'Limits Hit For PS3 & Xbox 360': What Devs Want From Next-Gen Consoles

NowGamer: What do game developers themselves want to see from the Xbox 720 and PlayStation 4?

[milohighclub]

i'll tell you what i want...i want devs to stop releasing games that are broken. nearly every mager game ive played since the middle of last year has launched broken. its probs only gonna get worse.

we need more rights as consumers. if i get 100hrs into a game and it stutters and crashes after 10mins every time i put it on,i should be entitled to an immediate full refund at the price i paid for it from the place i bought it.

[lonesoul65]

mind listing some of these major broken releases?

[OC_MurphysLaw]

Pick any Bethesda title...

But in fairness, Patching has become a double edged sword. It's great we can patch and fix stuff that in previous generations we couldn't, but now many devs use patching as an excuse to not fix things before release and just do it post release.

QA testing of games today has become a bit sloppy IMO. Mostly because games are big money, ship dates are set far in advance and devs are held to them with bonuses often tied to shipping on time, and ....they always know they can patch fixes post release.

[lonesoul65]

WEll, only game that I'm aware of from bethesda that you could be talking about is Skyrim or possibly Rage. Rage was kinda ID's fault at least for the PC version of the game and I never has any issues with Skyrim personally.

Games have always had patch after patch when it comes to the PC world...at least in the past 15 years. I think you are right that in some situations games are released too early due to money issues but I dont know many developers who choose it to be this way.

As far as testing, Consoles are one thing but PC's are another. Testing for all PC configurations and stuff is impossible, and the amount of people who play games, and the complexity of games themselves these day, you will always be able to break something eventually.

I for sure agree that costs have at times been cut in the wrong places...but the masses lack patience and fail to understand that games are never perfect...and never will be. I think our expectations are way to high...

Just my thoughts at least

[milohighclub]

yeah skyrim, uncharted 3, ghost recon, resistance 3, battlefield 3 all say hello......i'll have a look through my trophies to remember the rest.

and to your comment

"but the masses lack patience and fail to understand that games are never perfect...and never will be. I think our expectations are way to high... "

when i patiently wait x amount of years for my the next game in my favourite franchise, i should not have to sit there and wait 6 month with the game for it to be in a state it should of been at launch.

i understand that games will never be perfect but when you buy a game at £40 and put in the console for it to straight away crash on the main menu, its kind of a piss take.

also when you spend £40 for a game, play 100 hours only to find it become unplayable is unacceptable!!!

[honkayjeezus]

Even a simple game like Lego Batman 2 for 360 was unplayable for some with freezes, including myself. Actually hit a level where I had to play it about fifteen times to get past a freeze point.

Fallout 3 can still be dicey at times with larger save files, Skyrim continues to be nightmarish on PS3, or just pick your average FPS like Call of Duty's online day one.

[Knushwood Butt]

I second Uncharted 3.

Played through it again (second run) just last weekend, fully patched. At the start of Chapter 10, the game just flat out crashed my PS3.

There are games with far more issues, but UC3 is fresh in my mind.

[milohighclub]

yeah i was pretty gutted with the amount of issues uncharted launched with, i.e characters vanishing and stuttering through cutscenes really annoyed the shit out of me....ND have patched alot and theres a massive patch coming (part 1 of patch notes are on nd website) but unfortunately its now 9 month after launch and the game is only just getting to the state it should of been at launch.

i wont even get annother bethesda game until a year after launch...probs gonna be a GOTY edition(the complete game)

thing is people say no game is perfect...no i completely understand and agree with that statement, however if your that confident you have a great game on your hand then add another year to dev times. do a couple of betas/demos when you would of released have beta, run for a few month and then add another year to dev time.

look at rockstar, they are in no hurry to release GTA5 cos they know it sell like crazy. like they said they dont want to rush it cos they actually care about fans...

[Silly gameAr]

What version of Uncharted 3 were you guys playing?

[milohighclub]

its not about the version cos they were all the same. its about acceptance. As a MASSIVE uncharted fan, putting hundreds of hours into the series, i can truthfully say that i accept that uncharted 3 was broken as shit.

as can a whole community, just check ND'S forums for the whole story...

[lonesoul65]

There is some sort of obvious difference. I played though Uncharted 3 day one with no crashes. I Played Skyrim on the PC and didn't have a single crash either. Battlefield 3 had funny beta bugs but I had no issues after that. I know that the PS3 ports have had a lot of issues now and again but that is more of an architecture issue. It is pretty difficult to get the same game running perfect on 3 different systems much less 4 if you include nintendo.

[Jazz4108]

I have played zero broken games on 360 so these must be all games I did not pick up for ps3. If you know of broken games for 360 please list them as I think this is no doubt ps3 as its a beech to code on for most devs.

[Kingnichendrix]

Dragon dogma, its terrible on the 360

[HammadTheBeast]

What kind of nex level box are you playin on?

[Persistantthug]

There's alot of games that are glitched or broken at launch this gen....doesn't matter the platform.

Also, Skyrim had problems and issues on all platforms as well.

Assuming you buy or have alot of games, You must not be buying games at launch if you haven't experienced any.

But as a sort of hint, when you see patches that say 1.04....that means it's been patched several times to get it right.

[pixelsword]

Halo ODST; I put a how to fix article up for it (disc read errors).

http://n4g.com/news/401205/...

[Parasyte]

Fallout 3, New Vegas, Oblivion, Skyrim, Rage, etc.

You may have just gotten lucky, but each of the games I listed have had massive issues at launch even on 360.

[lonesoul65]

i thought dragons dogma ran much better on the 360...played it all the way though on the PS3 and slowly going back though on the 360. The PS3 version had major slowdown due to vsync always on and 360 has some tearing issues but overall runs a bit better...combat much more responsive. Wish they would make a PC version = )

Great game btw if anyone on the fence about it.

[Morrigan-Aensland]

I want a ps4

[DivineHand125]

I think Bethesda is wrong for knowingly selling a faulty product to unsuspecting consumers but there is no way you can expect a full refund after playing the game for 100hrs especially when the average game campaign last about 10hrs.

[MostJadedGamer]

If you put 100 hours into agame you have already gotten far more then your money's worth. You cann't complain at that point.

[Persistantthug]

If developers and publishers aren't held financially accountable, just as they aren't now.....then they'll keep putting out beta versions of their games for full price.

Give them something to fear, and their Q/A teams will stop running on shoestring budgets, and we'll get more competent products.

[pixelsword]

@ MostJadedGamer:

Suppose a person gets an extra-large soda from their favorite eatery for half-price; as they are about to finish the last third of their drink at the bottom they discover under the ice that there's a dead mouse at the bottom. They go and demand their money back and much more and the owner says:

"You usually get a drink this size for double what you paid for it; the fact that you almost finished the drink states that you enjoyed the drink past the price you paid: you can't complain at that point".

According to you, this person ought to be thankful for the drink because they got "more than their moneys worth".

I can't say that's sad, but that's the reason why people have to pay for DLC and to play online nowadays. Keep on being thankful though; I'm sure they'll charge you to play the games you already own soon enough.

[MostJadedGamer]

Pixel a extra large soda cann;t at all be compared to a 100 hour game.

I would much rather have a game that is broken after you hit the 100 hour mark then to have a game that only last 20 hours or less

Its those games that you only play 20 hours or less that are the real ripoffs.

[pixelsword]

And some people would rather have a extra-large soda than a small; but a unpleasant ending is an unpleasant ending.

[Ravenor]

@Milohighclub

Have you ever heard of development costs before?

Seriously, you can't just sit on a game and release a bunch of Beta/Demo (as you say). People have to get paid, and sitting there and weeding out every bug just isn't economical. Not everyone has the luxury of Rockstar, who can wait and let a game stew.

[ForeignEarth]

Devs should concentrate more on their games instead.

[clrlite]

Yes, a lot of great and original games could be created with the current hardware. I suppose when certain companies want some quick cash it is easier for them to offer the novelty of fancier graphics, than complete quality.

[DG90]

This the part when console gamers(me) ask for certain specs for next gen consoles... & pc gamers come along & tell everyone how they had those specs for years.

[Ravenor]

Thanks for the update. Glad you have it all figured out.

[abzdine]

i dont think, apart from sony exclusives, that 3rd party games are stunning. They are just okay IMO.
I think hardware is still not maxed out, we could see that with The Last of Us for example on PS3, or HALO4 on 360.

i'm not ready for next gen, mostly because the prices will be sky high and i still have many games to play on PS3 before i buy a 360 and play some exciting exclusives on it.

[hellvaguy]

95% of third party games wont be as good as first party titles because they dont have a 200 million budget to get the most talented producers.

It's like asking why cant someone in high school dunk like Micheal Jordan. Think about it.

[clrlite]

Sorry this is n4g. Where many people would rather have slightly prettier graphics than quality gameplay, originality, etc.

Advance the graphics and let the gameplay slide in whichever direction, it's okay not many will notice.

[MysticStrummer]

What did he say that warranted that response?

[OC_MurphysLaw]

I found the responses interesting. Some where certainly the tried and true line of "more graphical fidelity and processing power" but there were a few standouts that made me pause... The God of War directors comments in particular I found interesting just due to his stance on Move and Kinect. Overall though these responses were all pretty generic. I would love to see one of these guys just say "8GB of RAM...thats what I need"

[lonesoul65]

I agree with you and I'm sure they have all chimed in on that somewhere here and there. It probably has to do more with how the question was asked to them that dictated their responses. Consoles are a different beast when it comes to specs though. * gigs of ram in a PC is different than 8 gigs in a dedicated gaming console. I do like the focus on non-graphical aspects of gaming sucks as AI routines, being able to enter and explore every house and building in games like GTA.

It will be interesting to see how much of this current talk translates into future games. There are so many subtle advancements that can be made to make gaming worlds more believable but they take a ton more time to develop and more a ton more processing power to implement.

[GribbleGrunger]

The limits may well be in reach for 1st party devs on PS3, but they've certainly not been reached by 3rd party devs... not even close. If we're not careful we'll end up with the same situation as the PC. Power isn't the answer to everything, innovation and intelligent design is. Of course there will be a point at which nothing more can be done, but not just yet. Next year 1st party devs are going to push the PS3 even further. It'll be interesting to hear from 3rd party devs then

[JBSleek]

Innovation and design can go but so far with limited power.

Like asking Da Vinci to make an invention with rocks and glue. (That analogy is exaggerated for effect)

What I am trying to say is that it comes a point where new hardware is needed and we all understand that it is needed.

Also there isn't enough PS3 exclusive titles to warrent not outputting a PS4 as they will likely sell when the PS4 comes out. It isn't like they stop games when it comes out.

Lastly, when 95% of the games are from third party they are the driving force of these consoles.

[Dms2012]

Please just stop with this myth that there is some still as yet untapped power in the Ps3, because there is not. There may be a way to code more efficiently, but it will not be anything you see graphics wise, its the same for the 360.

[GribbleGrunger]

I must get down to specsavers then because I could have sworn TLOU looked better than Uncharted3... You speak of 'efficiency' which is exactly right.

[Hicken]

In some ways, more efficient code= tapping more power. But I also don't think that was the main point of what Gribble was saying.

His first line sets the tone: "The limits may well be in reach for 1st party devs on PS3, but they've certainly not been reached by 3rd party devs... not even close."

This is the truth. There aren't third party games that are as impressive as the first party games. Sure, this is generally the case, but if these third party developers haven't reached the levels of the first party developers, then what are they doing saying anything about power or a lack thereof?

[JBSleek]

"I must get down to specsavers then because I could have sworn TLOU looked better than Uncharted3"

Even if that was the case and for this converstaion we say it is it is very marginal and doesn't warrent a generation being postponed. If we are talking about Resistance 1 vs Uncharted 3 sure then if improvements like that happened this late I would bite.

The moral of the story is:

-Yes there are still good games coming out at the end of the generation.

-No it doesn't mean we should not renew 6 year old technology.

-The differences are minimal at best thus acting as if these games are a generation leap is not effective way to get your point across. Uncharted 3 vs TLOU are very similar graphically and sure while the latter may look slightly better it isn't anything drastic.

3.

[GribbleGrunger]

Then be prepared to be disappointed with next gen

[clrlite]

haha. There will come a point when 1080p graphics cannot be more detailed. But instead of "gamers" asking for more unique titles, they will ask for higher resolution visuals and more FPS.

[Ravenor]

How many PS2/Xbox1 3rd Party games looked on par with Socom 3,SotC, Halo 2 or GoW2? Your point about 3rd party developers is pretty moot, especially when 3rd Party titles have generally never outdone the first party software.

[specialguest]

Next-gen consoles need to be very easy and accessible for third-party devs to develop on. First-party devs will always have all of the resources and support being the backbone of the console, but it's the third-party that determines the success of the console in most aspects.

[taquito]

'Limits Hit For PS3 & Xbox 360 at launch"

fixed

thats why we were promised 1080p

and got games like alan wake and resistance 3 at 540p

splinter cell conviction at 576p

jaggies due to lack of proper anti aliasing

pop-in

20 frames per second

sometimes 7 frames per second in games like dark souls (blighttown*shudder)

screen tear

since the very begining of the consoles life they were underpowered

lets hope ms and sony dont make the same mistake again

ram is cheap, put 6-8gb in, mandatory 250gb hard drive, fast optical drives, fast quad core cpu- think i-7 920 or better and a gtx 670 level gpu

then you can have what pc gamers have had for the last 5-7 years

1080p
60 frames
zero jaggies

[Kingnichendrix]

That sounds very expensive, dont forget most console gamers buy consoles because they are conveniant and not too expensive tell me how much a pc would cost with just the spec you mentioned there.

[taquito]

it would cost me or you around $700-$750

but we arent buying MILLIONS of parts

it would cost sony or ms $400-$450

they could sell them for $500-$550 and make money

$350 next gen consoles would be worthless, they may as well not even bother, even if next gen consoles go with the above mentioned specs, that is still behind in terms of high end enthusiast pcs, though it would deliver some STUNNING games!

[chukamachine]

Totally agree.

But once you hit 1080p with 60fps.

CPU is not worth the money for an expensive one.

GPU is the most important thing for gaming.

KILLZONE3 has some of the best a.i i've seen in a game.

[WeskerChildReborned]

I just want to see a step forward in improvements with the next gen systems.

[hadouken007]

systems aint the problem, money hungry lazy azz dev's are, only a hand full of games on both sides are even worth the 60 bucks we shell out. they wanna say there putting so much in the new game to raise prices.

[Skate-AK]

"I prefer joystick and buttons versus Move and Kinect. I think it will all go touch screen. Check out [Samsung’s TV from CES] – very cool tech. If we go with some glove controller – more Minority Report, not Power Glove – I would prefer something with better response time. More like Vita/iPad connected to your TV.".

I don't really understand Todd's answer. The answer is all over the place and it seems like he didn't want to give it a real answer.

[representj]

limit hit my a$$ lol, what a dumb article lol
as far as i know, the xbox 360 is pretty much maxed out or closed to maxed if not already, the ps3 on other hand still has potential as you can see from upcoming games like last of us and especially beyound two souls by quantum dream. Like David Cage said " the limit isn't the hardware, its the developers themselves that limit themselves from creating games that are ps3 first party quality and some of that has to do with 360 and whining that comes from third party themselves since they haven't found out how to utilize the power of the cell processor within the ps3.

[_Aarix_]

Ahahahahahahha...oh wait you're serious let me laugh even harder AHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA

I can't believe people still believe this. Its insulting to be grouped in with these people as gamers, its been 6 years, the ps3 isn't going beyond the last of us sure it looks good but its linear as hell. They can't pull those graphics and be as semi open world as halo is. Its all about the ram baby and the ps3 doesnt have a lot.

[hennessey86]

they could release games on them for the next 10 years and you will see an improvement every time on both consoles. But I do want next gen consoles sooner rather than later.

[PAYNEinc85]

Love how everyone says the 360 is maxed out and nothings improving. I agree the PS3 has more left in it than xbox but have you saw Halo 4 or Forza Horizon? Alrighty then. Apparently it's still got some life left in it as well.

[tee_bag242]

I'm as big a forza fan as they come, there isn't nothing impressive about Horizon.
There is room for improvement on both consoles but the time it takes in data crunching uses up for development time and money they could use for actual content.
I'm personally impressed by games like Minecraft that try and re-invent the wheel. That game runs on a calculator yet is one of the most amazing games.
Alot of devs complain because making multiplatform releases are getting more difficult as the gap with PC and consoles is getting to big now. That's a fact, and yes devs like $ from multiplats. Anyone who has seen BF3 full spec on a PC knows how big that gap has now grown.

[Brettman2008]

The limit with the PS3 is the hardware (like the Xbox 360). The PS3 only has has 512MB of ram split between the CPU and GPU. This an inherent limitation along with the relatively underpowered GPU. Yes, developers like Naughty Dog will use the SPE's to assist the GPU but they are not going to get much more graphical prowess than you have seen from the likes of Uncharted 3. It is just not possible due to hardware limitations.

I do think that the Xbox 360 and PS3 are producing some graphically amazing games considering their ancient architecture.

[greenpowerz]

Naughty Dog makes extremely linear games so there is extra resources to aid in the extra shiny coat of paint(literally) there's never really that much going on in the back/fore ground processing wise, with little action on screen at any given time. Some of these new multi platform games are technically superior with better graphics, much more going on and are much more open. This is where you see PS3 exposed.

PS4 needs to come out because of games like:

-Red Dead Redemption
-Crysis 2
-GTA 4
-Witcher 2
-Rage
-Syrim

These games are technical beasts and do much more than just displaying the best graphics in their genres, they're doing some complex next gen computing to extreme computing, allowing rich experiences in most cases. Next gen games are will be more than some average gameplay with simplistic gameplay design(linear with little going on at any given time) with a shiny coat of paint.

Xbox 720 needs to come soon as well. Halo 5 will be much bigger with Crysis 3 graphics and 8 player co-op lol

[mamotte]

Because great power machines comes with a creativity booster, apparently.

[Brettman2008]

I think the Xbox 360 has been generally unappreciated for its overall graphical abilities. Its PC like, low cost architecture means that it is relatively easy to program and therefore will be 'maxed out' in a quicker time period. The PS3's 'unique' architecture means that developers have generally found it more difficult to get great results out of. PS1 was easy to program, not so the PS2 and PS3. The rumours of a PC like PS4 are likely, in my opinion.

[moparful99]

Yes the ps3 was difficult for developers to sink their teeth into intially but thats because of the complex structure of the cell.. Now that developers are well versed in the ps3's architecture they are delivering mind blowing games that are raising the bar every year.. 3 years ago we were told that the ps3 was nearly maxed out in terms of processing power but here we are with stunning games like the last of us showing us that the ps3 is hitting its full stride with room to spare.. "Easiest" is rarely the best..

[representj]

@PAYNEinc85

halo 4 looks awesome but when you compare it to top notch ps3 exclusives, it doesn't really stand a chance graphically but none the less its going to be a awesome game. Forza is another game that def looks great but it doesn't compare to what the ps3 has already accomplished. I own both systems but honestly since i had a ps3, i haven't really touch the 360 at least for now lol

At uncharted 3, sure it's not much of leap like it was from the first installement to the second installment, but they did make a lot of improvements when it came to physics based such as Water, Sand, and Fire. I think that alone shows that PS3 has a lot of potential left. Speaking of its GPU, sony intially was going to realeased the ps3 so that all the games will be practically programmed through the cell alone, but sony later realized that it was going to be big problem with developers since they're not used to programming on the cell since it doesn't relate too much like the 360 when compared to PC archeicture. So pretty much the ideaa of having a GPU was thrown in the last mintute during the final process of making the ps3 which explains why it lacked power with the 360's GPU.

[black911]

Uncharted 3 graphics weren't much improved because of 3D. It hands down has the best 3D in any game.

[Agent_hitman]

To all PS3 fans here, what do you mean by PS3 not yet maxed out?. 3rd party can squeeze more of it?. What Squeeze?, squeeze blood??.. Bullshhh

There's nothing more to squeeze on current generation consoles my friends, it has limited amount of RAM, CPU power, and of course GPU power, in the last 4 years there's too many CPU and powerful GPU that have been released that by far more powerful than that of ps3 and 360..

What we want right now is the new hardware that has a new technology.. Consoles today is dead outdated.. that's the truth whether you like it or not.

[BitbyDeath]

Try tell that to Naughty Dog or Quantic Dream cause obviously they aren't listening.

It must really annoy you that they are still making amazing games comparable to that of PC with so called 'limited ram, cpu power and gpu'

Obviously consoles do not need as much due to being dedicated machines.

[Ravenor]

Anyone ever consider that in Beyond it's almost entirely canned? It's a real time rendering sure, but with no physics or AI.

Uncharted 2/3 look great, Beyond looks like it's probably going to look great. But dial back the blinders and actually look at how small the environments are in Uncharted/Beyond (Area you can walk around and interact with stuff).

Common sense dude, seriously.

[shutUpAndTakeMyMoney]

I would love to see them have good graphics in a world larger than 10 feet.
Meanwhile 2000 player games look great i 1080p on pc.

I also want a ps4 now..

[jay2]

Oh come on, all those devs know what the hardware can do, they've got them.

[HelghastGeneral]

I think anyone from team ninja shouldn't be expressing their opinions because dead or alive 5 looks like its running on the same graphics engine since dreamcast.

What good is a high spec console if developers don't create a new graphics engine and instead use an outdated one. I agree we need new consoles however there is still potential with these consoles if only every developer had a new game engine to release their games on.

[StraightedgeSES]

This proves graphics and power are two different things.

[representj]

ya sure Uncharted 3 is linear, but even third party that makes linear games look like shit compared to uncharted one lol
Another game that shows the power of the ps3 is obviously killzone 2 and 3. Those games are very huge in terms of the environment and the things that are going on. I still can't believe why people want next gen so soon lol
Speaking of next year i highly doubt that next gen consoles will come out since there is a huge number of games coming out next year and releasing a next gen hardware in the same exact yr would hurt software sales.......