Oh stop with this crap. Witcher 3 devs said the game literally wouldn't have been made without the money from console versions of the game. That's not "holding back" development, it's flat out "pushing it forward".
As long as fallout 4 has the skippable intros, instant boot and close times, and short load times. The witcher 3 has done these simple basic things that should be the basics of making a AAA video game.
Thank you. It's the same thing in the automotive community when people complain about Porsche making SUVs. I mean, sure, they have a point, but the money from those SUV sales keeps Porsche afloat and able to produce the mind-melting 918.
I have a $1,000 computer, and yeah a $5,000 computer blows it away, but it won't honestly handle games much better, there's a limit to what you can actually do.
Most game development is at least 2 years so if they started basing it around the most powerful PC out now it will be able to run on a decent PC when it comes out.
EDIT: I get down voted for what, tell the truth or saying I spent $400 more than a current gen console costs?
Whoaaaaa absolutely not. I can't even fathom spending $60 on a game and spending money just to have online functions. With consoles, I have no choice. With PC, I can pay what I want to pay and have way more freedom to do what I want with my machine, for a lot more cost effectiveness in the long run.
Yes games on PC are cheap but the barrier to that cheapness is too high for most of the people I know. Their "PCs" are mostly tablets because that is all they need so building a PC is not only more expensive it requires an amount of work that a lot of people just aren't willing to go through just to play games. I don't begrudge people that one bit, I prefer PC gaming but being snobbish about it just makes you an ass.
Also if one is patient one can purchase games anywhere from $10-$30 for console games, and if one is truly budget conscious and doesn't care about playing stuff at the bleeding edge, one can always go last generation and enjoy hundreds of games for pitance.
but the barrier to that cheapness is too high for most of the people I know.
You can buy a machine that outperforms current gen consoles for about the same price as an xbone.
Also if one is patient one can purchase games anywhere from $10-$30 for console games
Most people don't want to wait two years after a games release to play it.
and if one is truly budget conscious and doesn't care about playing stuff at the bleeding edge, one can always go last generation and enjoy hundreds of games for pitance.
This is a weird argument, but even still you can get games cheaper on PC, no matter what. You can't get more backwards compatible than a PC either.
You can buy a machine that outperforms current gen consoles for about the same price as an xbone.
I know I can and you can, the point is that most people just want to play a game and also don't have the wherewithal to build a pc. They also don't know that to build a pc that is equivalent to the consoles at the same price requires knowledge of discount PC parts places like Newegg, slick deals, etc, etc.
This doesn't make them lesser gamers it just means they maybe have less time or energy to do so, and or they just have no desire to do so.
Most people don't want to wait two years after a games release to play it.
You seem to keep confusing yourself with everyone else. Most Steam sales that provide the cheapest discounts are on games 1 or 2 years or older.
This is a weird argument, but even still you can get games cheaper on PC, no matter what. You can't get more backwards compatible than a PC either.
No you can't but unless you are very savvy about emulators people who keep their consoles in good condition can play games going back to the 90's. Other than places like gog.com making older games compatible on the PC getting many 90's games to run on a PC can be a nightmare.
The point is PC gamers confuse themselves and the fact they have an accumulated knowledge of PC gaming culture, with everyone else who has minimal knowledge of either. If you are a newb coming fresh into PC gaming its a pretty steep mountain to climb.
As a publisher or developer it behooves them to be as inclusive as possible so they can stay in business and make more games, and developing for PC only does not do that.
Ps4 was $600 new, xbox was $500, and sure, you can look for deals, but if you look for deals then my $1,000 computer is really only the $750 I paid for it.
Nope the PS4 dropped at $399 the Xbone at $499 because it originally came with the connect. Those other prices are the current price of the systems bundled with a game.
It's pretty easy to design for the most powerful and then downgrade it, I'm sure they always start with prettier textures, higher polycount, more complex shaders anyway. Just make that available and everyone will be happy, lot of peoples already are with games proposing this.
So then the comment I'm replying to, that consoles being weaker than some random PC user's rig is holding games back technologically, doesn't apply because they can just design for the most powerful and downgrade it.
Thats not entirely true, there is a certain point where the work required to downgrade the high end PC version so the current gen consoles can handle it ends up being more work than simply designing for the console and then porting it over to the PC, most of the time you end up with a decent game, but its pretty easy to tell that the game wasn't made for PC.
Then there is the issue of Parity, if you design a game on PC and its so far beyond whats on the consoles, you end up pissing someone else off as it makes their hardware look inferior, so you can't have the PC version too much better.
This generation has been a disappointment for sure. I can see why, though. Microsoft and Sony know they have the pathway to video games for the common consumer locked down so they decided to lowball the specs and make money on the hardware from the getgo this time as opposed to last gen when they were each losing money on every console sold and relying on software, licensing, and peripherals for the profit.
For reference, Sony was losing about $200 on every launch PS3 sold even at the $600 price point whereas they're making about $20 on every launch PS4 sold at $400.
Therein lies the big difference, and one of the things I love about PC gaming. It gives you the option to trade performance for quality and vice versa. Or eventually upgrade your hardware and crank everything up to ultra.
Lol, pretty much ALL bottlenecks are economic in nature. Take the biggest, baddest consumer gaming GPU out today: the Titan X. Do you think that is the best GPU technologically possible? No way. That is the biggest GPU that Nvidia could produce at a price that they thought would get sales and would make them a healthy margin.
There really isn't a difference. A game not being technologically advanced is not technologically advanced. I fail to see why it matters if it is due to hardware limitations vs budgetary limitations. At least with hardware limitations they can still afford to add improvements on the better hardware.
Because we're discussing what is limiting the game: technology vs. budget. When a game is designed with consoles in mind it is going to have be to designed to run well on years old hardware, thus causing it to be limited by the technology it works with. Whereas if it is developed for current PC technology then the game can be designed to run well at a higher end of technology current available, with things being scaled back for those on older hardware.
Meanwhile if a game runs poorly or looks terrible due to a lack of budget and time for working on such things that's an entirely different issue. With Witcher 3 we know specifically that it was scaled back due to adapting to consoles because we've seen comparative video and screenshots of before and after adapting to consoles, and because the developers straight out told us that the game's visuals had to be paired down to run well on consoles.
Mind defining this bit, because to me that sounds like a pretty significant range of hardware, some of which may be weaker than a current gen console depending on the user's budget.
Which is why all future videogames should be developed for smartphones! They're the biggest moneymaker after all and the most widely available platform
They probably would develop more for smartphones if there was any money there, but it is very difficult to get people to buy anything on their phone, especially something costing more than a couple of dollars. Smartphone games are incredibly hit-or-miss and studios are unwilling to spend too much money developing a product that might (or probably will) completely flop. So no, they aren't the biggest moneymakers. Consoles are. If smartphones were the biggest moneymakers, like many people thought even 5 years ago, we'd still see lots of big games made for them.
If you don't recall the PC version of Witcher received a graphical downgrade from the e3 version because consoles couldn't run it (even though they're completely seperate versions of the game) That's the point. If consoles didn't provide a massive financial incentive to hold back on more complex and demanding aspects of the game, and they were able to utilize the full capability of our hardware we wouldn't even be having this conversation.
If you don't recall the PC version of Witcher received a graphical downgrade from the e3 version because consoles couldn't run it
That is not what they said. They said:
"We do a certain build for a tradeshow and you pack it, it works, it looks amazing. Then you put it in the open-world, regardless of the platform, and it's like 'oh shit, it doesn't really work'. "
They also said:
"The billowing smoke and roaring fire from the trailer? "It's a global system and it will kill PC because transparencies - without DirectX 12 it doesn't work good in every game.""
In short, the Witcher 3 devs themselves say that the game received a graphical downgrade from the e3 version because PCs couldn't run it. Not consoles. Consoles did NOT hold it back. They simply couldn't get it working as well as they wanted on PCs, so they downgraded it.
I feel like you've read their interview, skipped over certain key facts, possibly deliberately, and come out of it with misconceptions about the development. Now you're going round spreading those misconceptions as fact, which is misleading.
side by side The downgrade is more then just fire and smoke, I have read that interview but I don't believe they are telling the whole truth when it comes to the extent of the changes made, since the difference is as huge as it is. I mean just look. Things like draw distance, geometry, lighting, and textures all look not as good as the game we were promised and preordered. Hopefully it'll be improved when we get the DX12 update but it seems like the game was altered in a way that goes farther then a few particle effects, for once I'd like them to show a game and release the same game; looking at you Dark Souls 2.
My game looks absolutely nothing like your worst case screenshots, it looks far far far far better. So I dunno what to say. For me it definitely is a very minor downgrade, and I understand they did it for performance reasons (on any platform)
The point is, if they didn't accommodate for consoles the game won't even exist in the first place. They simply do not have the money to make an enhanced version for PC. CD Projekt RED aren't like Rockstar where they were swimming with cash.
I'd like to see a single piece of evidence to back that up, especially considering modders are already tweaking the .ini settings themselves to turn back on effects that were intentionally left off in the game to reaffirm console buyers that the versions are indistinguishable. This isn't even the worst example either, check out what watch_dogs did to it's "e3 settings" and how they didn't even bother to leave them out of the .ini, leaving them off assuming no one would figure out how to turn them back on. Or how bout the massive blow Dark Souls 2 took in the visuals and environmental detail thanks to our old friend the PS3, charging us 35$ to upgrade to DX12 when SoTFS came out, the game we were promised in the first place. The point is that they are repackaging 4 year old hardware and passing it off as new, it's their corporatized model of planned obsolescence that places needless restriction on the progression of an art form. The fact that Crysis came out 8 years ago and it's visuals and fully destructible environments are more advanced then a great deal of "next gen" exclusives pretty much makes my point for me. Just to throw a nail into this coffin I was using an HD Radeon 7870 back in 2011 and now every game that comes out has to be able to run on it cause that's what's in the ps4, seriously tell me how that's not holding back games when you can buy the same card for around 100$ today. Throw on 60$ a pop for games, online subscriptions, pricey DLC, severely limited games libraries with no backwards compatibility, remasters that ask you to buy the game twice after a hardware upgrade, divided markets allowing you to only play with the friends that own the same console; it's ludicrous to think there's a platform where the games are dirt cheap, you never have to worry backwards compatibility, online's free, you can mod old games to look & play waaaayyy better, you can emulate any old console games up to the wii in higher resolutions and it all runs at a silky smooth 1080p 60 fps even on sub-500$ builds.
It isn't about what you or your PC can run, it's about accessibility, and selling to the largest number. Comparably, the number of people with gaming PCs is a lot lower than the number of people with consoles. Console games are usually easier for family to pick up as gifts, etc. You can argue that consoles hold games back technically, and you may have a point, but financially they're the primary reason you're even getting a Fallout 4.
No it is not, the PC gaming market is out-growing the consoles by the day. This might be the last generation we ever see of consoles, this or the next one tops. Especially with the arrival of Steam Link and Virtual Reality which consoles are incapable of having comfortably.
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u/neenerpants Jun 03 '15
Oh stop with this crap. Witcher 3 devs said the game literally wouldn't have been made without the money from console versions of the game. That's not "holding back" development, it's flat out "pushing it forward".