Gamer rights ...
Not sure if there is such a thing on paper but I feel as though there should be one. As I read articles and comparisons on Bayonetta, the rage that consumed me during the Orange Box days crept out of its abyss. I really had thought we would be past the days where archaic development tools were the cause of botched port jobs. Are we really past that point? If we were, would we see what in many people believe to be a bad 'port'?
Now I do credit Sega for taking the responsibility to share this game with PS3 owners. With this responsibility comes another one. The responsibility of the publisher/developer to deliver on its goods. 25 seconds to load a level. 10 seconds to load a cutscene. 5 seconds to open the menu. 3 seconds to pick up an item (got this from a Joystiq article). Sega in 'consideration' to patch to address long load times. That was back in November. No patch yet to address these issues. A patch will not address this issue nor a patch will be created. It really is beyond my comprehension that the producers/directors of this game at Sega would find 3 seconds to pick up an item is 'acceptable'! This is where my credit to Sega ends.
One of the biggest selling points to a developer is the PS3 hard drive and it wasn't even used. In the words of Kevin Butler, "Oh Come On". Now, I understand that negatives of mandatory installs but I would be willing to bet that 99.99% of all PS3 gamer that wants to play this game wouldn't mind it at all. If a mandatory install brings down the load time for a level, I'm all for it. I would happily make, eat, digest, and crap out a sandwich while the game loads to disk.
PS3 gamers, why did you buy this game? Why validate Sega's stance on this port? Instead of making the effort to buy this game, the gamer should have written, emailed, called Sega to DEMAND better.
Accountability for Sega but not Platinum Games. You ask why? Sega took the ownership of porting this game. Not Platinum. Sega had the deal with Platinum for publishing rights for this game. You would think that they would take care of these guys financially to ensure that all platforms are on or close to par.
This is a phenomenal game. It should have been treated as such. The PS3 only gamer should have been treated as such.
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I'm not about to hate on Sega over one botched port because:
A. I'm a Sega fanboy at heart
B. They've given us alot of other games that are just phenemonal. (Valkyria chronicles, etc)
Overall I would agree. While I personally had no interest in this game after playing the demo (xbox version mind you), there is no reason for shoddy ports like this to still exist this late into the consoles' life cycle. I agree that platinum games is not to blame. They set out to fufill their vision and make the best game they could. If they felt that their vision could be fulfilled best using the 360 hardware I can understand and respect that. With the amount of pleased reviewers and consumers it looks like they accomplished their goal, on the 360 at least. I would guess Infinite Games did not want to over complicate things for themselves considering this was their first game on either system
Now I can respect Sega's goal of bringing the game to as many people as possible, if that is the case. Unfortunately, it looks as though they were more interested in capitalizing on the title and making more money rather than delivering a quality port. There were clearly issues with the port and even Sega admitted it. Like you suggested a mandatory install could have helped. I've never had any problems with installs on my PS3 and, in fact, when gaming on my 360 I install all games. Alternatively, Sega could have delayed the ps3 version of the game to continue work. Yes, it would have sucked for PS3 only owners itching to get their hands on the game but it could have ensured a port that was on par. Now I am not saying that Sega hates PS3, prefers 360 or doesn't care about PS3 owners because games like Valkyria Chronicles and Yakuza 3 shows otherwise. But it is the fact that those games exist that makes the quality of the Bayonetta port even more unacceptable.
Or perhaps Sony doesn't give third party devs enough SDK support? No one seems to take that into the equation.
I don't blame Sega on this. I blame Platinum games, because the stance of making the 360 the lead platform didn't make any sense, especially with the fact how the 360 isn't that popular in their homeland. I guess this might have been the plan really, sell more 360s in Japan with Bayonetta.
Anyway, I'm not bothered by this game all that much not my type of game, never really liked Devil May Cry, jumped on the hack and slash bandwagon when GoW came out as I really like the story and art design in that series.
Sega forgiven; Platinum Games not. Just for the fact of re instilling the 'crappy port on PS3 urban legend' that was originally eliminated in 2007 even though, this time, much like the Orange Box in the past, the port wasn't done by the original developers but the publishers.