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Valve Hoping For 360/PC Play, Scared of PS3 Online
Valve's movement to the console space has been slow, but this year will see the release of Half-Life 2 on both the 360 and PS3. They seem to be having mixed reactions to that move. On the one hand (according to CVG), they're very much hoping that 360/PC crossplay will be possible for their upcoming Team Fortress 2. On the other hand (according to Game Informer and 1up), their reaction to the PS3's online component is one of fear. Valve's Marketing representative Doug Lombardi: "PS3 is brand new and PS3's online is kind of scary so we're hoping that EA is going to be a strong partner for us. (laughs) It's always the scariest thing when it's not all yours. With the PC it's all ours, Steam is all ours, code's ours, game's ours. On 360 we're making it, we've made it before, we know what the Live thing is, although it's Microsoft's so we kind of know it. PS3 we're not building it, we haven't made a PS3 title before, and we don't really know what PS3 online really is. It's always the devil you don't know that you're the most scared of."
This reminds me of playing quake3 on the dreamcast, and getting trounced by all the folks who played on PC. Are they going to give the console folks auto aim? Or a 40 dollar keyboard and mouse adapter to buy? I hope not, for I'll be playing on a PC, and i'd really enjoy a mouse/keyboard skill buffer to take advantage of.
So what you're saying is that it's doubly reasonable for them to be terrified of Sony? It's both the devil they know AND the devil they don't.
"You're right," Fisheye says. "I should have set it on 'whip' or 'chop.'"
It's early in the process and they don't yet know what to think about it. But that's not going to stop 1up from passing that along in the most inflammatory way possible.
And people wonder why so many businesses hide behind their PR department.
Platform advocacy is like choosing a favorite severely developmentally disabled child.
I'm just wondering either Microsoft or Sony would have some sort of verbiage in the development contract they sign with companies to prevent cross-platform gaming. As much as I'd love to see a game be multiplayer-enabled across PS3, 360, PC, Mac, etc. I have a feeling neither MS nor Sony would allow it.
The question as to which is the superior gaming input device will finally be answered.
Obligatory: How can Valve make it fair for someone with an Xbox controller to fight against someone with a keyboard/mouse setup? I play shooters on both consoles and PCs, and the keyboard/mouse is far superior in terms of control and accuracy. I wouldn't want an Xbox player on my team if he has difficulty aiming. Would Valve have to modify TF2's gameplay to accommodate the shortcomings of the Xbox controller? (As in dumb the game down like EA did with C&C3 - another console/PC release)
Oh, and do PC players and console players really have some burning desire to play with one another? TFC public servers have plenty of trolls and idiots, but no where near as many as I encounter on Xbox live. Fighting with them on Halo is bad enough.
I own an X360, PS2, and PC so I can experience different forms of gaming. And at this point, my PC is still the best for shooter games.
It's sad to see the console with the best First-Person Shooter controllers gets pushed aside for its lower CPU and GPU capabilities.
So you end up playing FPS games on more powerful systems with crappy controllers.
And before you tell me that I only need to practice, I've got plenty of experience. About 15 years with a keyboard and mouse. The Wii remote and nunchuck take about 30 seconds to get used to. The analog sticks and dozen buttons on the Xbox 360 and PS3 gamepads? I gave up after 2 hours.
And no, I don't own a Windows PC either.
Considering a lot of the guys at Valve used to work for Microsoft, I don't think anyone there has any reason to be scared, nor have a lack of trust; they know what it's like from the inside and have their internal contacts. None of them were fired or ousted, but were valued employees that went to do other things - I am sure Microsoft misses them (especially considering the success they've had, wouldn't MS be riding a high right now if Half-Life and Steam had been their product? :)
I remember them talking about how innovative they are going to be using multiple cores in a new version of their engine. Have they finished it?
I see why they fear the PS3, its not really using identical cores. Heck, I am not even sure how you can build a cross-platform game and utilize all the features of the PS3.
Not that I care. I have played the demo of Quake 4 for the 360 and it looks like crap compared to the PC. Not going to be getting half-life 2 for either system.
People scared of things they haven't done before!
(this is headline-worthy?)
You do realise Quake 4 was a very rushed launch game right? You shouldn't use it to jusdge the 360. Try checking out Battlefield 2, F.E.A.R., Gears of War (OK, technically not an FPS) or the upcoming Bioshock. The 360 is plenty fine at it.
- "Scientia non habet inimicum nisp ignorantem"
Resistance is average at best, and I own a PS3. I'm not saying it doesn't have good multiplayer options, but you can have eveything + the kitchen sink for options but it won't make the core game better.
- "Scientia non habet inimicum nisp ignorantem"
MS Tendancy: Will pretend to partner with you, steal your business models and contacts, cut you out, and grind your company into dust. "embrace, extend and extinguish"
Sony: Partner with you, promote your collaboration, sometimes provide innadaquete documentation at first, attempt to replace your collaboration with a propriatary project a few years later. Fail miserably to compete with your old collaboration.
From history it seems safer to partner with Sony. although they try to screw you later they tend to do it poorly when goign it alone. Their collaborations do well.
They collaborated to create CD's with massive success. Tried to replace it with minidisk and failed miserably. Collaborated to create DVDs to great success. Failed miserably to sort of replace it with UMDs. collaborated on Bluray (and it seems like successis coming).
MS has largely back stabbed their partners. (IBM on Os/2, IBM on PCs in general, Java, etc..)
"There are more things in heaven and earth, Horatio, than are dreamt of in your philosophy."
Resistance is as good as say Far cry. Both are pretty standard FPS's. I think far cry has more innovation (big open enviroments) but they are very comparable in gameplay.
"There are more things in heaven and earth, Horatio, than are dreamt of in your philosophy."
now correct me if im wrong, but on a ps3 or xbox360, the games are going to be harder, if not impossible to 'hack' due to the static state of being on a cd... I can see the console kids not being happy about some PC gamers running about with their aimbots and wallhacks and not being able to do the same... now I dislike cheating in this manner just like most people should... so maybe consoles actually have something right here
Try again!
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http://img388.imageshack.us/img388/3959/x360ps3wi
- "Scientia non habet inimicum nisp ignorantem"
A very good point. What if MS decided to partner with Valve to provide a Steam like service integrated into Xbox Live? Kind of like the Phantom Game Service except it could actually happen.
Swi
Sorry you all had to see that. Thats almost certainly PaiZuri from digg (http://www.digg.com/users/PaiZuri/news/dugg) he tends to copy and paste that comment (and others like it) in all gaming posts regardless of content. Its a shame that the two pools are only separated by the rope.
Talking with the guy who wrote most of the networking code for Resistance:Fall of Man, he made it sound like Sony's approach to networking is the WORST of both worlds. You have to do everything yourself because Sony basically just gives you a device driver. Friends Lists, invites, chat handling, etc. are all up to the developer. There are no libraries or even standards for these. But, unlike the PC, you have to log every game connect with a Sony server so you still have big brother collecting data about games users play. This is like the 360, but at least MS provides policing and a library that doesn't take any new game resources (chat, invites, etc. all come out of the already allocated OS resources) or development time or worries about certification issues. It's no wonder Sony's online is "free". They don't provide anything they could charge for! The only thing Sony does have, its online store, is also free on the 360.
> What if MS decided to partner with Valve
Partner, nothing. I think there's a very good chance they might buy Valve.
Done with slashdot, done with nerds, getting a life.
NO STEAM FOR THE PS3. I want one more than ever now! :)
Never attribute to malice that which can be adequately explained by stupidity
Actually, I can't see that to be the case. Cytrix partnered with Microsoft and they are thriving. When they made the deal with Microsoft, their sales boomed. And they keep growing despite MS adding more features to their version of the solution. I went to a Microsoft conference a few weeks ago and they were promoting Cytrix solutions as a great extension of the basic capabilities in Windows. The same happened with many other partners. Actually, many often asked for features such as backup to tape, cluster support for dynamic disks and other such features are not in the product because Microsoft is respecting previous agreements with partners that provided the technology. I would be interested if you have a real example where Microsof "stabbed" a partner other than OS/2 (which is a matter of views, as far as I know the two companies had diverging views on the subject, IBM wanting to do a clear slab and MS pushing for more backwards compatibility, so MS decided to drop the thing). Sun was NEVER a partner with Microsoft until after the recent deals. They were declared enemies from day -1. Any better examples? I'm not saying there aren't any, but as far as I can see microsoft has been pretty decent with their partners in general.
... when you build your entire source engine in DirectX. Of course valve's console takeup has been slow.
It only works on two platforms Windows and 360.
How about you try learning an entirely new API while simultaneously trying to adapt your existing game to it and maintain compatibility with different systems? Also, Resistance is hardly that godly of a game. Now, it may be good compared to some of the recent drivel, but it's hardly the next Quake 3, Timesplitters, or Halo.
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Funny how you say Cytrix is thriving despite Microsoft's continuous theft (for lack of a better word) of their best ideas. Cytrix isn't still around because Microsoft is honoring anything, they are around because Microsoft knows that as soon as they make Cytrix obsolete they will face some difficult patent infringement and possibly antitrust law suits.
t alog.shtml that details companies that MS has bought or invested in. If you read through it, you will find that many of them no longer exist, their IP has been ditched, and I imagine most of their employees were out on their asses. NOTE: this list only includes those that MS "invested" in or bought outright, which I would call a "partnership".
Novell is a good example where a one time partner was nearly bankrupt by Microsoft. MS dropped support for the DEC Alpha after a lot of brotherly hype if I remember correctly. An interesting list can be found here: http://www.vcnet.com/bms/departments/catalog/yrca
I don't care what anyone says, partnering with Microsoft should only be taken with a HUGE dose of caution and the second best lawyers (MS has the best) reviewing the contracts. I will not say that all of their "partnerships" have been bad, however the vast majority have. Of course, a number of their partnerships were exactly what the other company wanted... a get rich quick buy out, and since MS loves to toss cash around I know that the number of these is probably skewing the statistics a bit.
Sometimes the best solution is to stop wasting time looking for an easy solution.
What is going to be funny is when TF2 arrives on both Xbox and PC. For years, all the people I know who play the Xbox and PS2 have defended the place of FPS games on a console based system. I have been constantly disagreeing over the fact that with a gamepad, you cannot accurately and quickly aim and move fluently. PC's always have better control with the mouse and keyboard.
Now when console FPS plays PC FPS, the results will speak for themselves. This could result in one of two things:
1. Console players will get pissed off with being pwnd by PC users and there will be a mini-revolt against FPS on Xbox/PS3 or;
2. Suddenly, a mouse and keyboard will be the new hot selling attachment for Xbox.
This could be an interesting time.
You moved your mouse. Please restart Windows for changes to take effect.
Nono, I realize that. I was trying to compare the visuals of a game from the 360 to the PC. You would figure, with the lower res, that you could put more textures? Use all the cores? I know its comparing apples to oranges as I have a high end card, I just wonder that will any of these ported games ever will use all the power of the console, or if they just click a box in codewarriors cross platform C compiler.
Team Fortress 2 still isn't out? I remember seeing an advertisement for it in the original Half-Life's box.
What'd they do, outsource it to 3D Realms?
GLaDOS for President 2016! "Well here we are again. It's always such a pleasure." -- GLaDOS, 2011
all Xbox 360s are required to at least run in 1024x768 (or close to it, 720p), which also happens to be one of the most popular PC resolutions.
It doesn't matter if you could fit more textures in the game at 480i/p, because then it wouldn't run at the required 720p
"We need to get over this notion, that, for Apple to win... Microsoft must lose." - Steve Jobs, 1997
I doubt Newell would let it happen.
And integrating Steam into XBox Live is a bit late.. Steam should have BEEN XBox Live. PopCap Puzzle Pirates FTW.
My experience with gamepad accuracy and FPSs comes from the likes of Black and Killzone; I've found that the very same relative inaccuracy makes headshots all the more satisfying... especially with weapons that aren't exactly the most tack-accurate in the game (the M249 in Black; the Helghast assault rifle and squad MG in Killzone).
A bit earlier, you mention C&C3. Now there is an example of a genre that isn't gamepad-friendly (AvP: Extinction on the PS2 manages to work more due to scale than anything, but suffers from camera issues).
- White Knight of the Order of Mihoshi Enthusiasts
I've been considering a 360 as an alternative to the PC for gaming, and figured that mouse & keyboard support for games would have finally (logically) been implemented, particularly in regard to the volume of games that desperately need it. Unless some company from Hong Kong comes out with a product allowing m/kb use, as they have in the past for other consoles, that glaring lack of foresight is a deal breaker for me.
Well, not exactly. You don't need a console to use a gamepad. I have one for my pc, it's a Logitech one that looks exactly like the PS2 one.
What I did was this:
In one pc: mouse + keyboard. Me.
In the other pc: logitech gamepad. An 'expert' Halo player.
I have to say, the Halo player is a damn good bastard. I expected total ownage and I still won half the time, but it was not what I expected. He could beat me more times than I was ready to accept. It also helps that the logitech gamepad is very good, better than I feel the PS2 ones. And that he beats everyone else I know at Halo.
My revenge? I put him online, and really good players kicked his ass, but he still got too many frags for all the "controller's sucks" crowd to believe.
However, I had a crappy mouse, and now I have a superb Logitech MX500 with zero acceleration and great response. I hope to do round 2 as soon as possible.
We are Turing O-Machines. The Oracle is out there.
What an odd recall of history you have. Novell never partnered with Microsoft (until last month). They were enemies from day one. I know, I used to work for a Novell distributor at the time, and Microsoft was no friend from the start. It was a competitor, and a strong one that almost got us ruined, but that wasn't because any partnering issues (actually it might have been, them having more and stronger partners than Novell made it a difficult fight). Microsoft stopped supporting Alpha after three years of almost zero sales. No one complained, not even DEC, because the NT aplha machines were less than 1% of the market. And the percentage was dwindling. Same thing for PowerPC. MS developed support for Alpha and PowerPC because there was the expectation that supporting other CPUs besides Intel would lead to aproliferation of faster and more powerful CPUs, but Microsoft made a mistake there: not being NT a run time compile platform (like Java and .Net are), applications, tools and drivers from third parties needed to be compiled, packaged, tested and distributed for each platform. That made the experience on these platforms suck. I had two Alpha servers at my company for running email, and they were powerful but a nightmare to support. When the time came to upgrade them we switched to Intel even if Alpha was still available (PowerPC was not). There was no point for Microsoft to keep supporting a platform that wasn't working and that was actually hurting the ISV market by making porduct development (particularly testing) more expensive, especially for smaller players that are the strongest factor supporting the Windows market.
And they learned that lesson, with .Net they made the hardware irrelevant (but not the OS, as Java attempted to do). While no new CPUs are entering the market that don't have x86 compatiility, it will be possible if .Net becomes the prevalent development factor for a long time.