Comparing the two lists, it seems obvious this was a genuine error - because only two names appears on both lists (Ghost Games and Criterion Games). If the original list had been correct, and developers had been abandoning the platform (for whatever reason) you would see many of the same names in both lists, but that simply isn't the case. 28 of the 30 developers in the revised list don't appear on the original list at all - so I think that debunks the theory that EU developers are somehow abandoning PS4 development.
Having said that, I hope some developers from the original list do consider getting on board for PS4 development, particularly Techland and Croteam. There's already a nice mix of well-known developers in the revised list, and I can't wait to see what some of them bring to the table (or to E3 for that matter).
That was my understanding of his comments as well, particularly as he referred to cable TV companies. For example, having a subscription model where you pay a flat monthly fee, and get to play X number of games (without paying for each game individually), would certainly be an attractive option for some people.
I mean - look at people who trade in games when they have finished with them in order to buy the next game. People who fall into this category of gamer have no real interest in building a game collection - so a subscription model like this would potentially be a lot better value for money for that segment of the market.
Of course, if in future all games were simply streamed, a subscription service would be essential, because the end gamer would no longer own anything, and would simply be 'renting' games, much like they 'rent' channels from a TV provider.
Streaming games via Gaikai would probably be the only certain anti-piracy measure as there would be little code/content at the client end.
Everything else has unfortunately been bypassed time and time again. I can understand Sony and game publishers wanting to tackle the issue of piracy, but the fact that it is still a growing problem shows that past measures have proved futile in curbing it, while leading to some actual problems for legitimate paying customers.
I'm not sure what the eventual solution is - but this patent outlines yet another measure that could potentially go wrong, and impact legitimate consumers once more.
Good article, Carolyn, and I generally agree. The fact is that the issue could be resolved in many games by simply giving you the option at the beginning to play as male or female.
It has been done in the past - the Mass Effect series is a good recent example, but the option was also there in games like Deus Ex: Invisible War, Star Trek Voyager: Elite Force, Jedi Knight: Jedi Academy, and even the original Unreal (ironically a game made by Epic in the late 90s). With some clever writing and choice of character names, they didn't break the immersion for males or females playing the game.
Surely, then, more developers could simply offer that kind of choice right at the start of the game. I can understand it not working for games where they have written a specific kind of character - like Nathan Drake and Lara Croft, or even Jason Brody in Far Cry 3 - but for other games it seems it would be a rather small addition to offer the player choice.
At this point, some of the announced Playstation exclusives are appealing to me a lot more than what I've seen from Xbox in recent years - I have no interest in the Halo or Gears of War franchises - so unless MS bring something radically new and exciting to the table, I'd be a lot less interested in their next console.
Unless the 'rumoured' new Xbox specs are completely false, it seems to me that both the new Xbox and PS4 are going to be very similar in terms of hardware. Sure, they can tweak this and that, like the type of memory etc., but I can't see there being a major difference in terms of graphical fidelity or performance between them at the end of the day.
So a lot will depend on which games are exclusive to a platform, how backwards compatibility, used games and online services are handled, etc. Just pick your flavour - apples or oranges. :P
I hope all the people impacted by these layoffs manage to find alternative employment soon.
I was sort of expecting this kind of news industry wide with the move to a more 'standard' configuration for the next round of consoles. It should be all the more easy to port between the different platforms, so some positions were bound to become redundant and surplus to requirements.
Gallowhand's comments