The Official NextBox Thread!

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Bubba Grizz
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Re: The Official NextBox Thread!

Post by Bubba Grizz »

You would think that the 3rd party game companies are pissed about all this as well. It is to the point where you can't trust Sony or MS due to their power hunger and money grabbing image that they are projecting. I just want to play a game. I don't want to have to jump through a bazillion hoops and go broke in the process. I said before that I wouldn't own either of those devices and all this drama just makes my resolve that much stronger.
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Re: The Official NextBox Thread!

Post by Aslanna »

Bubba Grizz wrote:It is to the point where you can't trust Sony or MS due to their power hunger and money grabbing image that they are projecting.
How is Sony projecting that? It's not really something I've picked up on. With Microsoft it was obvious though.
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Re: The Official NextBox Thread!

Post by kyoukan »

Winnow wrote:
Aslanna wrote:Of course that's what they'd say. Not like it can be proved otherwise at this juncture. Microsoft is evil. I wouldn't even put it past them to re-implement the DRM stuff in a couple years. I mean it's just a firmware update so if they can disable it they can easily turn it back on!
Sony can sure take things away like Linux support...or I guess they can't this time since they dumbed down their console this round.

What Microsoft can do is enable family sharing for digital downloads at a later date to give those smart enough to buy digital copies much more flexibility in sharing their games.
Haha, you don't even fucking know what Linux is.
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Re: The Official NextBox Thread!

Post by Winnow »

kyoukan is getting dumber by the post!
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Re: The Official NextBox Thread!

Post by kyoukan »

is that one of your hilarious bon mots that is supposed to send me into an incoherent rage?
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Re: The Official NextBox Thread!

Post by Winnow »

yep
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Re: The Official NextBox Thread!

Post by Aslanna »

Back on topic... MS hates Indie games. And the Fez saga is just one example:

http://www.polygon.com/2013/6/20/444547 ... s-not-xbox
I asked Fish about his thoughts on the Xbox One earlier this week, hours before Microsoft announced their sudden policy change.

"I hope it's a joke," he told me in the email interview. "I hope Microsoft is pulling a New Coke on us, announcing a shit console nobody wants, only to eventually announce the Xbox Classic and winning back everybody's hearts. Microsoft is making a console for itself. Not for gamers. Not for developers. Just for its own, greedy little Orwellian self. I'm not interested."

After the news hit of Microsoft's flip on their online and used game policies, I emailed Fish to see if he had changed his mind.

"Nah," he wrote, "I don't think it changes much for me. They didn't change anything about their anti-indie policies."

On the other hand, Fish seems quite taken with the PlayStation 4.

"PS4 seems to be doing everything right," he wrote, when asked about the console. "It's too early to tell how everything is going to unfold but their heart definitely seems to be in the right place. Which is a weird thing to say when talking about giant monolithic corporation, but there's a handful of people working at Sony today who are really trying to do some good. And whether or not I would develop for it comes down to how the platform holder treats me. With Microsoft they've made it painfully clear they don't want my ilk on their platform. I can't even self-publish there. Whereas on PS4, I can. It's that simple. Microsoft won't let me develop for their console. But Sony will."
Good guy Sony! My guess: There's probably a 49% chance MS will flip-flop on the self-publishing thing as well. They're just dumb if they don't.
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Re: The Official NextBox Thread!

Post by Animalor »

Must be nice being so deluded as to think that an international corporation that employs 90k people across the world must be evil.

It actually says on every job posting that applicants must have committed at least 3 felonies and/or mudred someone before being considered.

They also have a retrofitted, airport type full body scanner that can detect your evil potential.

Also, Sony is clearly a bunch of kitten hugging, rainbow shitting unicorns worthy of every nobel peace prizes for the rest of perpetuity(they're also planning on retroactively giving prizes previously awarded to Sony as well).

It's not as if they would ever think of suing users who published jailbreaks, remove features or charge 180$ replacements for our of warranty machines that got bricked by firmware updates.
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Re: The Official NextBox Thread!

Post by Animalor »

Aslanna wrote:Back on topic... MS hates Indie games. And the Fez saga is just one example:

http://www.polygon.com/2013/6/20/444547 ... s-not-xbox
I asked Fish about his thoughts on the Xbox One earlier this week, hours before Microsoft announced their sudden policy change.

"I hope it's a joke," he told me in the email interview. "I hope Microsoft is pulling a New Coke on us, announcing a shit console nobody wants, only to eventually announce the Xbox Classic and winning back everybody's hearts. Microsoft is making a console for itself. Not for gamers. Not for developers. Just for its own, greedy little Orwellian self. I'm not interested."

After the news hit of Microsoft's flip on their online and used game policies, I emailed Fish to see if he had changed his mind.

"Nah," he wrote, "I don't think it changes much for me. They didn't change anything about their anti-indie policies."

On the other hand, Fish seems quite taken with the PlayStation 4.

"PS4 seems to be doing everything right," he wrote, when asked about the console. "It's too early to tell how everything is going to unfold but their heart definitely seems to be in the right place. Which is a weird thing to say when talking about giant monolithic corporation, but there's a handful of people working at Sony today who are really trying to do some good. And whether or not I would develop for it comes down to how the platform holder treats me. With Microsoft they've made it painfully clear they don't want my ilk on their platform. I can't even self-publish there. Whereas on PS4, I can. It's that simple. Microsoft won't let me develop for their console. But Sony will."
Good guy Sony! My guess: There's probably a 49% chance MS will flip-flop on the self-publishing thing as well. They're just dumb if they don't.
How can Microsoft flip-flop on this when they haven't even had their developer conference where they were going to talk about this stuff yet?

It's happening from this Wednesday to Friday in SF and if you look at the following page, Xbox is clearly indicated as a platform on the announcement. (whether this means Xbox 360, XB1 or both I have no idea)

http://www.buildwindows.com/Announcement

As far as Fez, Fish submitted the original game with bugs then submitted a patch that created new problems.

If Fish couldn't be bothered to test his game to see if it SAVED THE PROGRESS PROPERLY, how is this Microsoft's fault.

If Microsoft did this for free and people could submit as many patches as they like, we would be inundated with unfinished, broken games with 0 testing/QA that would ultimately be detrimental for the platform. The fee in incentive for developers to make a quality product. Publishers traditionally have much more incentive to do this as they have reputations to protect.

A lot of these smaller startups can completely destroy one company and come back with another round 1 venture funding and start again.

.. and I tried Fez.. That was far from great.
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Re: The Official NextBox Thread!

Post by kyoukan »

Microsoft has already announced there will be no self publishing on their piece of shit doorstop of a console. That right there is just a big fuck you to indie developers.

I don't like Phil Fish at all but if you think Fez was anything but one of the cleverest games released in the last few years then you are stupid. It has been almost universally lauded as such.

Games are going to have bugs in them. In Fez's case it was a bug that affected an extremely small number of users and would be nearly impossible to test for. Microsoft wanted something like sixty thousand dollars to re-release a patch although it costs them almost nothing to do it.

Sony has already stated that content-less updates would be free for developers to release for their games.
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Re: The Official NextBox Thread!

Post by Aslanna »

Animalor is a bigger Microsoft apologist than even Winnow. I didn't think that was possible!
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Re: The Official NextBox Thread!

Post by Funkmasterr »

Yeah, stifling innovation by giving the "incentive to develop quality games" in the form of unreasonable prices is a great thing, go Microsoft! You do realize that major game releases have huge qa teams that test them, along with maybe even a beta to stress test, and they still miss major bugs, right? It's not as simple as you're trying to make it sound, and Microsoft isn't doing anyone any favors here.

I expect this shit from winnow, but not you Animalor.
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Re: The Official NextBox Thread!

Post by Animalor »

Microsoft has a way for indies to develop/Publish on Xbox 360.

Flip through a few of these pages - http://marketplace.xbox.com/en-US/Games ... y=TopRated

Have any of you even ever looked through these games? Let alone put any money towards one?

Microsoft has probably done more for the indie movement on consoles this gen than anyone has ever been done before. For the truly great titles, they even entered into agreements to become publishers and add features/achievements (see Wordament on Windows Phone).

As far as the Microsoft defender thing, I game on just about every device out there except Nintendo. I just believe that a lot of the hate is at best pre-mature and at worse un-deserved.
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Re: The Official NextBox Thread!

Post by Aslanna »

Yes.. All those indie developers out there are all just imagining things...
"Their presentation at E3 this year didn't indicate any change in direction for them," Cobb said. "Right now you still need a publisher to even get an indie game on the Microsoft platform. We would have to sign a deal with a larger publisher like Electronic Arts or Ubisoft."
You can't compare those XBLIG games made with XNA, which is a dead product from what I gather, to actual 'real games' made by Independent developers that want to get their game on Xbox Aracde. Perhaps you might want to read up on what many independent developers are saying about the differences between XBO and PS4 when it comes to getting their games on a particular platform. There's a reason many are choosing PS4.
Microsoft’s struggles with the indie gaming community are no secret. The company requires developers to get a publisher to get on Xbox Live, effectively freezing out even some of the best known independent developers in the industry today. Sony, on the other hand, is going out of its way to attract as many bizarre, original, and quirky developers to its platform, and garnering a lot of praise in the process.
I agree they aren't evil.. They're not competent enough apparently.
Despite his painful experience of working with them, Borut refutes any assertion that Microsoft are actually malevolent. “When people call Microsoft ‘evil’, while I don’t want to defend them, it’s kind of an undeserved compliment. To be evil, you have to have vision, you have to have communication, execution… None of those are traits are things that I would ascribe to Microsoft Studios.”
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Re: The Official NextBox Thread!

Post by Animalor »

For a group being described as incompetent, they sure kicked Sony in the teeth last gen. I'm fairly sure that wasn't luck.

We can take up arguing Microsoft's approach to indie on Xbox One after Build is done this week and they actually articulate what their independent developer story is.
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Re: The Official NextBox Thread!

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Animalor wrote:For a group being described as incompetent, they sure kicked Sony in the teeth last gen. I'm fairly sure that wasn't luck.
Oh yeah.. Lots of teeth kicking there lol. They came in third! If anyone did any "teeth kicking" it was Nintendo.
As for December, 2012, it is said that “Sony’s PS3 managed to surpass the number of Xbox 360s shipped worldwide (about 77 million vs. 76 million), despite the PS3 launching a year later.”
Worldwide sales figures

Wii – 99.84 million as of 31 March 2013
PlayStation 3 – 70 million as of 4 November 2012] (IDC January 2013 estimate: "about 77 million")
Xbox 360 – 74.94 million as of 31 December 2012
Anyway, continue on with the MS lovefest. I'm sure Winnow will join in shortly.
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Re: The Official NextBox Thread!

Post by Animalor »

Given that their stated goal was a stronger 3rd place, staying in 2nd for most is the console's lifespan and virtually tying Sony is quite an achievement.
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Re: The Official NextBox Thread!

Post by kyoukan »

you also have to bear in mind about 15 million of those consoles are re-purchases since most 360s manufactured in the first year and a half are in landfills.
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Re: The Official NextBox Thread!

Post by Funkmasterr »

There were far more noteworthy indie games on the PS3 than the Xbox, it was no contest. The pixeljunk games, trine, flow/flower, journey, etc were some of my favorite games this generation, disc based games included. I find myself gravitating towards those games more and more as time passes. If Microsoft ends up doing stuff to stifle indie production on the One, it'll definitely ensure I won't buy it anytime soon.
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Re: The Official NextBox Thread!

Post by Fairweather Pure »

I would say that xbl indie games dominated ps3 so bad it isn't even a contest. However, MS has shitty policies and they need to change them. I've heard indies bitch on podcasts for years about a lot of MS's policies.
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Re: The Official NextBox Thread!

Post by Winnow »

Fairweather Pure wrote:I would say that xbl indie games dominated ps3 so bad it isn't even a contest. However, MS has shitty policies and they need to change them. I've heard indies bitch on podcasts for years about a lot of MS's policies.
Be careful, the PS3 fanboi trio will crucify you!

Indy Policies: Microsoft needs some work

As for shit that actually matters:

All Games: Xbox Best
Indy Games: Xbox Best
Controller: Xbox Best
Online: Xbox Best
Network/Firmware reliability: Xbox Best
SDK: Xbox Best

Hmmm, I can live with that
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Re: The Official NextBox Thread!

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Winnow wrote:
Fairweather Pure wrote:I would say that xbl indie games dominated ps3 so bad it isn't even a contest. However, MS has shitty policies and they need to change them. I've heard indies bitch on podcasts for years about a lot of MS's policies.
Be careful, the PS3 fanboi trio will crucify you!
Maybe because it's not true? If it were you'd have indie developers lining up to get on Xbox Live. Most of them are making PS3 their preferred console destination. I don't see that changing with XBO unless Microsoft changes their policies. And from what I've heard so far they said you'd need a publisher just like you do on the 360.
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Re: The Official NextBox Thread!

Post by Funkmasterr »

Yeah, I'd love to hear some examples of indie games exclusive to the Xbox that are better than what I listed for the PS3 instead of some moronic arbitrary claim.
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Re: The Official NextBox Thread!

Post by Animalor »

Trine/Trine 2 are on the PC and the sequel is on the Xbox 360, Pixeljunk and Flow/Flower are published by Sony (SCEE to be precise) hence exclusivity. (proof: http://uk.playstation.com/psn/games/det ... 76/Flower/ )

If we can count platform holder-published exclusive titles as indie, then I'm sure a quick list can be drawn up.
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Re: The Official NextBox Thread!

Post by Aslanna »

I'm really not sure why you're defending Microsoft so much on this particular point. As I said go out there and read what independent developers are saying about getting their games on the 360/XBO. It's ok to admit you're wrong. Nobody is judging here!
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Re: The Official NextBox Thread!

Post by kyoukan »

Fez was published by Microsoft. What's your point?
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Re: The Official NextBox Thread!

Post by Aslanna »

Yeah not sure where he was going with that so didn't pursue further. Just because something is published by Sony or Microsoft doesn't mean it's exclusive to that console. For example Joe Danger 2 is published by "Microsoft Game Studios" yet is also (self published) on the PS3.

But I do sort of get the point I guess. Some studios are more 'affiliated' with one platform over the other. For example Twisted Pixel pretty much stuck to the 360. Yes I know that as of Oct 2011 they are now part of MS so I was referring prior to that. At this point I don't consider them an independent developer.
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Re: The Official NextBox Thread!

Post by Animalor »

The tone of the conversation was that Sony had always been a bastion of awesome for the indies since the dawn of time. Was simply trying to point out that this is a relatively new thing since the Vita has not had much pickup at all with the publishers/big shops and XBLA was doing so well with the cheaper games.

I've been doing some digging and the only people I've found complaining about this are Phil Fish and Lorne Lanning (the oddworld guy). Are there any articles I'm missing from other devs?

I'm not saying that Microsoft has a better story around indie devs. I generally hate publishers as much as the next guy. All I'm saying is let's see what they have to say at Build this week. If the story doesn't change, it's safe to assume this policy will stay in place for a while and it will be unfortunate for the console.
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Re: The Official NextBox Thread!

Post by Animalor »

Aslanna wrote:Yes I know that as of Oct 2011 they are now part of MS so I was referring prior to that.
Wow.. I had no idea that Microsoft had bought Twisted Pixel.. That's a bit of a shame. You risk killing a lot of the creativity doing that.
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Re: The Official NextBox Thread!

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Animalor wrote:I've been doing some digging and the only people I've found complaining about this are Phil Fish and Lorne Lanning (the oddworld guy). Are there any articles I'm missing from other devs?
Yes. I will find some for you! I've seen many quotes lately complaining about not being able to self publish on Xbox Live Arcade. Which is going away btw along with XBLIG. Everything will now be lumped under 'Games' or something.
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Re: The Official NextBox Thread!

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Fairweather Pure wrote:I would say that xbl indie games dominated ps3 so bad it isn't even a contest. However, MS has shitty policies and they need to change them. I've heard indies bitch on podcasts for years about a lot of MS's policies.
I was thinking XBL vs PSN games in general, not indies specifically. Sorry, my bad and I agree!
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Re: The Official NextBox Thread!

Post by kyoukan »

Sony has always had a reputation for supporting independent and hobbyist development going back to the PSX and Net Yaroze. There was not much on PS2 because there was not very many indy game developers or hobbyists during that era.
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Re: The Official NextBox Thread!

Post by Animalor »

The Build session schedule has been posted and there appears to be nothing about Xbox other than for building SmartGlass experiences.

Unless they drop some new news in the keynote, I don't expect a change in policy from this event.
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Re: The Official NextBox Thread!

Post by Winnow »

http://www.joystiq.com/2013/06/27/micro ... atch-fees/
Microsoft reportedly drops XBLA developer patch fees

Microsoft has allegedly dropped the update fee associated with Xbox 360 titles, reports Eurogamer. Citing multiple development sources, Microsoft is said to have changed the policy earlier this year of charging developers tens of thousands of dollars to patch their games. The company will continue to charge a certification fee for the initial submission of a game to XBLA, but future updates are now free.
looks like that can crossed off the complaint list
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Re: The Official NextBox Thread!

Post by Animalor »

Damn you're quick! Beat me to it.
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Re: The Official NextBox Thread!

Post by Aslanna »

Now if only developers could publish their own shit... That might mean something.
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Re: The Official NextBox Thread!

Post by Animalor »

I don't get what the difference is between a developer and a publisher. Can a developer not be a publisher at the same time? I'm pretty sure that Microsoft isn't waving a sword over anyone's head and going "Thou art Publisher!" .
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Re: The Official NextBox Thread!

Post by Winnow »

I'm glad it is a little bit of a challenge to publish indy games on the Xbox. I don't want trash games clogging shit up like you see on Android's wide open app store.

PC is a good platform for that stuff. High quality indy games will have no problem getting on XBL if they want.
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Re: The Official NextBox Thread!

Post by Aslanna »

Animalor wrote:I don't get what the difference is between a developer and a publisher. Can a developer not be a publisher at the same time? I'm pretty sure that Microsoft isn't waving a sword over anyone's head and going "Thou art Publisher!" .
Seriously.. Read up on it. I can't keep feeding all of you baby birds! The only way to get your game on Xbox Live Arcade is to have a publisher. If you are Ubisoft or EA then great not a problem. If you are an independent developer then no you're not a publisher.

Here, have a couple articles on the house

http://www.wired.com/gamelife/2013/04/sony-indies/
A recent survey showed that 53 percent of developers self-identify as independent, and Sony is angling to get as many of them on PlayStation devices as possible. And to hear the developers tell it, the reason they’re flocking to PlayStation is due as much to what Sony does right as to what Xbox maker Microsoft is doing wrong.

“Microsoft treats independent developers very badly,” said Jonathon Blow, creator of the breakout indie success Braid. Blow appeared at Sony’s recent PlayStation 4 announcement event to show his new game The Witness. He said in an email that Microsoft’s stance on relations with independent developers is to “put you through as much pain as you will endure in order to extract whatever [they] feel like this week.”

http://venturebeat.com/2013/06/10/sony- ... station-4/
LOS ANGELES — Sony will allow indie developers to self-publish on its next-generation console.

This means that, unlike Xbox One, studios don’t have to partner with publishers like Majesco, Ubisoft, and others just to put a game on the PlayStation 4. Following the announcement, Sony listed a number of indie games that will make their exclusive console debut only on the upcoming hardware.

Those games include developer 17-Bit Studios’ Galak-Z, Oddworld Inhabitants’ new Oddworld game, and more.

Microsoft currently doed not allow indie studios to self-publish. This is an issue for many small studios who don’t want to give up creative control, property rights, and profits to meddling publishers. Small studios are responding well to this treatment and may end up supporting PS4 over Xbox One if Microsoft does not change its policies.

Nintendo does empower developers to self-publish games on the Wii U and 3DS eShop.
http://penny-arcade.com/report/article/ ... h-publishe
“The average consumer assumes Microsoft's paying developers for exclusivity, when NOT ONLY is that NOT the case, it's completely flipped around. Developers are essentially the ones paying to AVOID exclusivity,” Provinciano explained, emphasis his. “Developers get a lot of negative PR and hate from fans when they announce that their game is coming to Xbox first. Fans slam developers for taking 'money bags' instead of supporting other platforms, which as you can see isn't what's going on at all. Many consumers perceive this as developers choosing Xbox because it's 'the better platform.' That's the intention.”


While Winnow might not care a lot of people do. Including developers who are making quality games and not just "trash (android) games". To be honest it's not a huge selling point for me other than the fact that it makes MS look like money grubbing assholes but that's nothing new.
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Re: The Official NextBox Thread!

Post by Animalor »

But why don't these devs become publishers and publish purely their own stuff. It appears to be that it's purely a discussion of semantics than an actual hard difference unless Microsoft has articulated that to be a publisher you much meet X criteria.

Did a quick search and found this:

http://www.oxm.co.uk/52498/oddworld-dev ... ublishing/
"With the way the whole Sony thing works anyway, even going back to the PS3 side of things, you still have a submission and approval system. But anyone can do that, whereas with Microsoft you have to publish on disc first at retail to be allowed to publish on XBLA, which is a little bit old hat, and that's why any indie projects on Xbox are through either Microsoft Games Studios or third party publishers, Konami, Mastertronic, people like that. Which is why we don't think they're being too welcoming on Xbox, because we want to be 100 per cent self-sustained."
There that is. In order to be allowed onto XBLA as a publisher, you need to have made a disk based game first. This seems pretty f'ing dumb. If they can lift that requirement, there should be no reason that devs can't self-publish on XBLA.
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Re: The Official NextBox Thread!

Post by Aslanna »

Now you're getting it.
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Re: The Official NextBox Thread!

Post by Winnow »

Now that there's no update fees, if they manage to get their game published on the best online console game network, and their game is any good, they're going to make money.

I don't mind that every mom and pop company not being able to publish. Who gives a shit about crap little games on a console. They can get their feet wet in the PC market and easily convert their game to Xbox since the platform development between the two will be so close now.

Hell, go make a Windows 8 phone app game or iOS game. That costs 99/year for the developer account and then you rake in 70% of the profits. That's where I'd go first and after I made any money (meaning I actually had a good game), I could easily get a game onto XBL.

Quality not quantity is important with consoles. It's not a platform to try and pump out every half-baked game that comes along. Use steam for that or some other crap system.
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Re: The Official NextBox Thread!

Post by Aslanna »

Winnow wrote:Now that there's no update fees, if they manage to get their game published on the best online console game network, and their game is any good, they're going to make money.

I don't mind that every mom and pop company not being able to publish. Who gives a shit about crap little games on a console. They can get their feet wet in the PC market and easily convert their game to Xbox since the platform development between the two will be so close now.

Hell, go make a Windows 8 phone app game or iOS game. That costs 99/year for the developer account and then you rake in 70% of the profits. That's where I'd go first and after I made any money (meaning I actually had a good game), I could easily get a game onto XBL.

Quality not quantity is important with consoles. It's not a platform to try and pump out every half-baked game that comes along. Use steam for that or some other crap system.
The correct response would have been: "That's a shit policy and I hope Microsoft changes it." Not whatever the hell you wrote.
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Re: The Official NextBox Thread!

Post by Funkmasterr »

Yeah he's sapping any fun out of discussions on this stuff, not like that's any surprise.
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Re: The Official NextBox Thread!

Post by kyoukan »

wow it took you 12 years to figure out he's a trolling fuckwad that has yet to contribute anything meaningful to any conversation ever.
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Re: The Official NextBox Thread!

Post by Winnow »

Says the biggest troll on the board...although you do have really interesting things to say about corporate finances and how our lives have changed forever due to some loose cables. Really hard hitting accurate stuff like that! Other than that, it's mostly pure trolling from someone with a midget complex or something that needs to spray CAPS in order to get their gospel out.
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Re: The Official NextBox Thread!

Post by Winnow »

First, a video comparing the memory systems of the Xbox One and PS4

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Upd4tGqWmzA

His conclusion suggests that the PS4 may ultimately be a little faster with all things considered although he leaves it at a "maybe" since we don't know yet.

Now, here's some potential news that increases the performance of Xbox One's memory beyond that described in the above video:
Xbox One memory performance improved for production console

By Richard Leadbetter Published Friday, 28 June 2013

Well-placed development sources have told Digital Foundry that the ESRAM embedded memory within the Xbox One processor is considerably more capable than Microsoft envisaged during pre-production of the console, with data throughput levels up to 88 per cent higher in the final hardware.

Bandwidth is at a premium in the Xbox One owing to the slower DDR3 memory employed in the console, which does not compare favourably to the 8GB unified pool of GDDR5 in the PlayStation 4. The 32MB of "embedded static RAM" within the Xbox One processor aims to make up the difference, and was previously thought to sustain a peak theoretical throughput of 102GB/s - useful, but still some way behind the 176GB/s found in PlayStation 4's RAM set-up. Now that close-to-final silicon is available, Microsoft has revised its own figures upwards significantly, telling developers that 192GB/s is now theoretically possible.

So how could Microsoft's own internal tech teams have underestimated the capabilities of its own hardware by such a wide margin? Well, according to sources who have been briefed by Microsoft, the original bandwidth claim derives from a pretty basic calculation - 128 bytes per block multiplied by the GPU speed of 800MHz offers up the previous max throughput of 102.4GB/s. It's believed that this calculation remains true for separate read/write operations from and to the ESRAM. However, with near-final production silicon, Microsoft techs have found that the hardware is capable of reading and writing simultaneously. Apparently, there are spare processing cycle "holes" that can be utilised for additional operations. Theoretical peak performance is one thing, but in real-life scenarios it's believed that 133GB/s throughput has been achieved with alpha transparency blending operations (FP16 x4).

In terms of what this all means with regards multi-platform titles launching on both next-gen consoles, our information suggests that developers may be playing things rather conservatively for launch titles while dev tools are still being worked on. This is apparently more of an issue with Xbox One, where Microsoft developers are still in the process of bringing home very significant increases in performance from one release of the XDK development environment to the next. Our principal source suggests that performance targets are being set by game-makers and that the drivers should catch up with those targets sooner rather than later.

However, clearly it's still early days, and right now these machines remain very much uncharted territory - even for those who've been working with prototype hardware for a long time. Microsoft tells developers that the ESRAM is designed for high-bandwidth graphics elements like shadowmaps, lightmaps, depth targets and render targets. But in a world where Killzone: Shadow Fall is utilising 800MB for render targets alone, how difficult will it be for developers to work with just 32MB of fast memory for similar functions? On the flipside, Xbox One's powerful custom audio hardware - dubbed SHAPE (Scalable Hardware Audio Processing Engine) - should do a fantastic job for HD surround, a task that sucks up lots of CPU time on current-gen console. How does PS4 compare there? And just how much impact does the GDDR5 memory - great for graphics - have on CPU tasks compared to Xbox One's lower-latency DDR3?
Bottom line is that I wouldn't count one system better than the other in performance and at worst, they'll be very close. Xbox One's lower latency memory and ESRAM is an advantage in non graphics CPU performance. If the above boost in throughput for the Xbox One's memory holds true, they'll be very close +/- equal to the PS4 in graphics (possibly even better) while holding an advantage in other non graphics GPU/memory related tasks.
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Re: The Official NextBox Thread!

Post by Aslanna »

Blah blah blah... Is it November yet? I guess it's "theoretically possible" that it is. Teehee!
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Re: The Official NextBox Thread!

Post by Winnow »

Report: The Man in Charge of Xbox Is Leaving Microsoft

Don Mattrick, who's been the public face for all things Xbox for the last few years, will be leaving Microsoft to take a top leadership role at Zynga, reports All Things D.
Whoever was in charge of the "Reveal" needs to take the fall. If it was Don, it's a good move. Xbox One is going to be a great console even after the oustanding sharing features were removed due to the poor explanation of their advantages to those hard up for physical disks still.

Image

He's bailing! More likely he was told to move on before he got axed.
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Re: The Official NextBox Thread!

Post by Aslanna »

Windows 8 was a big fail and the lead dude "left". XBO was a huge fail before it was even launched and now that dude "left". Apparently that's just how things work at Microsoft.

How about listening to what your customers want instead of telling us what you think we need. That may work for Apple but hey... You're not Apple. I guess you're finding that out the hard way.
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