Visceral want Dead Space 3 "consistent across all platforms" to avoid 'inequality'

The PC version of Dead Space 3 has been defended by executive producer Steve Papoutsis. To him it's "confusing" when asked if they're optimising for PC - it's "very different" but 'no less important'.

Visceral has "always made console games," and their biggest goal is to deliver a quality "consistent across all platforms" without one userbase "saying it's better on their system." Bad news for PC?

[NYC_Gamer]

That's just a real lame excuse to not push hardware to the limit

[Vettur]

To be honest, this sounds really stupid. I understand that they want us to have the same experience on every platform, but dragging down the pc quality is really not a good idea.

[shutUpAndTakeMyMoney]

It's been like this for years. He is basically saying 360 port for everyone.

[HarryMasonHerpderp]

Yeah they should also give us the same experiences as the mobile phone platform where you can pay real cash to progress.....oh wait.
-_-

[Blank]

Oh gosh dont remind me about that *sighs* I swear they said it at the worst time the whole "reaching out for mobile action gamers" BS right near release I swear I was gonna buy it the first week (waiting on paycheck) but after john calhoun talking and saying the wrong things they effectively turned me away from it I can wait for bargin bin only because I find the dead space lore pretty interesting

EDIT: I forgot to say that about this whole "consistency with all platforms" thats cool but honestly its pretty cool when devs push the pc port higher than consoles I dont have a powerful rig but it shows that the devs actually tried to achieve awesome props and nods from the pc crowd

[ame22]

No one cares anymore.

[Minato-Namikaze]

Pc version suffers, ps3 version suffers, no idea why devs do this......

[Anon1974]

They get push back from Microsoft. As part of Microsoft's developers agreement, if you want to release a title on the Xbox 360, you have to agree not to make any other version significantly better on any other platform, to not include extra content and to release simultaneously on the 360 or "Microsoft reserves the right to not allow that content to be published for Xbox 360 or released on Xbox Live marketplace"

As a developer, that's a market of 70+ million users. Few developers could afford to risk Microsoft's disapproval. These terms were revealed a few years back. I kinda miss the days when developers weren't afraid to play up to a system's specs and create the best possible game with the hardware they had available to them. The Xbox outpowered the PS2 and everyone knew it, so Xbox games always tended to play to the system's strengths and games were all the better for it. But this gen, it's an issue.

I don't imagine Microsoft will change this policy going into next gen either. You have to wonder how often they've refused to release a game, or sent it back due to the developer, or how often developers simply dumb down other versions simply to not run afoul of Microsoft's terms.

[Minato-Namikaze]

Bunch of BS to me.

[maniacmayhem]

Sony has similar policies, it's basically a "We have the right to refuse.." type of policy, which most if not all customer base businesses have.

And this was mainly applied to downloadable titles not big name triple AAA content. You actually believe MS would refuse Dead Space 3 if it played, looked better or had extra content on other systems? There have been a number of 1st day release games on Ps3 with extra content and DLC already. And none of those were refused by MS.
Right off the top of my head is MK9 and SFxT.

Most 3rd party developers do not want to spend the extra time and money for one system. The game is made and then ported, that is it.

[Anon1974]

It's not surprising that all game companies reserve the right to refuse games on their system, but it's Microsoft that spells it out in terms of console parity being a reason they would refuse a game.

Of course, Microsoft needs to weigh the interests of their console overall against this policy. Batman AC had PS3 exclusive content if I'm not mistaken, but MS would have been crazy to deny this game's release on their console.

My point is, simply the fact that they have this policy, whether it's rigorously enforced or not is still going to have an impact on the development process. And there's no chance of anyone, developers or MS publicly admitting when it's impacted a game's development so we'll never know. If the policy was never enforced and not an issue, then why does it exist, and why is it so specific when it comes to console parity. Obviously, it's there for a reason.

[maniacmayhem]

As i said Sony also has TRC documentation and they have a policy that states the very same thing. I wish I could copy and paste it here but I am pretty sure that those type of documents comes with a NDR.

My whole point was you should not assume that MS is the sole reason why these games suffer from not playing to the other console strengths.

Development costs, time and end dates play 98.9% in all production. (Most) Big name companies and especially smaller devs can't afford to spend too much time tweaking a game to look or play better for just one console.

"If the policy was never enforced and not an issue, then why does it exist, and why is it so specific when it comes to console parity."

Each company has something similar for legal reasons. So if a situation for whatever reason did arrive where Sony, MS or Nintendo didn't like or want a game they could refuse it and just give this reason.

I can tell you from experience that Sony and Nintendo were brutal in their submission process. They would fail a game we submitted and come back with the most insane type of TCR failures/violations. But we would see the same issues in other games that did pass and were released that we were now getting kicked backed for.

Madden for example, I remember a while back seeing all sorts of TCR violations for that game. But do you think Sony would hold back a major game like Madden just to fix some issues that aren't crashes?

The rules are there to cover them legally for any reason they seem fit to not accept a game. That is why they are there.

[cyclindk]

Console and porting politics aside... on the PC end of things, despite everything else, I don't see how it takes anything but the most minute amount of effort to add some extreme texture options, if nothing else. I mean, Skyrim, should have default texture options on PC that scale up in tiers all the way to photo realistic. All it would amount to is the devs, during the texture creation process, STARTING with the best resolution and dumbing down gradually to less powerful PC specs and consoles.

Only other consideration is an intentional effort to NOT make their game too good, sort of thwart it's visual longevity out of the box (can't stop modders of course), but that way they can sell us a new product in a few years time. Sort of like those commercials where the chewing gum flavor lasts too long, the idea being it would hurt sales.

Look at the original Crysis, still leagues ahead in terms of tech compared with other games, even unmodded, and it probably stopped making them money a long time ago, to say nothing of piracy.

[ShaunCameron]

It kind of makes sense since no platform was created equal anyway. But at the same time, this is one of the negatives of making games multiplatform. It often has to cater to the lowest common denominator.