David Jaffe interviewed by 1Up

It's a good interview. I'd also like to point out that this relates to the Gabe Newell/PS3 thread. Here is another world class designer that actually uses the hardware and knows a bit more about what he's talking about. He has a very different opinion on the matter without being unreasonable.

On another note, I'm not too sure about Calling All Cars. It looks like fun ... but for how long? Personally I'd rather him keep working on games like GoW, or preferably a new IP.
 
I think the analogy to the PS2 and its difficult development curve is perfect in this case. Everyone worried about it at first because they were not used to the architecture, but as more and more devs got using it and found out how best to take advantage of its power, they realized what a great machine they had in front of them. Likely the same for the PS3 but we will see. Sony needs to make sure their third-party support is much better this time around--MUCH better. Of course, development costs have to be taken into account and I agree that we will see fewer and fewer exclusives as we go down the road here because dev costs are just so damn high for anything besides little budget and independent titles. Jaffe is a smart guy and fields the tough questions really well. Great interview. Can't wait for GoW 2 and 3!!!
 
But Gabe did not like the fact that the ps3 was made hard and mostly different to make games for just for the sake of beeing hard and different, so that games stayed on their console, and that is a terrible decision, certainly seeing as development cost are already rising, and it may have been(or at least seemed then to be ) a smart decision, but that still does not mean it doesn't suck.
I'm sure the ps3 is amazingly powerful and I'm sure we well see incredible games from a lot of first party Dev's but that still doesn't negate that Gabe had a good point.
 
Gray Fox said:
But Gabe did not like the fact that the ps3 was made hard and mostly different to make games for just for the sake of beeing hard and different, so that games stayed on their console, and that is a terrible decision, certainly seeing as development cost are already rising, and it may have been(or at least seemed then to be ) a smart decision, but that still does not mean it doesn't suck.
I'm sure the ps3 is amazingly powerful and I'm sure we well see incredible games from a lot of first party Dev's but that still doesn't negate that Gabe had a good point.
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Yes, he had a good point, but it is meaningless in the end because no matter how much devs might bitch and moan, the strategy worked pretty darn well for the PS2, though it certainly remains to be seen whether or not they can stretch it to apply for the PS3 as well. Time will tell, but in the meantime, we will get great games on all the platforms for a while yet...at least until there is (according to Jaffe) only one platform for gamers in 10 years time--WTF??
 
Yes, he had a good point, but it is meaningless in the end because no matter how much devs might bitch and moan, the strategy worked pretty darn well for the PS2, though it certainly remains to be seen whether or not they can stretch it to apply for the PS3 as well.
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The problem is where with the Ps2 games costed less to make than the Xbox, the Ps2 is cheaper, and games costed a HELL of a lot less to make than now.

It isn't where you sell 400,000 copies making idk $25 off of each $50 game sold you just made all your money back. Games don't cost less than a million to make anymore. Now were looking at games that are gonna reach 40x that and are gonna therefor have to sell 40x more games than last generation.

Right now the Ps3 has a problem.
It need exclusives. Exclusives will go to the 360 if there isn't enough of a base on the Ps3. Ps3 isn't selling incredibly well and there arn't enough Ps3's made where if everyone bought one developers would make a profit.

Yeah Sony's idea worked last generation. However now games cost more to make and developers gotta sell more copies. It wont work as well this time around.
 
According to Jaffe Sony has took the route, as they always have, of releasing a more powerful console at the sake of developer friendliness. He says he believes the PS3 is more powerful than the 360 and that this strategy could very well work again. He does kind of have a point ... just look at his game, God of War. It can go head to head with almost any X-BOX game. It just takes developers time to master the hardware. Note: I'm not saying that the PS2 was more powerful than the X-BOX, but it was much more powerful than developers who were not accustomed to it gave it credit for (or were able to produce).

As far as their not being enough PS3's sold for developers to make a profit ... that's just wrong. For starters, the PS3 is doing better than the 360 was at this point. However, the most obvious reason why this isn't true is because developers wouldn't release games on it if that were the case.
 
Sure of course games like God of War when they come out on the Ps3 will have no problem sellings a lot of copies. However, Sony just got 2 million units shipped ou this weekendt. That is not how many were sold. Throw in developers don't make that much money off of a $50 game. I think when Valve had Vivendi as a publisher it was like $7? Considering if Ps3 games are selling at $50 then the publisher is going to take the Blu-Ray costs out on the developer. So I'll be nice and throw it at $10 a game(I'd imagine it to be more around $5). So if every Ps3 got sold and every person who has a Ps3 bought the game that would be $20 million. My guess is that value will be a little short on how many they need to sell to make a profit. However not all of the Ps3's are sold and not everyone is going to buy the game so that value becomes quite a bit shorter.

Maybe in 2/3 months, but not right now.
 
Unfortunately PS3 games cost $60, not $50. Also, Sony doesn't publish every game - so how much of a cut the developers get depends on whatever deal they have with their publisher, like with every console. Of course Sony gets paid royalties for games created on their console, but I have no idea what it is in relation to MS or Nintendo. Since you don't either, we really can't debate about it.

And also, and I say this with purely a basic understanding of economics: companies would not be releasing PS3 games if they couldn't make money.
 
And also, and I say this with purely a basic understanding of economics: companies would not be releasing PS3 games if they couldn't make money.
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Until Sony throws a bag of gold at them with the word "Exclusive" painted on it. Which makes me hate Sony more.
 
smwScott said:
And also, and I say this with purely a basic understanding of economics: companies would not be releasing PS3 games if they couldn't make money.
Click to expand...
At this point, companies are betting on the idea that the PS3 will reach a similar userbase to the PS2. Nothing more.
 
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