RoaDiE wrote on 02/08/13 at 15:12:10:


Comparing them to Capcom is ridiculous. Capcom made a terrible decision in hiring a company to handle their servers for them. During a period in time where popular Japanese game development company's wanted almost nothing to do with online gaming.

How is Sony different?

Sony ships a game with their Network Adapter for their Console. A game they paid for the development of and published themselves. A game which they used several avenues to promote and sell. Yet they have no responsibility for the servers?

So you are saying Sony pays Incog to make an online game. Releases it. Then from that point it's up to Incog to pay for the server?

The money Sony pays Incog to develop the game is basically just part of the money for the servers? That is so absurd. It actually sounds believable when i think about how poorly managd Sony's online services actually are.

If it were Capcom making a game for the Playstation using their own money. Your argument would make sense. But either way if Sony cut the servers or just dumped it on incog and said "Keep our game online that we paid you to make.". It's still Sony's fault that the servers weren't kept online.

It's most definitely not an issue of console gaming online being a new thing. They were doing that shit with the Genesis in the early 90's It's a case of a company trying to do a big boy thing like Online gaming and being extremely cheap about it.

It's not like they didn't know it either. They kept Everquest online for years thanks to a subscription service allowing them to pay for servers and people to manage the servers. So the finances of online gaming were not some fucking mystery to Sony.

Either that or Sony Online Entertainment is totally detached from all other Sony branches. Which explains a lot. They really need to move that team over to develop the PS4's network because PSN is still kind of crappy. I can have open voicechat with every player on Planetside 2 but group chat is somehow beyond the PS3's capabilities.

It blows my mind that anyone could blame Incog for TMBO and TMHO servers. Especially based off their own assumptions. That's just blind hate for Incog.

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I know that Incognito was internally owned and that has impacted my outlook since the beginning.

I think it's a god awful business decision for a hardware manufacturer publishing their own game based on a property they own to leave control of the games servers in the hands of the developers only. Because game developers very rarely outlive major hardware manufacturers and they never have the same level of resources. Plus Sony is entirely capable of maintaining a tracker.

It strikes me as very odd that Sony could not just take the server and maintain it themselves. I imagine they could and either chose not to or didn't even consider it.

A game with online lifespan of 5 years bothers me when it comes from a company who could easily support the game until the end of the PS2's lifespan. You know the company that made the PS2 and bought a company then used them to make an online Twisted Metal game which shipped with their Network Adapter device.

I'm not even getting into TMHO. That one was a result of a rushed development and no intention of serious post launch support. PSP hacking was a bit more of a problem for TMHO then anything else.

I like the way most PC games handle online. You just install the games server software on a computer, connect it to the internet, and there is your server. Just type in the IP address. It's a system that has been around since the beginning and it frustrates the shit out of me that it doesn't exist for consoles. Even worse when a PC game doesn't feature it. But then again some PC games which don't feature it have been online for 20 years like Everquest.

Hellbent wrote on 02/07/13 at 20:57:48:


Yup, per disc licensing fees.  But attach rates have been atrocious this generation for the vast majority of publishers.  Something like 70% of games sold this gen were done by 3 publishers, and in specific IP's.



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I have no problems with Sony as a publisher, ESPECIALLY SCEA.  I also don't have much of a problem with them as a hardware developer (the tech we get in our consoles).  It's everything else they seem to have a problem with, and it's all wrapped up in their very Eastern view on business and customers.

I only blame ESP for biting off more than they could chew.  I'm still surprised that we got what we did out of a slim 40 person development studio.  People seem to underestimate just how exponentially man hour requirements have increased as people demand more from their games, running on more complicated hardware.

Still, it needed more and Sony decided they couldn't or didn't want to spend further resources on shoring it up.

Either a analyst did a cost benefits analysis that didn't work out in TM's favor, or some suit made a horrible gut call.  Still, ESP had 6 whole months to fix the issues, and stand behind their work.  Dave sold his share in the company, Scott completely restructured it, laying off 1/3 the workforce, and not much was done to fix TM.

RoaDiE wrote on 02/07/13 at 23:49:10:


Well, measuring the snow after the storm is always easier than predicting the weather.



The +1 mill is strictly going by numbers both MS and Sony claim themselves.

As far as servers go, I'm actually grateful that the online iterations of TM have seen the foresight to include a LAN option.  Online MP will never be dead, as long as developers include it.  No many console developers bother.  Yeah using a VPN is a little slower, and a PITA, but it's the probably a best case option in a industry (right or wrong) that doesn't want anyone to have their hands on their matchmaking, or dedicated server code.

TyrantII wrote on 02/09/13 at 16:19:11:


All they'd need to do is simply port the game to their MT Framework engine which they use for Street Fighter, Resident Evil, Dead Rising, DMC, Lost Planet, and just about everything.

If they put a small team on it and just reused the raw graphical assets it could be done even more cheaply then a PC port of an MT Framework game. But all things considered if they used higher resolution 3D assets and redid the character models it would look way better for very little extra effort.

Capcom handles their IP's like shit. the MT Framework engine was built for a Megaman game that never even got close to being made. That is partially why Dead Rising has the Mega Buster outside of the coincidence one of the people who worked on the Mega Man series directed the game.

The fact they canceled Mega Man Legands 3 just reinforces my attitude that Japanese publishers have gone completely insane. Either that or they hate the fans so much that they are doing all this to torture them.

There is a HD remake of Resident Evil 2 in the works being done in the vein of the Remake though. So if that sells really well they might get halfway done with an Outbreak sequel then cancel it.

I didnt much care for Dead Space 3 (putting it rather lightly there). Though I did enjoy the first two.

And I never thought DS was survival horror. Action horror maybe, like RE4 really.

And yes, RIP outbreak. Id play those games till the end of time if I could.