One major factor, I think, is the market share. The majority of customers in the video game market own consoles; I think the last time I saw figures on the subject, PC sales made up about a third of total games sold. With that, it''s pretty obvious that when you''re developing a cross-platform PC/console title, the effort will really go into the console version because that''s the one that two thirds of your customer base will play.
Richard "Superpig" Fine
- saving pigs from untimely fates, and when he''s not doing that, runs The Binary Refinery.
Enginuity1 | Enginuity2 | Enginuity3 | Enginuity4 | Enginuity5
ry. .ibu cy. .y''ybu. .abu ry. dy. "sy. .ubu py. .ebu ry. py. .ibu gy." fy. .ibu ny. .ebu
"Don''t document your code; code your documentation." -me
PC vs Console prettiness
quote:Original post by SuperRoy
PC Games: developers and publishers realize they can just patch it later to fix problems, so they''ll release a half-finished game then make the patch.
Consoles: the game can''t be patched so they have to put in all their effort right away.
That''s how I see it.
This isn''t true, most of the time. There are a decent amount of PC games that get released buggy as hell, but most of the better games are pretty stable. One of the problems with PC games is the PC is not one platform, developers have to write code that runs correctly on all types of setups. On a console you''re guarenteed the hardware will always be the same so it''s a lot easier to test if your game is bug free, if it doesn''t crash on one X-Box it won''t crash on any other X-Boxes.
Could some of it be to do with the console manufacturer''s quality control processes? When a developer has finished a game and the publisher is happy with it, it still has to be approved by Sony / Nintendo / Microsoft / whoever, and those approvals are bloody strict. I''ve heard of games being sent back up to 20 times, purely over small bugs.
For PC developers, as soon as the developer is done (or the publisher says they''re done
), the game is released. Certain publishers pay more attention to certain projects they''re funding - the smaller ones can often slip by. The console manufacturers don''t have quite the same vested interest in getting the game out, so they can properly examine the game and give it the same rigorous testing as any other.
Richard "Superpig" Fine
- saving pigs from untimely fates, and when he''s not doing that, runs The Binary Refinery.
Enginuity1 | Enginuity2 | Enginuity3 | Enginuity4 | Enginuity5
ry. .ibu cy. .y''ybu. .abu ry. dy. "sy. .ubu py. .ebu ry. py. .ibu gy." fy. .ibu ny. .ebu
"Don''t document your code; code your documentation." -me
For PC developers, as soon as the developer is done (or the publisher says they''re done
), the game is released. Certain publishers pay more attention to certain projects they''re funding - the smaller ones can often slip by. The console manufacturers don''t have quite the same vested interest in getting the game out, so they can properly examine the game and give it the same rigorous testing as any other. Richard "Superpig" Fine
- saving pigs from untimely fates, and when he''s not doing that, runs The Binary Refinery.
Enginuity1 | Enginuity2 | Enginuity3 | Enginuity4 | Enginuity5
ry. .ibu cy. .y''ybu. .abu ry. dy. "sy. .ubu py. .ebu ry. py. .ibu gy." fy. .ibu ny. .ebu
"Don''t document your code; code your documentation." -me
IMHO the PC pwnz any console in everything but style, technically a X-box is just a low end (733) p3 anyway, with a limited graphics card (dx8 only), but i admit they can put out some good stuff if they put time into it, but i am a graphics fr33k so i look for the most graphically intense games and crank up the settings (geforce 5900ultra) and as soon as unreal 3 comes out, we will have the "animations" and "style" down as well as over 10,000 poly characters blowing our minds with ultra-realistic perfectly bump-mapped textures and awsome lighting techniques that will put any current system to its knees, even mine... which is why im awaitng better support for 64-bit platforms 
Note that there have already been Xbox games with 10,000+ poly characters. PS2 as well, if you''re keeping track.
AP, this topic is old. If you want to take up the discussion again please start a new topic.
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Just waiting for the mothership...
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Just waiting for the mothership...
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