Slashdot Mirror
PS3 Issues Caused GTA IV Delay?
Dr. Eggman writes "According to statements made by Michael Pachter on Gamasutra, 'The Rockstar team had difficulty in building an exceptionally complicated game for the PS3, and failed to recognize how far away from completion the game truly was until recently.' The article goes on to describe an agreement between Rockstar and Sony not to favor the 360 by releasing their version first, necessitating the delay on the 360 as well. Pachter's comments are interesting, because all Take-Two has been willing to say is that 'technological issues' were causing the hold-up. "
Oh i guess its to be expected. Nowhere in the article does it blame the PS3 for the delays. It specifically states BOTH systems have their technological issues that they need to work through. In typical Slashdot fashion, it is turned into an anti-ps3 article. Way to be unbiased in the news reporting once again.
Please tag this story as "Zonked" to remind Zonk not to return to his bad old habits.
"There is more worth loving than we have strength to love." - Brian Jay Stanley
So, trying to make two different engines is twice as hard? No shit. But I think it's fair to blame this on the PS3, because their stupid architecture is the one that deviated from the standard.
Your ad here. Ask me how!
If it truly is a PS3 only problem that is causing this delay, Microsoft should just throw money at Take-Two to get them to release the 360 version early. Would be a big kick to Sony. Sadly, they are probably contractually obligated though...
As the first article states, it's only the uninformed opinion of a financial analyst that PS3 development difficulties were responsible for the delay. Of course, the financial analyst also believes the PS3 version is a port of the 360 version, when in fact the PS3 has always been the lead platform for the game. Shows how much his opinion is worth.
Rockstar says they have challenges on both platforms (likely Cell development on the PS3 and stuffing everything onto a DVD-9 on the 360). Nothing to see here, folks...
This seems to feasible as all the press demos I've heard about have been on the 360.
Here's one I could find on short notice.
I'm not aware of Rockstar ever showing the press the game engine running on a PS3.
Anybody have examples of that?
--Just because you can doesn't mean you should--
Apparently, we take the opinions of analysts as news now? Especially ones that have been wrong in the past? This is the same guy who said:
... We play games to escape." Microsoft's strategy is "absolutely flawed," he said.
"At the end of the day, we don't play games for social interaction
I suppose he has never seen the game of World of Warcraft or any of the other games that allow you to play with your friends.
Seriously Zonk, try to have some news objectivity. I'm sure if you dug around, you could find some analyst on the Sony payroll to say how it was the xbox360's extra content causing the holdup.
Gonzo Granzeau
"Nothing the god of biomechanics wouldn't let you into heaven for.." -Roy Batty
Preformatted fanboy party lines:
Sony: The PS3 is so powerful and complex it takes longer to develop for it!
Non-Sony: The PS3 is so crappy they're having trouble developing for it!
Saved you all some time there.
This article is crap, and Zonk has turned it into FUD.
Title of the article:
"Pachter: PS3 Port Caused GTA IV Delay"
Quoted verbatim from the article (emphasis mine):
"Wedbush Morgan's Michael Pachter says Take-Two management has "stumbled badly for the first time" with the delay of GTA IV, and said that he believes difficulties porting the game to the PlayStation 3 are to blame and that the company's new green light policy appears to be a failure."
The only confusing part is how you missed all that.
Let's see, you have:
PS3
25/50 gig BluRay drive standard
20/60/80 gig harddrive standard
360
3.5/7 gig last gen DVD drive
No standard harddrive
Rockstar was on record before the 360 was revealed praying not to have to deal with DVD all over again. Microsoft is forcing them to deal with storage space that is 1 gig smaller than a normal DVD.
Rockstar is on record multiple times talking about the 'challenges'(aka development nightmare) of trying to fit a next gen free roaming game onto a smaller than last gen disc.
Gee, wonder what the hell could be going wrong with a next gen version of GTA on the 360???
I don't think anyone who is a game engineer is surprised by the delay. How exactly Rockstar is going to fit a game that streams an entire city at even a bare minimum level next gen graphics can possibly fit on the tiny 360 DVD drive and not be able to count on a standard harddrive like on the PS3...it has to be a painful project to work on knowing that you could be making a real next gen game on BluRay for the PS3 and tens of gigs of data on the PC.
Rockstar really should have split the project into PS3/PC with a high end next gen version of GTA and a much smaller less graphically demanding 360 version. They wouldn't be in the situation they are in right now where the PS3 and PC versions are getting delayed while they figure out what they hell they are going to do with the 360 disc size problem.
Honestly, trying to spin the GTA IV delay as anything other than a 360 problem is just silly. The problems with the 360 and a game like GTA is too great.
It ALWAYS takes people -> companies -> game companies a while to figure out the true capabilities of something -> technology -> the latest console.
The PS2 is offcourse the most relevant example with games being released RIGHT NOW that push the system to new limits, several years after its launch. I am currently playing Tomb Raider Anniversary (On the PC offcourse, I am civilized after all) and while on the one hand its PS2 inheritance is painfully obvious in the way its seperates its levels/areas into chunks to compensate for a console typical pathetic memory, it is also bloody obvious that this game pulls of much more then previous tomb raider versions on the PS2 were capable off. Well I presume at least, not actually having played the PS2 version of any tomb raider game, remember, I am civilized.
So the PS2 still gets AAA releases, despite being a well known bitch to code for. The X-box, claimed to be a PC inside (a really crap PC you would donate to your kids because you don't really love them but they keep the wife from wanting to buy a dog), was a lot easier to code for. I use past term because IT doesn't seem to be getting nearly as many AAA release now its succesor has launched.
For those a bit too young, what was the first PC game with FULL speech and when was it launched? No, your wrong.
It pretty much doesn't matter what you answered because you most likely are barking up the wrong tree completly and are in the wrong decade.
One of the first games I played with FULL SPEECH was a air-traffic coordinator game (tracon) which played on a 286 or earlier and came on a floppy and had all the pilot-tower talk VOICED.
yeah, that ain't that hard, that is what soundcards do, just put a lot of MP3's on there. Eh, no. No soundcard, no MP3. Just 1 floppy, no harddrive.
It also did something many modern games ain't even capable off, different pilots used slight variations in tone to make them sound different.
What was simply the case that having been presented with an existing tech for a long time the developers had become fully used to the tech and had pushed it far beyond its original capabilities.
Think back to the first tomb raider that used pre-recorded audio (vs MIDI) stored as ordinary music tracks on the game cd, played by your pc (even the voice bits were tracks) and how the current tomb raider games do it.
The PS3 is a bitch to program for, but it will be programmed for and this might mean that it will become more and more capable. The X-box was easy, and died quickly. The PS2 was a bitch and is still kicking.
Offcourse, history is also full of consoles everyone thought had hidden potential that died anyway.
But playing Tomb Raider Anniversary I am pretty sure that however much of a bitch the PS3 might be, the challenge to fit it all on the 360's DVD, is just as hard, that is not even to mention that the 360 core does not have a HD.
But hey, ultimately computer games are still part of IT. If software started shipping on time and on budget were would we be? Why people might just start to see us as yet an other industry and actuall expects us to put up warranties. This software will run for 10 years without fail or we will fix and pay any damages. Nothing unsuals on a building but a piece of software? HA!
If I was making a game of the size and complexity of GTA4, I would at least get some experience on the platforms first, and even if I didnt... id get first party devs in to help. The only one to blame for delays is Rockstars stupidity.
If you find yourself using 1000 different textures for one type of building, it's time to investigate procedural texturing.
I was trying to point out that a city is mostly made out of the same basic materials and that if Rockstar isn't reusing tons of their textures like Oblivion did then they're just being ridiculous. I can't really see why the textures would be the reason they couldn't fit GTA IV on a DVD.
Yes, it just so happens that in the entire history of computer graphics and gaming that exactly at the point Microsoft becomes the first company ever to downgrade the amount of disc storage in one of their new systems that suddenly fans of that system start wondering why developers use more space each new generation.
Yes, dude, it's not Microsoft and their crappy little DVD. It's everyone else in the history of graphic and gaming that are wrong and to wasteful with their disc usage...
Infighting aside, the real issue here is Rockstar has uncharacteristically overpromised and underdelivered with GTA IV.
Lately there has been anxiety in the gaming community over Rockstar management's ability to run the company effectively, mostly because of personnel losses. Events like this one, in which Rockstar is not only unable to deliver a crucial product on time, but also bungles the task of keeping the gaming public informed by not announcing the delay until the last minute, do not shine an encouraging light on the skills of the company's current management team. Coming on the heels of the Manhunt 2 fiasco, the current situation gives little cause for optimism.
Here's hoping Rockstar will get their act together by March (Nowhere to go but up, I guess). The gaming public can be very forgiving as long as decent product is delivered.
And all you PS3 1users can just wait until it's released.
But it will release on xBox360 at the same time as the Wii, so it's not like you'll have long to wait to basejump off of the Space Needle onto the Grey's Anatomy hospital and jump on a skateboard at the new (being built right now) skateboard park that Bill G tried to kill.
Due to the large number of bike paths and pedestrian corridors, there will be a lot more carnage, of course.
-- Tigger warning: This post may contain tiggers! --
It's easy to forget that R* has never developed a game the size of GTA III or GTA IV from scratch. They used Renderware for their previous "big" GTAs. GTA IV is the first "modern" GTA to be developed from scratch. Sure, they used an early version of the engine in Table Tennis, but something like GTA IV is in an entirely differen league.
My guess is that they simply underestimated what it would take to polish a game like GTA IV to a shippable version.
If you find yourself making posts like that, it's time to investigate sarcasm.
Justice is the sheep getting arrested while an impartial judge declares the vote void.
Grey's Anatomy hospital is more or less KOMO TV 4. Although for cool you can't beat channels 5 and 6, KING and KONG respectively.
google: 'Michael Pachter'
seems to be an analyst that wants to get his name up in lights