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EA, Ubisoft & Take-Two (2K/Rockstar) weigh in on Xbox Scorpio, PS4 Neo (they love it)

CrazE

Banned
Neo isnt just made for VR, hell i dont think VR will catch that much steam anyway.

Neo is for the people who want a stronger console and better looking games. Andrew House already said something like this.

I believe it's for PSVR mostly. There's no way they're getting their VR to run as good as they want on the regular PS4's setup.

Too bad we just can't buy expansion RAM like the good ol days. Looking at you Nintendo.
 

Papacheeks

Banned
Also from the article it sounds like he is disappointed that launch consoles weren't as strong and that MS is back peddling. Not that it is a bad idea.

You posted an article saying how devs think the Scorpio is a bad idea. Like I mentioned it seems like it is only a bad idea because MS is back tracking from Cliffy B perspective.

This is what you said that Cliff said that both consoles were week when he isn't talking about both in the interview.

Here's what he actually said on Microsoft's plan for multiple consoles:
“Is Microsoft going full Sega 32x and Mega CD right now? I think it’s weird. The way the branding’s going, it feels like the way Mercedes name their cars in the United States, y’know; the S class! The SOK! The SK! Which fucking one is this? Consumers only have enough time and attention for that. It’s like dude, are you trying to turn the Xbox into a PC? What’s going on right now?”


Here's what he said on weak scorpio:
“I think it feels like an apology move for them for not making the console as powerful as it should have been in favour of making sure the Kinect was boxed in with it. So now they have to play catch-up. In a way, you can trace this all the way back to their well-intended E3 from a few years ago — where they were trying to go fully digital, etcetera, etectera, and the internet backlash made them back pedal.”

ANd then where you might be getting confused is when he is talking in general about enhanced games and uses the PS3-PS4, XB360-XBONE generational changes to talk about scorpio enhanced games not playstation.

On Scorpion-enhanced games:
"When you do that, you genuinely tend to see games that don’t fully shine on the high end. Like we saw with this past console generation [publishers] were hedging their bets with a chicken-and-the-egg thing. They were putting the games on PlayStation 3 and 4, Xbox 360 and Xbox One and basically you get higher resolution textures but it’s still a masked texture instead of being dynamically generated. So they’re kind of hobbling themselves in regards to that kind of scalability. It’s trying to have your cake and eat it too.”

Where does he talk about both consoles the PS4/XBONE being weak? He's talking about how weak xbox was when it launched, not PS4.
 
Ugh...just give a clear cut off point for when hardware is supported by developers. constant forwards compatibility is meaningless if your just holding back the newer hardware's capability for the inferior hardware. We already get that enough with cross gen projects and hold over cross generation technology.

If there's no start and stop to generations, eventually your going to hit a wall for what you can do, regardless of how scalable your software technology is, especially if your mandating feature and game parity between the units.

All of this community sharing could be solved just by basic full tier BC to begin with, which is already solved by going x86. This "iterative approach" sours me the more i hear about it

Well this quote from Andrew House should assuage some of your fears, at least from the Sony side:

"Some of our thinking was informed by changes that have happened in the broader tech landscape and the cadence of innovation to which the consumer is now attuned - particularly by smartphones," House said. "I'm not suggesting we want to bring the games industry to an 18-month-two-year cycle because then you would lose an awful lot of the fixed platform benefits we've enjoyed that allow for these really great leaps in game experience.

"However, we did think there was an opportunity to reflect on the traditional lifecycle, and on 4K technology, and say maybe there's an opportunity, within the course of a normal lifecycle to offer something else, something a little bit better, for a segment of the market that feels that this is important."

http://www.gamesindustry.biz/articl...use-surprised-by-project-scorpio-announcement
 
Yep dudes complaining about remasters on the first page when we pretty much already know those won't be happening.

Some in anti iterative camp feel they need to keep the scaremongering up. Must be galling that even previously negative people are slowly coming to accept the idea, some reluctantly I'll admit.

Personally I prefer Sony's approach where they have strongly hinted they would like to keep the traditional console cycle alive albeit with possible mid gen upgrades if there is technological advancements which would benefit the consumer. This is the best option because endless iterative hardware means less innovation and genuine leaps in power.
 
An annoyance at first maybe.

So the notion that some think it's a pain in the ass is true then and yet people seem to want to dispute those claims every chance they get with anything that contradicts it.

Where is the most Indy and low budget games? PC. Where do most small devs get their start? PC. What platform has the most user content? PC. What has the most varied hardware to a insane degree? PC.

You realize there's good financial and business reasons why indy and low budget games are on a PC right? You realize the reason most devs get their start on a PC right? It's ease of access with minimal start up costs. That has nothing to do with the scope of development. Anyone who has a PC can get started and go where as there's a barrier of entry for consoles. There's the process of getting approved as a license developer, there's the cost of getting development hardware, there's the cost and process of submission and approval that meet TRCs. None of that exists on the PC side. Anyone can release anything in any state on a PC wherever they want. Not so true with a console. So let's not pretend that the barrier of entry isn't a significant factor why a lot of small developers start on a PC.

It can't be that hard and it's not confirmation bias it's just common sense.

It is confirmation bias when you dismiss any developer that doesn't support your view and then hold up high any developer that does.

We have a million examples of software that runs on all kinds of hardware at all kinds of budget levels given similar architecture it's obviously not that hard. Not wanting to be bothered with doing it isn't the same thing as it being a huge difficult mountain for devs to climb.

Nobody said a huge difficult mountain for devs. It however is an annoyance thorn in the side and a non trivial additional amount of work being added for little to no benefit when games development time is already lacking, resources are limited, and finite budgets. Stop looking at it from what you think is easy and look at it from the current state of game development. X amount of work already is not getting done on time by release date, and now you want to do X + Y amount of work in that same time frame, with the same resources and budget without any clear sign of any financial gain. To simplify it, you have work that needs to be done in a day, but not enough hours to complete it. Now suddenly your boss gives you another task. Would you be annoyed when you already don't have enough time? That's what's going on here.

Another thing the people speaking here are the ones holding the money. If it was an arduous task to do this it would be more expensive. This keeps generations together and will most likely see the end of the feast/famine cycle which will be healthy for all devs moving forward.

Ya, the ones holding the money who already push games out before they're ready to be released rather than giving enough time and money to do so. Now you want to add on more work to it without any way to financially gain from it since it's a mandatory requirement? What do you think will happen. Budgets will increase as well as development time or do you think publishers will have developers try and figure out a way to just fit it in to the existing timeline? Experience tells me it will be the former, not the latter.
 

gatti-man

Member
Yea so wrong in a sea of uncertainty. And if og xbox one games get dowgraded like crazy that will piss so many people off.
And he brings that sentiment in the article when talking about frame rate, and multiple console strat.
We dont know yet how people will react to this or react at all when it's released same with NEO.

But from the way Andrew House has been talking it sounds like neo is for advanced VR titles, 4k playback, and games that will look slightly better but not have giant differences compared to OG PS4.
The fact all games shown at E3 were running on OG PS4 shows so far they are staying true to the mandate they set.
While Microsoft is more lax on theirs for developers to decide which is a scary place to be.
No Xbox one games will get downgraded. But they won't look as nice as Scorpio games. This isn't a down grade it's the facts of having weaker hardware.

So the notion that some think it's a pain in the ass is true then and yet people seem to want to dispute those claims every chance they get with anything that contradicts it.



You realize there's good financial and business reasons why indy and low budget games are on a PC right? You realize the reason most devs get their start on a PC right? It's ease of access with minimal start up costs. That has nothing to do with the scope of development. Anyone who has a PC can get started and go where as there's a barrier of entry for consoles. There's the process of getting approved as a license developer, there's the cost of getting development hardware, there's the cost and process of submission and approval that meet TRCs. None of that exists on the PC side. Anyone can release anything in any state on a PC wherever they want. Not so true with a console. So let's not pretend that the barrier of entry isn't a significant factor why a lot of small developers start on a PC.



It is confirmation bias when you dismiss any developer that doesn't support your view and then hold up high any developer that does.



Nobody said a huge difficult mountain for devs. It however is an annoyance thorn in the side and a non trivial additional amount of work being added for little to no benefit when games development time is already lacking, resources are limited, and finite budgets. Stop looking at it from what you think is easy and look at it from the current state of game development. X amount of work already is not getting done on time by release date, and now you want to do X + Y amount of work in that same time frame, with the same resources and budget without any clear sign of any financial gain. To simplify it, you have work that needs to be done in a day, but not enough hours to complete it. Now suddenly your boss gives you another task. Would you be annoyed when you already don't have enough time? That's what's going on here.



Ya, the ones holding the money who already push games out before they're ready to be released rather than giving enough time and money to do so. Now you want to add on more work to it without any way to financially gain from it since it's a mandatory requirement? What do you think will happen. Budgets will increase as well as development time or do you think publishers will have developers try and figure out a way to just fit it in to the existing timeline? Experience tells me it will be the former, not the latter.

Ok where to start. Learning new skills can be annoying that doesn't mean it shouldn't be done or it will be a big problem for devs.

Yes I do realize small dev houses choose PC for the economics of it which actually proves my point. If it was so hard or arduous to support various hardware setups then small dev houses couldn't make it. Problems creat work, work is expensive etc.

You can call it what you want. Software can support multiple specs without too much work. The proof is in the pudding it's not even a problem. And I certainly don't lift any devs opinion above others. Like I said in this very thread Cliffy is no better than any other dev when it comes to his opinion meaning I hold them all equal. I think it's you trying to vault negative opinions over positive ones honestly.
 
Ok where to start. Learning new skills can be annoying that doesn't mean it shouldn't be done or it will be a big problem for devs.

Where did I say that it shouldn't be done? I'm defending the notion that some devs aren't pleased with this and calling it a pain in the ass. Devs will do what the publishers tell them to do. That doesn't change it from being annoying/pain in the ass. It really depends on the scope and the amount of testing involved and how many TRCs you violate in the process.

Yes I do realize small dev houses choose PC for the economics of it which actually proves my point. If it was so hard or arduous to support various hardware setups then small dev houses couldn't make it. Problems creat work, work is expensive etc.

No it doesn't prove your point because the requirements are apples and oranges. You can release a PC game in any state without anything holding you to any types of standards or approval. You can aim to have a game only work on a 1080 and it's anyone's guess how well it will work on a 960 but nobody is putting checks and guarantees for that to work. Consoles hold you to certain standards that need to be met and you don't have any choice because if you don't meet those guidelines and standards, you don't get your game approved. You also don't have methods like Steam Greenlight where you can have people pay for your work in progress on a console. There's a lot of flexibility that you get with a PC that makes it easier than going with a console. You don't even have to pay thousands of dollars for repeating a certification because there's no certification process.

You can call it what you want. Software can support multiple specs without too much work. The proof is in the pudding it's not even a problem. And I certainly don't lift any devs opinion above others. Like I said in this very thread Cliffy is no better than any other dev when it comes to his opinion meaning I hold them all equal. I think it's you trying to vault negative opinions over positive ones honestly.

I'm just trying to point to the reality of the situation. It's a non trivial process that takes up money, time and resources. It doesn't take much to realize that developers are already short on all those and now you're adding more work on top of that. Something has to give in some form. People like to trivialize this but it's anything but trivial, especially with more targets you include. Developers will do it because it's now mandated and publishers will force them to do it. That doesn't invalidate the opinion that it's a pain in the ass like some people seem to want to dismiss. Hell some people think it's just changing a config file and you're done. How do you think a developer feels that while they're already working 2 to 3 months in crunch that suddenly there's two new platform mandates that gets added to their work load?
 

ShutterMunster

Junior Member
No it doesn't prove your point because the requirements are apples and oranges. You can release a PC game in any state without anything holding you to any types of standards or approval. You can aim to have a game only work on a 1080 and it's anyone's guess how well it will work on a 960 but nobody is putting checks and guarantees for that to work. Consoles hold you to certain standards that need to be met and you don't have any choice because if you don't meet those guidelines and standards, you don't get your game approved. You also don't have methods like Steam Greenlight where you can have people pay for your work in progress on a console. There's a lot of flexibility that you get with a PC that makes it easier than going with a console. You don't even have to pay thousands of dollars for repeating a certification because there's no certification process.

So you're saying that the hassle of having two confirmed hardware targets outweighs the hassle of having thousands because of accountability? You think developers who put out poorly optimized software are getting very far? That word doesn't travel that X developer is shit at optimizing their games on PC? Devs making PC games already set floors and ceilings for their games. This isn't rocket science.


I'm just trying to point to the reality of the situation. It's a non trivial process that takes up money, time and resources. It doesn't take much to realize that developers are already short on all those and now you're adding more work on top of that. Something has to give in some form. People like to trivialize this but it's anything but trivial, especially with more targets you include. Developers will do it because it's now mandated and publishers will force them to do it. That doesn't invalidate the opinion that it's a pain in the ass like some people seem to want to dismiss. Hell some people think it's just changing a config file and you're done. How do you think a developer feels that while they're already working 2 to 3 months in crunch that suddenly there's two new platform mandates that gets added to their work load?


People are greatly overselling the difficulty of this. It's kind of insane considering there isn't a massive architecture switch between the boxes. It is an inconvenience not the apocalypse. Adapt or die.
 
So you're saying that the hassle of having two confirmed hardware targets outweighs the hassle of having thousands because of accountability? You think developers who put out poorly optimized software are getting very far? That word doesn't travel that X developer is shit at optimizing their games on PC? Devs making PC games already set floors and ceilings for their games. This isn't rocket science.

I'm saying the bar level for barrier of entry in console is much higher because of the money and requirements involved with the process. You don't have those barriers on a PC and nobody is holding a certification standard to block you from releasing. Look at Steam's green light program where people are paying for alphas and betas which help fund the project. You don't have things like that on a console.

People are greatly overselling the difficulty of this. It's kind of insane considering there isn't a massive architecture switch between the boxes. It is an inconvenience not the apocalypse. Adapt or die.

People keep saying the apocalypse, and that's overselling it too. Nobody is saying that. Saying it's a pain in the ass is the same thing as saying it's an inconvenience. People need to stop looking at the concept in isolation and look at it as piling more work on top of the work load that is already being done. It's in the bigger picture where it's viewed as more annoying. Telling someone to go deliver this package 20 miles away in itself isn't some huge world ending task. But it can be pretty damn annoying when you are told to this and you have a huge work load that needs to be done by the end of the day.
 

Papacheeks

Banned
No Xbox one games will get downgraded. But they won't look as nice as Scorpio games. This isn't a down grade it's the facts of having weaker hardware.

If they develop the game to use scorpio first at certain high resolutions with a lot of effects on, they will have to work around that on xbox one that still has ESRAM in which still causes development bottlenecks.

Your going to see actually more 900p games on og xbox, with sup downsampled textures, and even dynamic resolution for some instances.
 

spectator

Member
If they develop the game to use scorpio first at certain high resolutions with a lot of effects on, they will have to work around that on xbox one that still has ESRAM in which still causes development bottlenecks.

In theory, working down from Scorpio shouldn't afford them any less efficiency than working up from OG Xbox. Both hardware profiles constrain development to their own respective levels.
 

ShutterMunster

Junior Member
I'm saying the bar level for barrier of entry in console is much higher because of the money and requirements involved with the process. You don't have those barriers on a PC and nobody is holding a certification standard to block you from releasing. Look at Steam's green light program where people are paying for alphas and betas which help fund the project. You don't have things like that on a console.

Now you're just making wholesale arguments against developing on console, which we already know are of no consequence.

How many developers are actually making money on Steam Greenlight? How many gamers are really be interested in that program? Also, the relationship between that program and the perceived difficulty in developing for multiple hardware targets is tangential at best.

The stance you're taking is super anti-consumer. "No one is there to check you on PC, so if you release shit it's fine! Your game doesn't even have to be done!" Like why would that ever be an appealing selling point to a consumer? How is that even good for devs long term? And what does it really have to do with the ACTUAL difficulty tied to the task of hitting multiple hardware targets?
 
I can grab some more later but:

repiscorpiok5slg.png


tiagoscorpioe4saz.png
It allows them to push the medium and removes resource constraints on hardware.

Seems like a win all across the board
 
Now you're just making wholesale arguments against developing on console, which we already know are of no consequence.

How many developers are actually making money on Steam Greenlight? How many gamers are really be interested in that program? Also, the relationship between that program and the perceived difficulty in developing for multiple hardware targets is tangential at best.

The stance you're taking is super anti-consumer. "No one is there to check you on PC, so if you release shit it's fine! Your game doesn't even have to be done!" Like why would that ever be an appealing selling point to a consumer? How is that even good for devs long term? And what does it really have to do with the ACTUAL difficulty tied to the task of hitting multiple hardware targets?

The point I'm addressing is the claim pointing out how all these small and indie developers start out on PC as if it's some sort of proof that multiple targets is a trivial issue. I'm saying that claim is apples and oranges and there are a lot of reasons why those people go to PC first that has nothing to do with the concept of developing for multiple targets. It's just like iOS development is huge because the barrier of entry and to get something up in the app store is so low that anyone can jump in easily with minimum start up costs other than your own time. There are real tangible barriers that don't make consoles as easy to jump into. They've lowered that bar more this generation, but there are still hurdles that PC development doesn't have. That is the reason why so many first time developers are on PC. The strength of a console is the set target hardware and the wider audience, but it's not something you typically jump on when starting out. I didn't make the claim that all these small indie developers start on PC which has nothing to do with multiple targets. Let's not pretend that there aren't some really popular games that did come out of the green light project too or try to think that nobody paid for them in that state.
 
If they develop the game to use scorpio first at certain high resolutions with a lot of effects on, they will have to work around that on xbox one that still has ESRAM in which still causes development bottlenecks.

Your going to see actually more 900p games on og xbox, with sup downsampled textures, and even dynamic resolution for some instances.

More and more games already have a dynamic resolution on xbone. Games that promised 1080p switched to DR... like Gears 4...
 
I think we should care more about how developers feel about this. It's one thing for a CEO to say their teams love it, but it's another for a developer to say it themselves.
CEO's love it because they can make more money for their companies. Developers will love it because they'll have work.
 

gatti-man

Member
If they develop the game to use scorpio first at certain high resolutions with a lot of effects on, they will have to work around that on xbox one that still has ESRAM in which still causes development bottlenecks.

Your going to see actually more 900p games on og xbox, with sup downsampled textures, and even dynamic resolution for some instances.

Xbox games already have dynamic resolution. None of them were graphical powerhouses let's be real. Even the ones meant to be, weren't like Rise.

Expecting xbone games to keep up with Scorpio isn't realistic.
 

Boke1879

Member
It allows them to push the medium and removes resource constraints on hardware.

Seems like a win all across the board

Of course there will be some growing pains and grumblings, but I do see this as a net positive going forward.

I mean I think Kojima was prepared for this when he made the Fox Engine. Can be easily scaled between different hardware. Dice does the same thing with their Frostbite engine.

Doing something like this also helps devs incrementally improve their engines. Instead of a violent shakeup of the industry every 6 years where there is so much uncertainty.

This allows their games to sell across platforms without leaving a 60+ million userbase behind.
 
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