10 Excuses By Developers That Won't Be Valid For PS4/Xbox 720 Games

"It's no surprise that there's a lot of funny business being slung around by developer executives this generation. Too many excuses, and not near enough justification for the sheer amount of BS. Of course, this introduction is a little over-cynical. We've had some truly fantastic titles released this generation, and I have no intention of decrying these, but we have to take the bad with the good when analysing this generation."

[EZMickey]

This really doesn't deserve approval. No offense to the author but many of these points are clearly just personal gripes rather than actual insights to the benefits of a new generation of hardware.

To say they will have no excuses carries quite a condescending tone and implies that many developers of this generation have been deliberately pushing out sub-par products because they are able to hide behind various excuses that the new hardware will somehow collectively render obsolete.

Whatever the new Playstation and Xbox are capable of, they're highly unlikely to wash away all obstacles any developer may ever face or dissuade marketers from adding gimmicks in to appeal to the more casual audience.

[Mozef]

couldnt agree more !

[Mounce]

As soon as I clicked to the article and saw 'Limited draw distance'. I closed it, LOL.

It's a Blog then, a person complaining and then in a way? Showing himself off as a graphics whore. There's not even then excuses, he's just whining that there's not MORE of EVERYTHING!

[BuffMordecai]

I guess you like those game issues? They are all valid and need to be addressed next gen. And that graphics whore comment made no sense, a lot of these issues are from developers pushing graphics as their priority on console, limiting draw distance, frames per second, level space, etc.

[Mounce]

Limited Draw Distance due to hardware limitations are GAME ISSUES?.... No.

FPS is Fine Level space is variable on what the devs want whether GTA-scope or Dead Space sized claustrophobic maps. Draw distance is irrelevant except for graphic whores. If a game developer has nothing else to push like a grand story, plot, characters, unique features, what else can they do?! Push it like Crytek pushes visuals and make it look 'Prettier', got a problem with DRAW DISTANCE but don't even complain about lack of innovation? Your head is in the wrong area.

All your complaints as well are Optionally-irrelevant. Innovation is the problem, not HURRR I CAN'T SEE THE MOUNTAINS FAR AWAY WITH REALISTIC CLARITY! WAAAAHH! I want to play Skyrim and look at everything with pure clarity because I'm certainly going to look freakin FAR AWAY!

Hell, even Half-life 2 uses techniques to measure multiple draw-distances in rendering qualities from 2 meters infront of you(approximate) to 8 meters and beyond. It doesn't ruin the bloody immersion of game quality of Half-Life 2, does it?! No.

It's about artistic quality and innovation, Graphics quality is usually just Sugar coating or refining of a games quality Before or After potential features that make a selling point to the game.

They are Not complain-worthy unless you're a graphics whore or the equivalent of a baby who became a gamer in recent years.

[Dno]

wow i couldnt disagree with you more i think you should read it again.

[EZMickey]

I read it and understand it. It's not that the points made are non-issues for some gamers, but most of them really are irrelevant and hardly "issues".

This article is written from a very linear perspective that hardware is entirely responsible for the quality of a game and even the gimmicks (if any) attached to it.

Which is wrong. No creative venture is ever that binary.

[user3915800]

He had 3 good points, the rest I consider to be a little silly. Multiple disk and resolution, the rest I could live by it.

I want to see everything at 1080p at 60fps, but I know it will depend on developers, so some game will be lower. What I dont want to see its a higher price tag when both ps4 and 720 are similar in technology.

There will be excuses, there is always that concept of awkward thinking, I will wait 2 years for ps4 and xbox to work out their system faults I know PS4 will be like all sony consoles faulty and xbox well, first 1 was great and the second a disaster, but at least they reacted to the problem and did not denied it like sony always do. The most unethical business are produced by sony.

[NastyLeftHook0]

lol the pic

[admiralvic]

I agree, though some of the points are pretty funny.

Like Multiple discs is a design limitation, not an excuse. The only thing you can consider an "excuse" would be to LIMIT a game to 1 disc to avoid it.

[EZMickey]

Very well said, mate.

[PurpHerbison]

Dude this is N4G, of course it got approved!

[muttley65]

I hope there is no half-ass games to render DLC as a excuse to continue making them. back in the day developers was making FULL content games.

what happen???

[GalacticEmpire]

They forgot having no excuse for bad ports as system architecture will be far similar next gen.

[MasterCornholio]

Well except for the Wii U because that console has some pretty strange hardware in comparison to the PS4 and the 720.

BTW my opinion is based off rumors so dont kill me for speculating.

@DA_Shredder

" and now have better RAM"

We will have more ram but the speed of the ram might bottleneck the system. Well if the rumors are true the PS4 ram will have a ton of bandwidth but the 720s and Wii Us DDR3 might cause them some problems.

[xxLuckyStrike]

You really think M$ will launch a system that has issues with bottle necking and completely ignore the very issue Sony had with the PS3 and how it handicap some capabilities. Ok

[dcbronco]

Not necessarily true Conrholio. Like you said, it's all based on rumors and speculation. Even the chip designers don't know for sure what chips can do based on what they designed. See the Cell, Larrabee, Bulldozer core and a bunch of other CPUs. I will say I trust Microsoft on their CPU designs. RRoD aside, they are good at new designs and getting the most out of parts.

But some of the things being blamed on developers aren't their fault. It is the limitations of the hardware. some, like high DL prices are because they don't want to completely kill off the box stores.

[madpuppy]

dcbronco said,"I trust Microsoft on their CPU designs. RRoD aside, they are good at new designs and getting the most out of parts."

MS doesn't design microprocessors, they are mainly a SW company with most of their hardware being made/designed by other companies.

The 360's CPU was designed by the same company as the PS3's cpu, IBM.

[dcbronco]

Madpuppy,

Sorry, you're wrong. The chips inside the 360 are heavily based on IBM's Power7 and the AMD x1800 series parts. But they were modified a ton. And on the last modifications, Microsoft is believed to have done the majority of the work. Some believe all of it.

Microsoft started hiring computer architects back in 2004. They now have several hundred working in a building on their campus. Read the article below.

http://arstechnica.com/gami...

I read an article years ago that was from a conference with a lot of execs from different CPU companies. An AMD engineer talked about Microsoft already having a roadmap for their chips back then including a basic design for their SoC. The engineer also remarked that Fusion was following Microsoft's roadmap.It was all because of their experience with Intel and Nvidia on the first Xbox.

They definitely get help from AMD, license tech from AMD. But it might be just a licensing consulting relationship at this point. That and sharing technology. Microsoft definitely designs CPUs. So does Apple. It's no different than AMD licensing x86 from Intel. Intel might be the foundation, but AMD is doing their own thing with it.

[madpuppy]

dcbronco wrote:
"Microsoft is believed to have done the majority of the work. Some believe all of it.
Microsoft started hiring computer architects back in 2004. They now have several hundred working in a building on their campus. Read the article below."

The article you quote is for the newer design of the Xbox 360 250gig "slim", it looks like MS designed a "system on a chip" with existing 3rd party hardware and built by IBM for them. no where does it say that MS designed the processor for the 360 themselves.

The Original 360 processor was wholly designed by IBM "borrowing" the core from the Cell processor.
read this:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wik...

quoted from the wiki:

"Xenon in Xbox 360
The PPE was designed specifically for the Cell processor but during development, Microsoft approached IBM wanting a high performance processor core for its Xbox 360. IBM complied and made the tri-core Xenon processor, based on a slightly modified version of the PPE."

And this one:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wik...

So, what you are saying might not be completely true, at the time they were developing the 360, MS did NOT design the Xenon Processor.

[dcbronco]

Madpuppy look at that article again.

"Microsoft engineers presented the new SoC and apparently did a lot of the layout (or perhaps all of it) themselves. Given the unique requirement of consoles—the system must perform exactly like the original Xbox 360—and despite a five-year gap and multiple iterations of Moore's Law, the consolidation presented a few interesting challenges."

Notice the "Microsoft engineers" part and look at the part in brackets. But I admit that article isn't the best proof. I just grab a link from one of the many articles I have read on it from gaming, technology and other types of sites. But this one makes it completely clear.

http://www.nytimes.com/2006...

Sorry about the previous article not being as clear. I should have done a quick re-read. This article is from 2006, but I have read information from earlier.

Here's some other articles you might find interesting.

http://www.techradar.com/ne...

http://www.theregister.co.u...

http://www.eurogamer.net/ar...

And one about Apple.

http://techcrunch.com/2011/...

[dcbronco]

When you can disagree with facts you are a whole nother level of douchey.

[kudakadere]

True , dev's should be able to pump out Uncharted level and up games every time due to better hardware and ease of architecture.

[DA_SHREDDER]

next generation will beable to fix the bottleneck that limited games, and now have better RAM, so games are going to be really pretty to look at and have solid frame rates. Nintendo already hase cross game video chat, and web browser in game.

[gamernova]

Any developer that says they maxed out the hardware within one year of the release of the consoles deserves to get smacked. Just saying.

[Dark_Overlord]

The problem is that it is quite easy to max out hardware, just write inefficient poorly optimised code, so whilst they technically aren't lying, so much more could be done :)

[porkChop]

Exactly. It's like filling one glass with large rocks, and another with sand. Sand is essentially just little bits of rock. It's all about optimization.

[gamernova]

Exactly! :)

[OC_MurphysLaw]

What about no excuses for crappy articles from websites looking for something to write about for hits?

[WeAreLegion]

It's Gaming Bolt, people. Stop enabling them.

[landog]

anti aliasing!! this is a must, on ps3/360 the jaggies can be game ruiningly distracting

v-sync, same with screen tearing, awful in some games

native 1080p, this is a must, its 2013, sure 720p was "ok" in 2005, heck, some console games are 540p, 576p ect...ect...thats pretty much wii resolution

NATIVE 1080p, anti aliasing, v-sync, higher res textures, better a.i., better physics, 60 frames

give me that, and i'll be pleased with next gen

[MidnytRain]

None of this makes sense. As technology improves, devs will get more ambitious and push the hardware, thus, it's entirely possible the same issues could exist.

[first1NFANTRY]

We need more third party games matching the quality of first party games if their gonna continue to be priced the same.

[DomceM]

no multiple discs.

Lol thats a 360 only problem. PC and ps3 dont have that issue.

[Kevlar009]

Let's look at the 10 excuses for the WiiU developers will have

1. Not as powerful as 720/PS4
2. Not as powerful as 720/PS4
3. Not as powerful as 720/PS4
....
10. Not as powrful as 720/PS4

(This article brought to you by EA)

[kudakadere]

I think both consoles supporting 50 - 100 GB optical disks will be the best thing next-gen will offer , imagine all those multiplatform games becoming 40 GB games that's like 4 times as much as current gen , with games like Battlefield are gonna look amazing , even Fifa's , more textures etc .

[porkChop]

I'm really excited for next gen. This gen so many games have been negatively impacted by the lack of RAM and hardware power. Not just draw distances, but also textures, player count, pop in, etc. So many games have had to be significantly altered in design and scope, and have had massive amounts of content cut, just because of the 360's lack of disc capacity.

That's a big problem, and a lot of games this gen could have turned out better if developers didn't have to sacrifice their vision due to limitations. Rockstar even admitted that content was cut from GTA4 because of the 360's DVD9 discs, and said that their games were only going to get bigger.

Next gen consoles will have large amounts of disc capacity. The PS3 currently uses 50GB Blu Ray's, but there are 1TB Blu Ray discs these days. I'm sure that Sony will opt for larger discs, at least 100GB. Which will prove troublesome for Nintendo who opted for only 25GB discs, a very short-sighted decision.

__________

And please, for the love of god, TURN ON THE ANTI ALIASING!

[LordHiggens]

How come I hear no one mention dynamic blood or vanishing bodies? There should be no excuse for why a body disappears or a bloodstain magically goes away....none.

[Unicron]

Games will always be limited by time, budget, and hardware. Next gen will have a lot of the same issues this one has. There's also a thing called choice.... Why waste mem on draw distance when you can have higher near field fidelity/assets?