Malkai Inos
Onikanabo Brigade
Caldari State
1066
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Posted - 2013.12.11 02:50:00 -
[1] - Quote
The current UE3 engine Dust is built on is modified for the PS3 architecture. Porting to PS4 almost certainly means a complete rewrite of most of the backend/engine stuff and/or an outright port to UE4 which would pretty much entail the recreation of everything that does not fit on a postit on some whiteboard somewhere at the office.
This is not gamma testing. It's essentially scrapping a project and and another of the same name and concept from scratch. This means zero revenue for years all while the bills keep floating in and developers continue to be paid.
The team of CCP shanghai mostly consists of developers that were hired specifically for dust and (now) last gen consoles, including former Bungie (Halo series) employees. It's highly doubtful that porting to x86 will be of any short term use for a team that does not have a profound x86 background.
The PS3 is not obsolete and probably won't be for quite some time. Previous experience from earlier generations suggests that CCP has at least 2 years before not porting leads to any significant financial issues.
Case in point: I don't think there's a reason or benefit to focusing on PS4 right now, even in the long run.
You can take a benign object, -you can take a cheeseburger and deconstruct it to its source...
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Malkai Inos
Onikanabo Brigade
Caldari State
1066
|
Posted - 2013.12.11 04:54:00 -
[3] - Quote
DusterBuster wrote:
One of my major points is that it will take loads of money, time, and effort for CCP to truly optimize Dust for the PS3. It took top tier PS3 exclusive studios (such as mad dog) years to be able to do it, and even if CCP has people from bungie (who have yet to make a game for PS3) it will still take them years. So, after two to three years to get all of their PS3 optimizations done, and figure out how to take great advantage of the PS3 hardware, it will have been a waste, since no one will be using a ps3 any longer.
I understand that the PS3 isn't dead currently, but no new people are going to be coming to it. And over the coming months, people are only going to be leaving.
Also - My Gamma Testing point had nothing to do with the PS4.
Optimisation is always riddled with increasingly diminishing returns the further you optimize. The question is where Dust lies in terms of optimization.
Sure, it took Naughty Dog (i assume you mean these guys since Mad Dog didn't ring a bell with me) a load of time and money for The Last of Us but they did push the console to its very limits. Unless you need to look like a AAA title (i don't think Dust needs to) you can get away with a fraction of the cost and get acceptable results.
When the PS3/UE3 shows signs of becoming an untenable hindrance, gradually switch more and more devs to the PS4 port so that the current product is of the highest quality possible and "down times" are minimized. I do expect the current PS3 client to expand well into the lifecycle of the PS4 with the latter just looking a "tad" prettier (meaning that need and cost for PS4 optimization is limited because it has more performance to waste) before support for the former is cut entirely, years down the road. I think most of dusts burning issues have little if anything to do with the PS3's tech so we're not there yet in my book.
I misread the gamma testing as "halt development for PS3, re-release on PS4 in three months" or something along those lines, so yeah. 
I remain sceptical of the notion that un-releasing the game is helping much, besides for marketing reasons of which there is none to speak of anyways. Players are now used to see their stuff shifted around dramatically all the time. Only consequence is a handfull of "respec plox" threads every now and then. I expected nothing else of a CCP game and everyone around before and during release already saw the rough times ahead. Damage is done. No point in making any more fuzz about it imho.
You can take a benign object, -you can take a cheeseburger and deconstruct it to its source...
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