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Rare Gambles On Dark Discs
Next Generation reports on the risky choices Rare made with Perfect Dark Zero. They actually began stamping the discs before the game was certified so that they could make the Nov. 22nd launch date. From the article: "The certification process is the final stage a game goes through before manufacture. Microsoft's team picks through the game making sure there are no bugs, that menus all work correctly, and that there are no compatibility issues. Games that fail, even in the smallest detail, are sent back to publishers and developers for changes. The process can take days, or even weeks."
I wonder how this would trickle down to development knowing the risks involved. What would happen to the developer who introduced the bug that caused X discs to be destroyed and the game re-certified. How about the tester who missed the developer's bug?
Holy crap, a Microsoft-owned developer released a key Microsoft XBox 360 launch title to manufacturing ... before Microsoft had a chance to give it the OK! I mean, this could have been a disaster.
This kind of extreme guts is why I love Microsoft! They're so hardcore! In fact this makes me want to buy another XBox 360.
So let me get this straight....Microsoft checking for bugs?
(posted anon to protect the NDAed individuals from whom this information comes)
Xbox Technical Certification Requirements (TCRs) are no joke. They specify exactly what every Xbox game must and must not do. Some of my (least) favorite:
* If a controler becomes unplugged during play, the game has to pause and accept a replacement controler on ANY port.
* at the initial menu, if there is no interaction for some amount of time (between 15 and 30 second if I remember right) the game must play an "attract" video suitable for in-store display.
* various in-game messages regarding system events (memory unit access, network connectivity, error states) must use a specific vocabulary (they're blocks, profiles and System Link, not kB, save games, and LAN) and in some cases specific wording of messages, particularily error messages.
* The game must use a reasonably consistent menu selection look & feel that provides clear indication of the selected item in cases of a two-item menu.
As has already been so eloquently intimated, Rare is owned by Microsoft. Even leaving that aside, it's not technically feasible to run a noncertified game on a console since the console will _require_ that the game be signed by Microsoft's private key to boot. Unlike the case you cite, it's not going to be possible for Rare to forge the digital signature required without this private key. Which of course means that Microsoft's publishing division was complicit in this scheme, giving the go-ahead for Rare's disc to be signed before the final QA certification was complete (most likely on the strict condition that on failure the discs would be destroyed).
A "title that generates buzz" and is scheduled to launch on the console's launch date better damn well be perfect or else within 48 hours every connected user in the world is going to know about and it may impact their decision to purchase the console at all if the title they're anxiously awaiting is bug-ridden and unplayable...
A computer once beat me at chess, but it was no match for me at kick boxing -- Emo Phillips
There's a bigger piece of news here than the risk of Rare fabing a disk without certification, it's Rare fabing a disk before certification at all. The process with the Xbox was as follows:
1 developer prepares disc image, sends to certification
2 certification responds with TCR violations
3 goto 1 unless no TCR violations
4 certification sends image to Great Disc Signing Machine in the Sky
5 Great Disc Signing Machine in the Sky sends signed image to developer and Xbox Disc Fabiration
6 Profit, if you're lucky.
This would indicate that Rare managed to get to step 4 without going through 2 and 3. And indicates that for the 360 each developer might have their own private key for signing. This could be excelent news for modders given that there may be private keys wafting around the world instead of being locked in a room in Redmond.
This was settled back in the days of the NES. The courts ruled Tengen could make third-party games for the Nintendo system. So why would RARE bother with grovelling at MS's feet for a certification? It's established enough so that customers won't care.
Ignoring the part about Rare being owned by MS (which is really irrelevant to the point), your assumption is mistaken.
First of all, it's neither here nor there but you've got the wrong precedent. The only case in which Nintendo actually went to court against Tengen was found in favor of Nintendo. The case which you're probably thinking of was settled out of court (again, though, with Tengen paying damages to Nintendo for breach of contract - they had been a licensee).
The precedent you're thinking of was decided in Atari vs. Activision, which settled the fact that third party developers had a right to develop games on any manufacturer's system, with or without help from that manufacturer. This is not disputed today.
However, manufacturers still have the right to implement technological "locks" on their systems, and in fact this is why Nintendo ended up suing Tengen and Tengen ended up paying them damages. Reverse-engineering is one thing, but Tengen lied to the US copyright office to obtain Nintendo's lockout program (they told them they needed it for the court case, not for commercial use), which they then duplicated on their cartridges. Tengen was clearly guilty of copyright infringement in that case.
The same would be true of anyone who today tried to release games without the approval of a console manufacturer, especially now that the DMCA exists, which prohibits the breaking of encryption around copyrighted works (in this case, the code on the lockout protection chips). Console manufacturers own code needed for a publisher to run their games on the console in question, and only the manufacturer has a right to license that code. They're also free to set conditions (such as quality control conditions) in their license contracts.
All 3rd party developers today go through a quality control process run by the console manufacturer, whether it's Nintendo, Sony or Microsoft. Otherwise they would not have access to the code they would need for their games to work. It was exactly the case you mistakenly described that standardized this process to begin with (it did the opposite of what you think it did), and the DMCA has only strengthened the console manufacturers' hand. (I hate the DMCA, but I think most people are happy that there is a standard QA process for console games.)
The only developers who do not go through a standardized QA process are PC game developers. Which is one reason why PC games tend to be buggier and why the quality control is inconsistent from one developer to another. (Some developers may put out games that are pretty clean, others may put out games that are an unplayable mess.) That's not to say that every console manufacturer's process is created equally - in my own personal experience MS and Sony are both pretty lax in terms of bugs and overall polish in both first- and third-party games when compared with Nintendo, probably because they're competing so hard with each other lately on release dates while Nintendo sort of goes its own way. (Sony also seems to have gotten worse over the years, again as MS has started to catch up a bit in sales.)
But the point is, the way the process is described here is the way it always works; the only difference is Rare started pressing discs before the game was certified.
So playing cool videos of the game (a feature I enjoy) and using consistent language isn't good?
So a newbie who knows that his memory card has 40 blocks or whatever and the game says 40 Kb; that would be ok with you?
I think all of those are good ideas. Auto-pause if a controller is unplugged is a great idea. Consisten language in messages is a great idea. Why would you want users to see "LAN ERROR" in one game, "NETWORK PROBLEM" in another game, and "SYSTEM LINK DOWN" in yet another for the same problem? Most menus already abide by the last thing you mention, a menu that didn't would be stupid. I can't think of any reason one of those would be bad for someone playing games. The video might be annoying to some, but it would also prevent burn-in of the menu for people with Plasmas...
One thing to note is quite a few people left when Rare was sold to Microsoft. The question is, did the good ones leave? The answer is... well sorta, maybe, partly, but Kameo packs quite a punch according to Gamespot.
Of course it should pack a punch considering it's less than 10 hours long and was originally going to be made for (this is true) the Nintendo 64. I mean, they spent over 6 months of development for each hour of gameplay (assuming you do one quick playthrough and throw it away).
Meanwhile, the reviews for Ghoulies were pretty low, but reviews for Conker were pretty high. I can tell you Star Fox Adventures wasn't their best. And PDZero is coming out soon too. Five console games in five years, that's not as many as there used to be.
So has Rare lost it, or do they still have it? Well. Sorta. Maybe. Partly. I'm excited to see what they do this generation.
But I'm not buying a 360 just for Rare games.
"When the atomic bomb goes off there's devastation...but when the atomic bong goes off there's celebraaaaation!"
* various in-game messages regarding system events (memory unit access...
That's just downright silly. I bet Sony would never force developers to use the exact same message every time someone uses their Memory Card (8MB)(for PlayStation2) to save their game.