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Originally posted by ChrstnMchl I think the flipside to that is when you are committed to only one platform you only concentrate on that format and not the lowest common denominator. I've heard it is much easier to program for the PS3 by itself rather than both - and vice versa. I've also heard if you start with the PS3 and port to the 360 you will have much easier time than the other way around.

The thing is that the X360 is much more developer friendly platform than the PS3. Seriously coding for the 360 is as easy as coding for the pc...easier actually, because you don't have to worry about compatibility issues. PS3 on the other hand is a nightmare to code for as far as i hear. And if you are a developer, why not choose the platform that on which its easier to develop a game, in the long run it will save you money.

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Originally posted by Moongoose The thing is that the X360 is much more developer friendly platform than the PS3. Seriously coding for the 360 is as easy as coding for the pc...easier actually, because you don't have to worry about compatibility issues. PS3 on the other hand is a nightmare to code for as far as i hear. And if you are a developer, why not choose the platform that on which its easier to develop a game, in the long run it will save you money.

I dunno if I want to go by that anymore. Naughty Dog impressed everyone with Uncharted. The way it looks. If they can make a game look like that on PS3, anyone can. I think it just comes down to lazyness.

I'm a little surprised that FFXIII wasn't even mentioned in Sony's conference. Maybe they were upset that Squeenix decided to go multiplatform with the title and didn't want to support the title for right now.

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Originally posted by RJT I'm really ashamed to say that I hadn't thought of the issue this way before. Great explanation, definitely makes sense to me, but the only question I'd then raise is whether or not that means we'd rather have a single console that everything is released for, or have to make a decision we may well regret in picking a system and realizing only later that a plethora of exclusive titles down the line won't be available to you? It's definitely no simple issue, that's for sure.

Chrstn had a pretty good explanation. Many developers started their production cycle on the 360, then ported it to the PS3. Thing is, their system architecture's are completely different, so the PS3 version would suffer. On the other hand, if a developer started production on the PS3, and then ported it to the 360, quality would NOT take a nose-dive; the versions are nearly identical. I'm pretty sure EA took this route with the 360/PS3 Burnout; the game looked exactly like each other. Go back to 2006, and the titles available on both 360 and PS3 looked and played way better on the 360, because the PS3 wasn't available yet, so developers chose the 360 has the leading platform.

But what my post concentrated on was competitiveness. If a game is released on all of the consoles regardless of anything, where is the motivation for developers to spend an extra couple of months to make the game outshine all of the others? If it's going to be released on BOTH the PS3 and 360, what difference does it make? With exclusives, developers want to go the extra yard to try and make their game better so as to convince people "you need to buy this system so you can play this helluva game." That's just my perspective take on it; obviously I don't work in the gaming industry, so I'm sure decision-making processes are a little more complicated than this.

And FFXIII does NOT fall in this category; the game was developed with exclusivity in mind, so it's not a good example. I speak of games like Kane & Lynch, or the Darkness, or Condemned 2, games that were quite mediocre, and I bet it became that way because multiplatforming was the key strategy at that point.

But you DO have a good point. You want to please everyone, rather than piss gamers off by basically shunning them and telling them "our game is on this system and not on yours." I'm sure this will yield better sales if a company chooses multiplatforming over exclusivity. But money doesn't necessarily reflect quality. Bringing products to a more widespread audience will probably reflect lesser efforts in the quality of the game and more so on making the game compatible with all of the systems.

I would normally say "this is where the Wii shines, it has a unique controllers that makes simple ports impossible," but that's not the case. Companies have manipulated the Wii strategy so well as to wrap up 360/PS3 games into a new "Wii-package" by slapping on sloppy/gimmicky Wiimote controls and calling it a new game. Sure Nintendo's console has some great titles on it, but I'd even go as far as to say that even the Gamecube had more hardcore games than it. Too many Wii games are simple mini-game-type formats that cater to the "Everyone" crowd rather than the gamer that wants a challenge.

This was a long rant...am I making sense? Either way, for those of you 360 owners that didn't want much out of the PS3 besides FFXIII, you can save yourself a boatload now.

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Originally posted by Rodrico haha, people still live for the Final Fantasy series? I lost all faith in this RPG since FFX.

coincides with the last game with influence by the Sakaguchi/Uematsu duo.



another point that didn't get mentioned in this thread, is that with a 360 version, it'll be easier to make a PC port ala Bioshock and Gears of War

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hello thar

bioshock wasn't a port; it was developed concurrently. which is the point i think people are missing. if you have 3 companies all writing the same game (1 for each platform) there is no reason they can't all be very good games.

as RJT said, the costs of making games is too high to justify sticking to one platform.

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Originally posted by pkcRAISTLIN as RJT said, the costs of making games is too high to justify sticking to one platform.

That's the disappointing truth of it all. I'm hoping ingenuity/creativity don't take backseat to cost.

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Originally posted by CONNERMAN2000 That's the disappointing truth of it all. I'm hoping ingenuity/creativity don't take backseat to cost.

i dont think its disappointing at all. i think the concept of exclusivity is retarded. big games with big budgets and big popularity SHOULD be across all platforms. not everyone can afford to buy each system, and i really dont think exclusive titles are necessarily of any higher quality (unless youre talking about lazy ports).

which i think is the point; developers can't be lazy with their porting or concurrent developments. like bioware, who put heaps of effort into their PC version of mass effect to take advantage of the control configs of the PC.

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Originally posted by pkcRAISTLIN i dont think its disappointing at all. i think the concept of exclusivity is retarded. big games with big budgets and big popularity SHOULD be across all platforms. not everyone can afford to buy each system, and i really dont think exclusive titles are necessarily of any higher quality (unless youre talking about lazy ports).

So really what you want is one single console. If that's the case, where is the competition and, inherently, the motivation to produce better games?

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Originally posted by Mr Game+Watch I've played all of them... do you mean FFIII or 6? Because if it's 6, you're damn wrong.. but yeah, 3 has a pretty basic story. It wasn't till 4 that the stories started taking off in the series.

3, the one that got remade on the DS, I know 6 was good

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Originally posted by CONNERMAN2000 So really what you want is one single console. If that's the case, where is the competition and, inherently, the motivation to produce better games?

well, what youve got to realise is that developers are competing with each other more than they are competing ala 360 developers VS PS3 developers. theyre all trying to make great games, and i dont think theyre more concerned with those making games on another platform than they are with any other code monkeys.

indeed, for all those consumers that only have one console, theyre not really in competition with the other console developers at all.

take the PC. it doesn't really have any competition from a similar platform- and i dont think it suffers from it at all.

the only thing exclusivity is meant to achieve is to tempt gamers from one platform to another, and has little to do with the overall quality of output. GTA4 is supposedly the greatest console game ever, did it suffer from being cross platform? nope.

its a marketing tool and little more. for every exclusive title we examine that is definitively excellent, we could provide a multi platform title that is just as good.

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Originally posted by pkcRAISTLIN well, what youve got to realise is that developers are competing with each other more than they are competing ala 360 developers VS PS3 developers. theyre all trying to make great games, and i dont think theyre more concerned with those making games on another platform than they are with any other code monkeys. indeed, for all those consumers that only have one console, theyre not really in competition with the other console developers at all. take the PC. it doesn't really have any competition from a similar platform- and i dont think it suffers from it at all. the only thing exclusivity is meant to achieve is to tempt gamers from one platform to another, and has little to do with the overall quality of output. GTA4 is supposedly the greatest console game ever, did it suffer from being cross platform? nope. its a marketing tool and little more. for every exclusive title we examine that is definitively excellent, we could provide a multi platform title that is just as good.

Well said. It's not like the consoles are teams. Each developer is out to make a better game than everyone else, regardless of the platform it is on.

I root for console exclusives because I have BOTH the 360 and PS3, so obviously I'm biased in this situation. From a business standpoint, multiplatforming is statistically a better thing to do for any company if they wish to make more money.

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