BioWare Founder Thinks Console Upgrades Are A Pain In The Ass

Megalith

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Does this guy have a point, or is he speaking for the whiny game developers out there who are worried they may have to do more work?

"I'd say that'd be a gigantic pain in the ass that flies in the face of the purpose of consoles," he said. "It's funny, there's actually some stories behind that. For example, the original Xbox...Microsoft actually had multiple different DVD drives. They didn't tell anyone that, but as a developer you discovered that you have different performance and sometimes you'd have these boxes of refurbished drives and different brands and different equipment. It caused incredible variability."
 
It's all about money. If coming out with a new console is a big profit. Then they'll keep doing it. They don't care what devs think.
 
Well it could be a problem if you don't know about it. But two possible configurations are not the end of the world. You basically change a few graphics settings for the new version, it's not like it's impossible on a console, it's just not allowed for the user to change like on the PC. Yes it has an extra cost when it comes to testing, if you have multiple hardware versions. But it's still better than having the same shit performance for the entire console generation.

You'd think a developer usued to PC games would be happy about this.
 
I really don't see why it's a big deal. Presumably it would be exactly the same except with faster graphics and possibly more ram.
 
I really don't see why it's a big deal. Presumably it would be exactly the same except with faster graphics and possibly more ram.

Yeah. It'd be plugging in a slightly higher config file. Like one for 1080p and one for 720p. Some games are already doing this for people who like high frame rate versus graphics.

I don't think it hurts the console's, I think it helps them. A completely new generation console that requires custom code would require a game be made for both machines or one or the other. Take GTA5 for example. It launched for past gen and didn't come out on new gen for a year or so. Why make a game for a new gen console when your install base is so much higher on the old gen?

For developers, it's a win because their install base is huge from the get go and they can prance their fancy graphic demos out at e3 with a disclaimer that you need v2 hardware for those graphics. Console makers win because they aren't losing money per console like before. If they aren't going to do anything uber custom to the GFX/CPU, then there's no reason not to do hardware refreshes. The SKU's could be XBoxOne (720p), XboxOne HD (1080p), XboxOne VR (VR Ready) in a few years. Each higher priced. Consumers could pick.
 
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So the argument against consoles was that they were detrimental to PC gaming because of lower specs and the "old" hardware lasted for too long which ended up in holding back the PC game side of things as consoles were the lowest common denominator. Now that the industry seems to be adopting a "mid cycle" (who the fuck has the authority to decide how long a hardware cycle should last in the first place?) upgrade for more performance they start whining like a bunch of lazy shits. If you think more powerful hardware is bad in the console market then don't fucking develop for it, no one is forcing you to do it. There will always be someone out there with the will to do so, you will probably not be missed.

The truth is developers/publishers are lazy and complacent in the benefits they drew from the status quo. Having a long lived static hardware platform they could target means they reduce testing and troubleshooting costs (and even then they still release buggy unfinished games that require release day patches to work properly) which means more profits to line their pockets with and it also allows them to reuse technology/assets over and over. This is why games ported to PC are more often than not buggy and unoptimized. They don't want to spend the resources in testing and optimizing them properly as the platform is fluid with hundreds of different configurations possible.
 
I don't see game developers worrying too much about this. It would give them more wiggle room for reaching and maintaining 60fps.
 
The only issue I would have with this would be game compatibility. I think that if a PS4K comes out and Sony DOESN'T consider it their "true" next-gen console (i.e. not the PS5) then it should NOT get ANY exclusive content or games over the PS4.

That's really the biggest issue I'd see would be the upgraded consoles getting exclusive shit. If they're both going to be equal content wise with one just having better graphics/framerate then the other I'm all for it!
 
This is why they should just release pc games as the standard and then port them over to the console side.
 
This is why they should just release pc games as the standard and then port them over to the console side.

Yes they should develop games on/for the minority platform, and then try to make them work kind-of-sort-of on the majority obsolete underpowered consumer hardware/software platform.

Makes economic sense to me. ;)
 
There will be no console updates this year that change the GPU or CPU. The updates if any will allow 4K streaming only. Can AMD do anything more significant at 28nm? Nope. It would be a terrible time to refresh when 14nm/16nm are just around the corner. It's not like they they didn't have to test multiple variants in previous generations. The article talks about different DVD speeds. There were process shrinks too. Either way they both should just wait until AMD can do HBM2 APUs and do a newer generation that has backward compatibility. Not ideal for console makers but, it's either that or lose to pc master race.
 
I don't see game developers worrying too much about this. It would give them more wiggle room for reaching and maintaining 60fps.

You mean 30 fps?

The screen refreshes at 60 FPS or more but that doesn't mean that the content is 60 FPS.

Same with 4k which can't even be delivered currently unless it's compressed. In most cases they can't even deliver 1080p. It's 720p or 1080i.

There will be no console updates this year that change the GPU or CPU. The updates if any will allow 4K streaming only. Can AMD do anything more significant at 28nm? Nope. It would be a terrible time to refresh when 14nm/16nm are just around the corner. It's not like they they didn't have to test multiple variants in previous generations. The article talks about different DVD speeds. There were process shrinks too. Either way they both should just wait until AMD can do HBM2 APUs and do a newer generation that has backward compatibility. Not ideal for console makers but, it's either that or lose to pc master race.

Exactly. People forget that consoles cost a significant amount of money to produce. It's the video games (content) that make it profitable.

They likely won't do true 4k streaming. Even compressed. It'll be some upscaled bullshit.

They'll market 60 FPS as 'True Vision' or something similar. Even if the infrastructure (bandwidth) was available to the lot of folks with 4K upscale capable consoles, the lot of people don't / won't pay for Tier 1 speeds. Unless they baked it into a subscription package like HBO go but where throttling was bypassed to deliver 'premium content'.

I mean, these things are possible. Technically. Look what NVIDIA is doing with the SHIELD and decoding.

I suppose they might offer something ala the N64 Expansion Pak which might expand memory on the systems which could enable the XB1 and PS4 to scrub and buffer content as GPU / CPU resources are available.

Who knows. It's pretty sad when you think about it that 720p and 1080i at 30 FPS are the best things being made available to consumers. But hey, it's getting the masses gaming. Short term that means more games for PC and long term it means development of better code.

It's important to remember that development falls into one of two camps:

  • A) Content that uses poor code or utilizes existing code (engines) to create games for a given amount of money for an expected amount of return.
  • B) Content that is limited by a given amount of resources whether it be money, hardware or man power.
Most games fall into A. Some games fall into B. Either way it's about the ability of content to provide a desired return. Unfortunately in this world things cost money and that's why we can't have nice things. If you could afford it it would just cost more as the real currency is the capability of humanity.

And right now. That shit just isn't possible.

That my friends is the lesson on life today.

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It's true....
What's the average mbps in NA?


What, maybe 15?

Content needs to be there... Except it isn't.


Companies are in this shit to make money. Plain and simple.

Does anyone here remotely think that 1440p monitors haven't become mainstream at a reasonable price for the last 2 years because of technology restraints or the cost to build them???


Milk milk milk
 
It's true....
What's the average mbps in NA?


What, maybe 15?


Companies are in this shit to make money. Plain and simple.

Does anyone here remotely think that 1440p monitors haven't become mainstream at a reasonable price for the last 2 years because of technology restraints or the cost to build them???


Milk milk milk

Lol. 15 average? Not even close
 
If the consoles were not 'new consoles' but '4K' versions of the consoles that simply play all games at '4K' (upscaled 1440p) 30FPS, The devs wouldn't have to do MUCH.
 
Well it could be a problem if you don't know about it. But two possible configurations are not the end of the world. You basically change a few graphics settings for the new version, it's not like it's impossible on a console, it's just not allowed for the user to change like on the PC. Yes it has an extra cost when it comes to testing, if you have multiple hardware versions. But it's still better than having the same shit performance for the entire console generation.

You'd think a developer usued to PC games would be happy about this.

It's different in a console world. Consoles only work because you have ONE spec, and can do a lot of low-level optimization you can't when you have multiple configurations.

Emulators give a very good example of the headaches the devs will run into. Take Dolphin as an example. Did you know the Metriod Prime games actually CARE about how fast you can read data off the source disk? If you read too fast, you actually break the game. You have to do a lot more then "change a few graphics settings", from a console perspective, you have to treat it as an entirely new piece of hardware. Either that, or code at such a high level you lose all the advantages of consoles.

EVERYONE who understands this is coming out against upgradable consoles. Upgradable consoles defeats the entire point of console systems. At that point, just call it what it is: a PC.
 
It's different in a console world. Consoles only work because you have ONE spec, and can do a lot of low-level optimization you can't when you have multiple configurations.

Emulators give a very good example of the headaches the devs will run into. Take Dolphin as an example. Did you know the Metriod Prime games actually CARE about how fast you can read data off the source disk? If you read too fast, you actually break the game. You have to do a lot more then "change a few graphics settings", from a console perspective, you have to treat it as an entirely new piece of hardware. Either that, or code at such a high level you lose all the advantages of consoles.

EVERYONE who understands this is coming out against upgradable consoles. Upgradable consoles defeats the entire point of console systems. At that point, just call it what it is: a PC.

Those kind of "optimizations" you talk about are a by gone era, that's why you have to cite a 15 year old game as an example. It's irrelevant. I'd rather have better graphics than to give in to a few whiny developers because they have to accommodate for two HW revisions.

Yes because two hardware revisions are exactly the same as millions of possibilities on a PC. Get off your high horse please.

An upgraded console is still less of a pain to work with than a completely new generation of consoles.
 
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