfortable position, and they are staffed at a level they are happy with, and they have a nice platform in Steam to sell PC titles.  They are fairly independent, and they are banking, since they can afford to pitch $25 million to promote a game that was already going to sell very well.  I've NO IDEA why another developer would comment on another one's business strategy...it's unprofessional, and smacks of jealously, in light of his past comments.  Pitchford's comments equal an epic FAIL...especially in light of how Borderland is performing on the 360, as compared to the PS3!

I am surprised no one in this thread pointed this out yet. It`s interesting to see the Pitchford bash Valve for ignoring the PS3 when Borderlands sales on the PS3 are atrocious. I don`t know how much 2K Games invested in the PS3 version`s development but you have to wonder if they are going to lose money on the PS3 version if sales don`t improve in the future.

As for Insomniac, they have a sugar daddy to publish games for them (Sony) so this is why they aren`t in a rush to develop for the 360 or Wii yet.

But it is true that it is mind boggling to see some Japanese developers still pass up multi-plat development. It makes no financial sense whatsoever to keep Final Fantasy Versus XIII PS3 exclusive. Even if Sony moneyhatted them, what`s stopping them from porting to the 360 a year later to make even more money just like they did with SO4 (in reverse)? Even for small Japanese devs, it`s not worth it to go PS3-only considering how expensive it is to create a HD game and considering that Japanese games sell reasonably well on the 360. Are you really going to recoup the costs of HD development if you are only selling 200,000 copies worldwide? HD development ain`t cheap. Even if they are on the low budget end HD-wise. But then again, look at all those Japanese RPGs on the Sega CD instead of the SNES. I wouldn`t be surprised if those lost a ton of money. Things just don`t make sense sometimes. That`s just how it is.

Ports are cheap and easy to make, if you plan for them from the get-go.  We're talking like 10% of the total budget of a HD title here, at most.  That was um... kinda the point of what he was saying.

I would wager that the investment was well worth it, just as any investment Valve would choose to make in PS3 development would be worth it, if they wouldn't lose exclusivity benefits from MS for doing so.  I feel pretty confident that the port cost WAY less than 1/4th (25%) the entire devcost, which would be the parallel with current sales percentages.  So, in that sense, doing a PS3 port, and thus widening their audience, was one of the best decisions they probably made -- the game very likely yielded more revenue per dollar spent than it would have as an exclusive.

I'm not a programmer, but I've managed enough large scale projects to know that the cost to port a game isn't cheap, by any stretch of the imagination.  That 10% addition cost isn't jsut something most developers overlook...let's see..on a 12-15 million project, that's over a million $$$...that's cheap?  It's called Return-on-Investment...and if you're get better returns on a 360 game, over a PS3 game...why would you invest in multi-platform again?  Valve is looking at the results from Borderland  and laughing their ass off...the second week of the 360, tops the TOTAL sales of the PS3...WOW! 

Yep, that's cheap, when the total return on revenue is that much greater and then some.

It's actually something of a fluke that Borderlands doesn't appear (on VGChartz) to be selling better than it is on the PS3.  Making a multiplatform game is almost always a good idea, unless your demographics are radically different.  I kinda think you either don't understand just how similar the PS3 and 360 are, or you have something of an... odd bias.  It really is easy, and cheap, in the relative sense.

If you manage a large game project... you might consider hiring some more experienced developers, if they're having trouble getting the PS3 version to work.  Its just not that hard or different, or for that matter, expensive.  Trust me on this one... I DO know.  Anyone who suggests otherwise well... I guess they can speak for themselves, but they shouldn't generalize their experience to include other devs who... umm apparently... find it pretty easy.

@article
Seriously the guy sounded very fanboy ish. He sounds like a gamer upset and Valve because Valve isn't making games for "his" platform. Well I don't see Wii developers whining about Valve not making Wii games.

Valve has a direction and it's PC orientated. They are not a console developer, it's just that the 360 development is very PC like. Which is MS entire angle with XBox series. get lots' of PC games on a console.

good lord this guy is scary.

Actually...I'm looking at the 10-Q of all these companies losing money...and listening to you tell me $1.2 million isn't anything significant.  I have ZERO idea how easy it is on a technical level to port games, but based on reports from experience developers, it's not trivial.  If you have some anecdotic evidence, please post it, but I've yet to see any.

Well Borderlands is all about the co-op.  Of course its not selling well on the PS3.  I mean, most people own 360s when it comes to HD consoles.

I mean, you play borderlands online with people you don't know.  Chances are your going to end up with lower leveled people tagging along, and other people stealing all the loot rather then sharing etc.

It would be interesting to see the budget for this game.