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Why Is It So Difficult To Allow Cross-Platform Play?
cookiej writes "I just got the most recent version of the Madden franchise ('10) for the PS3. Can somebody explain to me why EA has separate networks for the different platforms, only allowing players to compete with people using the same console? Back in the day, there were large discrepancies between the consoles, but these days it seems like the Xbox and the PS3 are at least near the same level. After so many releases for this franchise, they've got to have a fairly standardized protocol for networking; it seems arbitrary not to let them compete. Or am I just missing something obvious? Is it just a matter of Xbox Live and the PlayStation Network not working together?"
That was most likely the decision of MS and Sony respectively. EA is evil, but you can't blame them for everything!
For the same reason console players can't play against PC players.
If they allowed a direct comparison between different platforms, people would realize more rapidly which is better and which is worse.
I'd love to see a match of TF2 between a bunch of console players vs. PC players. It'd be such a joke. :)
Their may be a grammatical error, misspeling, or evn a typo in this post.
MS and Sony (and Nintendo) want you to use their respective online frameworks. They obviously aren't compatible or interoperable (different name/nick/whatever namespaces, different friends lists, different registration procedure, etc).
You can't have cross-platform online interoperation unless EA uses an entirely custom online framework that is identical among platforms. The console manufacturers wouldn't be too happy about that, and neither would gamers (who want to register once and maintain one friends list for all games, not once for each vendor or game).
The only sane solution would require heavy cooperation between all console vendors and standardizing quite a bit of the online experience, but that's never going to happen (at least not this generation).
but I do know that the keyboard+mouse guys would _destroy_ the gamepad people in any sort of FPS.
also emacs is better than vi.
For the two systems mentioned (Xbox 360 and PS3), they're both using variants on the PowerPC architecture. While I can't be sure, I believe both chips use IEEE floating point numbers (outside of Crays, most chips nowadays at least have the option of using IEEE floating point), so the errors should be identical. I think the bigger problem is that the networking protocol for these games is usually licensed from the console maker, using the console maker's servers for matchmaking and the like, and it's considered to be less of a hassle to program against two different APIs than it is to write a single network protocol from scratch and maintain the servers required to support it.
$_ = "wftedskaebjgdpjgidbsmnjgcdwatb"; tr/a-z/oh, turtleneck Phrase Jar!/; print
One may be more comfortable, decreasing the cognitive dissonance associated with translating mental (re)actions to hand actions.
That's not what cognitive dissonance is. Cognitive dissonance is when you take an action that contradicts or is not explained by your beliefs about how you should have acted, and you change your beliefs after the fact in order to explain the action you took. It is not just when you have some kind of mental uncomfortableness. I'm sure wikipedia has examples.
PS3s are big endian machines.
Xbox 360s are little endian.
Q.E.D They can't talk to each other.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jury_nullification
No. The different consoles have different requirements for online play, and they aren't necessarily compatible. XBox live requires play through MS's servers and a live account. Sony requires companies to host their own. Nintendo has friend code requirements. It's not nearly as simple as the summary makes out.
Where did you see that?
I'm pretty sure Microsoft by default handles all of the server for matchmaking and leaderboards. I remember back with the first Xbox that Microsoft had to develop a protocol to allow Live games to communicate with the game company's server. This was done at the insistence of EA, who would not release titles with online play unless they could control the servers. This is why you have to accept a separate EULA and make a separate account to online with some EA games. I remember games like Burnout 3 and Revenge not working right for a few days after launch because of problems connecting to EA's servers. This is also why old EA games like Timesplitters 3 no longer work on the Xbox while you can still play all(?) of the older games that rely on Microsoft's servers.
As shown by what they've already done, EA has enough leverage to force Microsoft, Sony, and Nintendo to allow cross-platform play. I doubt you'd find any resistance from Nintendo, as they lack a truly unified online play system like Microsoft and Sony have.
The point is, it should be simple, but it's been made difficult for asinine reasons.
It's short for "verisimilitudinously".
"By the same logic you can't blame the bankers who ruined the world economy"
You can't blame them, but for a different reason. The seeds of the devastation were planted in 1999 [nytimes.com], when the congressional Democrats forced Fannie Mae and Freddi Mac to lower their lending standards -- suddenly, millions of people, who hitherto would not qualify for mortgage, were able to obtain one. The same supply of the real estate now faced a spiked demand, which in our highly efficient capitalist economy resulted in spike of both prices and building activity to meet the demand.
Unfortunately, helping the poor qualify for mortgage does not help them pay it off. That the Democrats were able to blame Republicans [ldsmag.com] (whose only fault was in not fighting against it hard enough) for this is a spectacular feat of mind-manipulation...
What about the much-maligned easing of banking regulations? Nope, that's not, what caused the problem -- even if it exacerbated it. Would you blame a powerful engine for an accident, when the car slams into a log lying across the highway? Sure, if it weren't running at high speed, the driver could've stopped safely without hitting the obstruction. But the blame is solidly on those, who placed the log across the road, not on the car-maker, that gave you the speedy vehicle...
I just wanted to say, excellent summary & analogy...and spot-on, even if it's off-topic for the discussion. I remember screaming at the TV back in 1999 when this was put in place; "Why are you putting poor people who can't freaking afford a house onto a near-certain path to default & bankruptcy!?!?".
This was so easy to see coming that it makes you start to take Glenn Beck & his theories on a planned collapse and reformation of the US as a socialist/fascist regime seriously, and I don't *want* to.
Strat
Progressivism (aka US 'Liberalism'): Ideas so good they need a police/surveillance-state to enforce.
Seriously? Fucking insightful? I hate seeing this same meme bandied about.
There were multiple actions by the government that worked together with a firm belief that housing prices would continue to rise to cause this situation. Deregulation by one party. Broadening lending standards by another. Bankers who found ways to make money that while not illegal, required a firm willful ignorance of potential future calamity.
No one group is responsible for this, and to try and claim otherwise shows a complete misunderstanding of the situation.