And it's gonna take a lot of 0s on the end of that check to convince Capcom otherwise. The company has reaffirmed its multiplatform development strategy to shareholders in its annual report released today. "As a measure to counter the soaring costs of software development for the next-generation consoles, which has been a cause for concern, we have shifted our focus to the multiplatform strategy," the report states. "Furthermore, in order to make this shift possible, we have implemented the company-wide use of our own base technology for software development tool, 'MT Framework.'"
If that message isn't clear enough for you, Capcom restates its commitment to spreading its seeds far and wide in the "Outlook for the Future" section of the report: "all major titles launched during the next fiscal year or thereafter will be developed as multiplatform games." Sounds like Wii owners can take this one of two ways: 1) Capcom is done giving Wii "major title" support; or 2) Bionic Commando, Street Fighter IV and Resident Evil 5 confirmed for Wii! (Don't hold your breath for the latter.)
Among the company's new hires are Rainbow Six: Vegas' Olivier Leonardi as art director; Burnout Paradise's Chris Sweetman as audio director; Mass Effect's Tim Appleby as the project's lead character artist; and Driver: Parallel Lines' Chris Dawson as producer. The company still plans to double the size of its current team to more than 60 staff as a result of the project, which to this point remains a mystery. However, with Sweetman and creative director Paul Wedgwood both taking to the stage next week at Develop 2008, perhaps it won't be long before we find out just what these folks are up to.
London-based Splash Damage has been noticeably quiet since the release of last year's tactical shooter Quake Wars, though we've been at this gig long enough to know that no news does not necessarily mean the code monkeys are all on sabbatical. As it turns out, the company plans to do its best mitosis impression this year by doubling in size as it ramps up for a new mysterious project, and it's seeking new blood to help out in areas such as art, programming, and design. Your guess is as good as ours as to what Splash Damage is up to, though the company confirms that the project is a multi-platform title and -- wait for it -- "genre defining."
As Quake Wars left many of us cold, we'll be sure not to get too excited until there is reason to do so, though the studio will be on hand at this month's GDC, and company owner and design guru Paul Wedgwood will be waxing poetic about his company is a panel titled "From Amateur to Triple-A in Five Years," so perhaps we'll be able to glean more information from him without having to slip the exec a mickey. We'll keep that as plan 'B,' you know, just in case.
Toaster-headed space horror news now, with EA outlining its intentions to get Dead Space running equally well on both of its intended console platforms. When asked if the PlayStation 3 version would suffer any Madden-ing technical shortcomings (as we've sadly come to expect from certain publishers), executive producer Glen Schofield told Videogamer.com, "The plan has to be, and it will be, on parity with the 360."
EA Redwood Shores is currently developing the sci-fi screamfest with the Xbox 360 as lead platform, with a shift to the PS3 following in the next few months. "That is so that you're not downgrading the PS3 later," said Schofield. "We're putting all our engineering muscle into making the PS3 great, and then we'll know that the 360 will be great."
Great news, especially if Dead Space turns out ... great.
Wedbush Morgan analyst Michael Pachter is all but certain the Mass Effect trilogy is going multiplatform. In the latest episode of GameTrailers' Bonus Round (start about three-fourths of the way into the video), Pachter notes that, given the financial expectations Electronic Arts has with its recently-acquired developer, Mass Effect 2 "has to, has to" come to the PlayStation 3 in addition to the Xbox 360.
More interesting is what Pachter says after his ME2 assertion. "I wouldn't be shocked if Mass Effect One came to the PS3," he said. We aren't sure the exact details of EA's acquisition, but we do know the original Mass Effect was published by Microsoft Games Studio, leading us to assume it was a safely exclusive title. Could EA port and publish the game on Sony's console? We doubt Microsoft would be willing to let that platinum-selling title go without a fight.
Though pointing out the success of PlayStation 3 launch titles such as Resistance and Motorstorm, Sony executive Phil Harrison told Game Informer magazine (via GI.biz) that "it's always dangerous to judge any system by its launch lineup," while adding, "you only have to go back to the games that launched PlayStation 1 and Playstation 2."
Excellent observation! Indeed, if we remember when 1UPcompared launch lineup review scores, there is a curious (albeit not stringent) trend: the two consoles on the list with the worst-reviewed launch lineups belong to consoles (Wii and PlayStation One) who have shown great success, whereas the opposite has also proven true (GameCube and Dreamcast had well-received launch titles).
Given the trend, then, we say Sony should embrace the notion of a lackluster PS3 launch. They've got a good statistical probability of pulling out this generation (especially if calls for a price drop don't go unheeded).
An extendedHarry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix trailer for WIi is our video pick for the day. Watch Harry and friends swing their wands around, seemingly in coordination with the Wii Remote. Or so we hope. The game is set for release on eight platforms next month, and like other multiplatform titles, the Wii version is the biggest unknown.
You kids today think you've got it so good. But ya don't! Back in my day, there was only one dominant system, and we bought all the crappy games that came out for it, and that's the way we liked it, dagnabbit!
Now you got all sorts of different systems clogging up your fancy-schmancy entertainment center, and what's worse, publishers are coming out with the same game for all of 'em. The last Madden game came out on 11 different systems, for Pete's sake!
You might think it's better to have a choice, but it's not! Now ya gotta choose between the fancy graphics on the PS3, the online features on the Xbox 360 and the swishy control scheme of the Wii. Things ain't looking so good now that you got that decision staring you in the face, eh sonny boy?
Even the portable versions are getting a second look these days. Back in my day, portable versions knew their place as the neglected, pixelated, black-and-white cousins to their console superiors. Now these upstarts are rivaling or even bettering their rightful console masters. What's the world coming to!
Hey, don't walk away while I'm ranting at'chya. I need someone to drive me to the pharmacy to get my pills. Come back here and listen to me tell you how bad things are, consarnit!
Ever since it was announced, there's been some confusion as to which platforms Ubisoft's Assassin's Creed would be coming to: a leaked release schedule listed "Assassin" as a PS3, Xbox 360, Wii, and PSP title; a Gamespot list of Ubi's E3 titles also listed Assassin's Creed as being available on both 360 and PS3. Luke Smith at 1UP writes, "Assassin's Creed is coming to the Xbox 360. It's one of those secrets no one is supposed to know about (like Halo: Forerunners) yet everyone does. Sources close to Ubisoft have informed us that the game will definitely see release on Microsoft's platform -- even though the company still refuses to admit the game's inevitable multiplatform fate."
So why the secrecy? Considering their comments ("Assassin's Creed is coming to the PS3. No other announcements have been made.") and their history as a multiplatform publisher, Smith whittles it down to one of two things:
Timed exclusivity: With the loss of timed exclusivity of the money-printing GTA series, Sony might be angling to fill their stable with some more exclusive content, if only for a little while (6 months?).
Exclusive rights: That means Sony put up the cash to keep Assassin's Creed out of Microsoft's grubby, GTA-fondling mitts (and off Peter Moore's other other bicep).
One could consider Grand Theft Auto and Assassin's Creed the first of many multiplatform dances that will invariably become routine in this latest round of console wars. As both manufacturers angle for more reasons to get people to plunk down their multiples of $100, they'll both be busting out their checkbooks to keep attractive properties exclusive. With increased next-gen development costs, nabbing a game as purty as Assassin's Creed ain't coming cheap for Sony (insert joke about how they can afford it since the PS3 is so expensive ... laugh maniacally).
With game development costs growing to monstrous proportions and trampling the unconventional concepts roaming the streets of less ambitious publishers, it doesn't take a brilliant businessman to realize that multiplatform releases are likely to generate more money than exclusives. It might, however, take a brilliant programmer to carry out that strategy. Since the Xbox 360 and PS3 both embrace the paradigm of parallelism (or really pretty graphics, if you prefer), it has become almost a foregone conclusion that a large number of titles will inevitably wind up on both platforms.
It's not an outlandish conclusion to reach, but the journey may not be as easy as all that. In a recent (and very interesting) Ars Technica interview, Xbox 360 developer Matt Lee points out that porting games between the two systems might be a tad tricky. "I think porting from Xbox 360 to PS3 will be reasonably difficult, since the Xbox 360 has a lot more general purpose processing power that can be flexibly reallocated, and all of the Xbox 360 CPU cores have equal access to all memory. The asymmetric nature of the Cell could easily lead to situations where the game has too little of one type of processing power and too much of another."
Of course, the Xbox 360's trio of general purpose processors may pose an equally significant problem when attempting to tackle a game designed with the PS3's Cell design in mind. Adding multithreaded graphics engines and physics routines to the equation only makes things more complicated and fails to provide a clear answer to the question: If a game costs a fortune to produce, how many publishers are likely to invest even more in porting a game across the Microsoft-Sony divide? It may not have been a major issue in the previous generation, but money changes everything.
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