Kasz216 said: Avarice28 said: So what you are saying is the 360 runs upgraded xbox 1 games as well?  See the logic makes no sense, I owned both of the previous generation consoles....and there is nothing out on both of them that looks anything or runs anything like last gen games.  If this is in regards to valve, yes you are correct; left for dead looks alot better on pc then on the 360; the orange box for consoles are just ports from the xbox version of half life 2, so in this you are correct.  But it ends there with valve, every other game developer seems to live and develop in this generation of consoles without exception. Yes.  I am saying that... 360 does run upgraded Xbox 1 games. graphics do nothing as far as "next generation" goes.

I have to disagree... to a certain extent. Graphics, compounded with quality sound, more voice overs can greatly aid in immersing the player. That's not to say that it is necessary by any means, but to say it does nothing would be a gross oversight.

Take a game like Uncharted for example. Imagine controlling Drake as he is scalling a train that is half hanging over a cliff. When the seat that you had just jumped to, and had been hanging on, suddenly began to come loose from its bearings. You can see the panic in Drake's face. Not that you couldn't on the PS2 or the Gamecube, but I'm sure you would agree that you can get a much better sense of what his expressions (if done well, that is) are telling than what they would on weaker hardware. I would argue, graphics can help to convey that panic, at the very least, differently than what a PS2 iteration of the same game would have.

Perhaps the amount of detail they can put into the damage that had been done can better convey the viciousness of the crash, creating atmosphere. Surely a you'd get a higher sense of urgency being in a train that seems nearly totally wrecked with glass all over the place, walls torn, chairs mangled, floors portruded, blood all over your hands, rips on your clothes (etc, etc) as opposed to one that simply has a few of those things - and in much lesser quantity and quality.

I do realize much of what I'm saying is how the amount of what can be put into an area can greatly affect the immersion of a game. However, if the blood on your hands looks a bit more realistc and that portruding floor seems more believable and you can see even the stuffing coming through the material in the chairs, the game becomes even more immersive - to some, I'm sure (also... I'm not saying all of these features are present in Uncharted 2).

 

I acknowledge that, to some, graphics play but only a little role in what should make a proper 'next generation' game but, like you, I too think that something like controls plays a bigger part. But that's far from saying that 'graphics do nothing as far as next generation goes.' Sure, I think Wii Sports is the more progressive game when compared to Uncharted 2 but I still think the Uncharted 2's out there are progressive in their own way, assuming they're done skillfully. The same can be said for Wii Sports... had it been done poorly, it would hardly have been considered the progressive game it is today. At least I think so.

Edit: Sorry for the long (and late - I just looked at the date of this post) reply... it's moreso just directed at the several people I've heard say this the past few weeks.

Wasn't what Gearbox said about Valve in another thread?
http://www.vgchartz.com/forum/thread.php?id=91539&page=1

pearljammer said: Kasz216 said: Avarice28 said: So what you are saying is the 360 runs upgraded xbox 1 games as well?  See the logic makes no sense, I owned both of the previous generation consoles....and there is nothing out on both of them that looks anything or runs anything like last gen games.  If this is in regards to valve, yes you are correct; left for dead looks alot better on pc then on the 360; the orange box for consoles are just ports from the xbox version of half life 2, so in this you are correct.  But it ends there with valve, every other game developer seems to live and develop in this generation of consoles without exception. Yes.  I am saying that... 360 does run upgraded Xbox 1 games. graphics do nothing as far as "next generation" goes. I have to disagree... to a certain extent. Graphics, compounded with quality sound, more voice overs can greatly aid in immersing the player. That's not to say that it is necessary by any means, but to say it does nothing would be a gross oversight. Take a game like Uncharted for example. Imagine controlling Drake as he is scalling a train that is half hanging over a cliff. When the seat that you had just jumped to, and had been hanging on, suddenly began to come loose from its bearings. You can see the panic in Drake's face. Not that you couldn't on the PS2 or the Gamecube, but I'm sure you would agree that you can get a much better sense of what his expressions (if done well, that is) are telling than what they would on weaker hardware. I would argue, graphics can help to convey that panic, at the very least, differently than what a PS2 iteration of the same game would have. Perhaps the amount of detail they can put into the damage that had been done can better convey the viciousness of the crash, creating atmosphere. Surely a you'd get a higher sense of urgency being in a train that seems nearly totally wrecked with glass all over the place, walls torn, chairs mangled, floors portruded, blood all over your hands, rips on your clothes (etc, etc) as opposed to one that simply has a few of those things - and in much lesser quantity and quality. I do realize much of what I'm saying is how the amount of what can be put into an area can greatly affect the immersion of a game. However, if the blood on your hands looks a bit more realistc and that portruding floor seems more believable and you can see even the stuffing coming through the material in the chairs, the game becomes even more immersive - to some, I'm sure (also... I'm not saying all of these features are present in Uncharted 2).   I acknowledge that, to some, graphics play but only a little role in what should make a proper 'next generation' game but, like you, I too think that something like controls plays a bigger part. But that's far from saying that 'graphics do nothing as far as next generation goes.' Sure, I think Wii Sports is the more progressive game when compared to Uncharted 2 but I still think the Uncharted 2's out there are progressive in their own way, assuming they're done skillfully. The same can be said for Wii Sports... had it been done poorly, it would hardly have been considered the progressive game it is today. At least I think so. Edit: Sorry for the long (and late - I just looked at the date of this post) reply... it's moreso just directed at the several people I've heard say this the past few weeks.

I actually completely disagree.

I haven't felt any more immersed in a game today as I did way back playing Wizard of Wor on the Balley Astrocade.

The most imersed i've been this generation has been L4D which is a lot less graphically intense then a lot of the games out there.

Atomosphere is what gets you immersed, the things you are talking about are mostly atomosphere.  The better graphics and sound aren't going to help or hurt so long as you get the atomsphere down.

The only thing it really does, is if you put too much stock in it, ruins your enjoyment of other games...  Don't know what this thing below me is...

^^
Fair enough. Though I mentioned creating atmosphere as being the key thing there.

As I said, they're not necessary, but they can certainly aid in creating atmosphere. Not every game needs it (Hell, I'd argue very few do), some may create atmosphere simply out of level design, plot, setting, etc... but I don't doubt that some games benefit from better graphics.

I'm not comparing Uncharted 2 to Left4Dead in terms of immersion, that's just silly and I would completely agree with you, Left4Dead wins easily. Rather, I'm comparing Uncharted 2 with what it could have been as say a PS1 game. I think having that higher sense of the destruction of the train that you're stuck in can certainly aid in creating atmosphere.

Not unlike when a book is really descriptive or when James Cameron had the budget to make the Alien look as good as he did in Alien.

It's not that I'm saying graphics trump anything or anything in terms of immersion... not even close. I'm simply saying that they can aid in creating it. I'm actually, rather surprised (and interested!) to find someone who is absolutely rigid on this. I mean, in Lord of the Rings Online, would it be so hard to believe that someone could feel more immersed if it simply had better graphics and made them feel that it better suited Tolkiens description of it? Sure we should be encouraged to use our imaginations, but that's what books are for. In a game, I'm in the game that I see.

Staude said: Well concidering that borderlands loads faster on the ps3 (textures anyways) but looks about exacly the same across both consoles i'd say that i'd take his word before valves. Atleast when it comes to console talk. I like the fact that he finds the challenging design of the ps3 programming aspect. "fun" .. If more multiplat developers did that, we would see some nice improvements all around :p

 

This... Gearbox is a quality developer and I personally bealieve that BiA is one of the best war series ever created. Also their work on the HD tweens was pretty good, far better then what Valve showed off thus far... oh wait, they can only badtalk but never even tried to develope a game for the PS3

heruamon said: Procrastinato said: heruamon said: 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. 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, the thing is you don't want to port at all.  My understanding is, going by comments from Ubi and other developers, that to develop equally for both consoles (i.e. no porting in the traditional sense) will add approx 10% to 12% of budget only going with one console.

Clearly, unless you are unlucky or the demographics don't work, the additional 10% or so is worth it for most titles.  Borderlands aside (which is pretty ironic when you think about his defence of PS3) most titles are more profitable as a multi than exclusive - look at Batman, DMC4, etc. and you can see it is well worth spending another 10% to gain anything from 35% to 50% more sales.

On the other hand, if you are confident of your sales or have other focus, then I can see why some developers want to avoid being muliplatoform.  The 10% or so additional cost assumes you are ready to go for multi-platform development.  Valve clearly aren't as such.  They develop for PC and have the option to easily move PC code to 360 so they take it - easy money with no massive additional effort.  To support PS3 they'd have to put in a fair initial effort, most tellingly I suspect they'd have to undertake a fair effort on their Source engine to get it properly running on PS3 and optimized.

Personally I have no issue with Valve not supporting PS3, but do find (even as a big fan of their titles on PC) that their comments are simply not professional or worthy of their status.  They've developed some of the biggest selling titles ever, some of the the PC's biggest FPS franchises and titles, have become a major platform for sales and online support with Steam, and their comments don't fit that status IMHO.

Equally though, I just don't get Gearbox's sudden obsession with taking pops at Valve.

 

Final point, if you do want to go multiplatform, my understanding is you want to either:

i - develop PC tools that support compiling and delivering code across multiple platforms or an engine/SDK that supports multiple platforms (id I believe are taking this approach with their Tech 5 and I believe this is what Crytek are doing too)

ii - develop simultaneously for each platform but share assets (I believe this is the IW approach)

iii - develop on PS3 then port to 360 (I believe Criterion took this approach with Burnout).

 

What you don't want to do is take a PC engine/code, or a 360 engine/code and try and port them to PS3 - every title that has done this has suffered, sometimes horribly. 

 

 

@ Reasonable....

I agree with 100% of your post. Wrt to Valve's comments on the PS3...I think they are uncalled for, but one thing I will point out is the continuing nagging that Valve has to deal with on why they don't support the PS3. NO OTHER developer has faced this much heat...There have been muliple PS3 developers who have made statements like this: "This game could only be made on the PS3,”...so while there's no mention of the 360 or Wii, the statements are cheered by Sony fans as YEAH...it's the power of the Cell and BRD...heck, they even plugged it in the Metal Gear. It seems like all of Pitchford's pandering to PS3 fans didn't work...sales numbers rarely lie.

heruamon said: @ Reasonable.... I agree with 100% of your post. Wrt to Valve's comments on the PS3...I think they are uncalled for, but one thing I will point out is the continuing nagging that Valve has to deal with on why they don't support the PS3. NO OTHER developer has faced this much heat...There have been muliple PS3 developers who have made statements like this: "This game could only be made on the PS3,”...so while there's no mention of the 360 or Wii, the statements are cheered by Sony fans as YEAH...it's the power of the Cell and BRD...heck, they even plugged it in the Metal Gear. It seems like all of Pitchford's pandering to PS3 fans didn't work...sales numbers rarely lie.

Yeah, Valve have faced a real grilling, plus the strange outbursts from Gearbox, which I think has made them efensive over their position.  I think Gabe made some unfortunate comments early on, reagrding how the architecture of PS3 was nothing but a pain for him and Valve (which I can understand to an extent, as Valve are sitting on a PC centric engine).  Since then, and particularly as PS3 install base has grown, the question of 'why not?' has grown in urgency with media.

I think they should simply say our engine doesn't support PS3 well enough, we have no plans to spend the money to correct that right now, nor do we have the desire, our primary focus is PC with 360 as an profitable side line, and that's the end of it.

Reasonable said: heruamon said: @ Reasonable.... I agree with 100% of your post. Wrt to Valve's comments on the PS3...I think they are uncalled for, but one thing I will point out is the continuing nagging that Valve has to deal with on why they don't support the PS3. NO OTHER developer has faced this much heat...There have been muliple PS3 developers who have made statements like this: "This game could only be made on the PS3,”...so while there's no mention of the 360 or Wii, the statements are cheered by Sony fans as YEAH...it's the power of the Cell and BRD...heck, they even plugged it in the Metal Gear. It seems like all of Pitchford's pandering to PS3 fans didn't work...sales numbers rarely lie. Yeah, Valve have faced a real grilling, plus the strange outbursts from Gearbox, which I think has made them efensive over their position.  I think Gabe made some unfortunate comments early on, reagrding how the architecture of PS3 was nothing but a pain for him and Valve (which I can understand to an extent, as Valve are sitting on a PC centric engine).  Since then, and particularly as PS3 install base has grown, the question of 'why not?' has grown in urgency with media. I think they should simply say our engine doesn't support PS3 well enough, we have no plans to spend the money to correct that right now, nor do we have the desire, our primary focus is PC with 360 as an profitable side line, and that's the end of it.

Without a doubt...the gaming industry is a wasteland at this point...look at nearly every publishers reporting a loss...some very massive like EA today, and Activision-Blizzard being one of the few exceptions (for whatever reason).  I think it's absolutely crazy to have Valve invest tons of resources into a platform that will not deliver a higher ROI then they are already getting from the PC/360.  Sure, they might make money, but the question is one of ROI...You fully understand this, at least based on your posting history, but so many others on this site don't.  If Valve makes $0.25 on every dollar invested in the PC/360...and they would only get $0.15 on extending to the PS3...what sense does it make to invest limited resouces to expand to that system?  Why not just make 2 PC/360 games a year and get better return on your dollar? 

This guy is a fool, or at least several of his arguments make him look so.

Right here, several stupid remarks in just one or two sentences:

1- I bet having their own distribution system (which other publishers use for their titles) is a big part of why Valve is profitable when most of the gaming industry isn't. They avoid paying retail fees which shave a huge portion out of a game's profit. Furthermore Valve gets to collect their own fees from other developers who put their games on Steam. Maybe one day Valve will show him who's boss by jacking up his fees if he ever makes his games available on Steam :P

Somehow this guy manages to turn one of the positive things about Valve's business into a negative. What an idiot.

2- It's not true that Valve doesn't care about retail. That's why they have the deal with EA for retail copies of their games. In turn, EA also publishes its games on Steam. Valve obviously doesn't want to spend money on retail infrastructure when they can outsource it (as MANY other developers do, including this idiot's company).

3- What does the PSN or 360 market place have to do with a PC distribution system?

Yeah because everyone knows running a business is all about fun, right?

I wonder if this guy has some bad history with Valve to be badmouthing them like this...