Originally Posted by Dragonskin
Then the last part. As far as I know SOE games still have to go through certification for patchs on PSN. I know for a fact that Microsoft games have to go through certification for Xbox Live. Sounds stupid, but at least they have quality control. Patches don't generally break console games like they can for PC.
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Games and patches HAVE to be certified by both Sony for their Playstation and by Microsoft for their XBox. Based on hearsay from the BF3 community, each patch certification costs around $10K-$40K. With BF3, this was a disaster for the PC playerbase. Patches became infrequent, and BALANCING ISSUES remained in the game until the next patch rolled around months later.
Everyone knows SOE breaks stuff with patch releases, then quick-fixes them in the following days. Now issues like hardware performance may get caught by the Sony certification system, but balancing between vehicles, classes, weapons, bases, maps, etc... will NOT. If something gets balance broken in a patch, it'll probably stay in the game until the next big patch.
I don't really care if Planetside 2 is released on the PS4. I don't think it will cannibalize the PC playerbase all that much. And it is quite likely that the exposure to the console crowd may increase the PC playerbase some. At the very least, it will guarantee a good income for SOE so they can continue to develop the game in the long term.
The only caveat to all this is how patches get managed as the game becomes multi-platform. Learn from DICE's mistakes with BF3. Use the PC platform to test the balancing... IE: keep patching it frequently. Then take that content and push it to console once it's proven. Don't do it all at the same time with promotions for certain platforms. That has already been proven to be an unefficient process.
2013-06-06, 09:21 AM
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