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[ZywyPL]

IMHO launch dates shouldn't be announced before the game isn't ready in at least 90%. Show the cinematics, show the gameplays, sure, but don't show the date, not even just the year, if you're not even halfway there. Delays happen because launch dates are set too soon, but I can't blame the publishers seeing how angry gamers get when they see a game and desperately want to play it right now, while not even knowing when it'll launch. FH5 is a recent example of game announcement done right - the game appeared out of nowhere, with proper gameplay demonstration, and close release date.

 

[kyliethicc]

Trust me, none of that is lost on me, it makes perfect sense. The big bucks are in the install base.

However, I consider a 1st party as an outlier to all this. They carry the burden of creating and nurturing a forward moving eco system. Software loss leaders, just like the console hardware itself needs to exist to plant the seed for tomorrow at the cost today.

I expect that tension existed at Sony, and Ryan being a money man first, tilted the scale towards immediate gain, while carrying the bravado of being able to deal with what happens later to still be under his control.

Once the PS5 is readily available on shelves, these games will sell. We can see that PS5 games rarely see meaningful discounts, they have plenty of steam left going forward.

Back in 2005, when God of War 2 was being greenlit, davidjaffe said he and Cory Barlog wanted it to be a PS3 game.

But Jaffe said Shuhei Yoshida said no, it had to be a PS2 game. Bad for business to be next gen only.

That was 15 years ago. Things haven't changed much.


God of War - 2005 - PS2
PS3 launch - 2006
God of War 2 - 2007 - PS2

...

God of War - 2018 - PS4
PS5 launch - 2020
God of War 2 - 2022 - PS4

 

[Elbow Identity Shallow]

The two games really don't seem to be connected in any way.
Lets remind people that Halo was delayed because simply because people thought it was terrible and they really had no option but to delay it. It was widely regarded to be a failure and an representation of Microsoft's new console and it follows a history of poor quality releases from 343 Industries.
The Master Chief Collection was an absolute mess that too them years to fix and they just could afford to do that sort of thing again with this game. This is something that they should have been well aware of before the world told them that they'd got it wrong. They're so nervous aboutgiving people a progress report that instead of using the traditional Alpha or Beta names for the recent test, both of which carry expectations of exactly where a game is, they instead made up a new a completely meaningless Test Flight label so that it didn't carry expectations of how ready the game should be.
Guerrilla Games are on an absolute roll with the Horizon series and the State of Play was absolutely one of the most viewed things that Sony had ever done. There is a lot of positivity behind the game but it was delayed because it needed a little extra time.
In the most basic of terns, which is clearly what we're dealing with in this thread for some reason:

1. Halo was delayed because 343 Industries are widely regarded to be terrible at what they do and they showed something that was close to universally slated. Alpha? Beta? Nope, Test Flight please.
2. Horizon was delayed because Guerrilla Games are considered to be a top tier developer after the first game and what they showed was close to universally loved. It needed a little more time so it was given a little more time.
   What a strange thread.

 

[kyliethicc]

extra. ignore

 

[Godot25]

We, players are also at fault. With petty console wars and stuff. COVID also didn't help

All of GAF was making fun of Microsoft with "no first party games at console launch" And now, when Microsoft is not willing to delay Halo anymore, GAFers are hating Microsoft because they are not willing to delay it further.

Yes. Microsoft could made sure that Halo Infinite will be ready with co-op and Forge, but only way would be Activision way with Vanguard by throwing every available first-party studio at the project. But I'm glad the didn't do that.

As far as Horizon: Forbidden west. Jimbo is also at fault. He didn't made COVID or anything, but he bulshitted players with that "epic first year" promises in times where he should know how much impact COVID had on development. And he still promised God of War and Horizon and GT7 for 2021.

 

[alabtrosMyster]

I suspect that Horizon will be a great game day 1... Halo is planned for release on dec 8th and completed 5years later on gamepass.

 

[Heisenberg007]

Trust me, none of that is lost on me, it makes perfect sense. The big bucks are in the install base.

However, I consider a 1st party as an outlier to all this. They carry the burden of creating and nurturing a forward moving eco system. Software loss leaders, just like the console hardware itself needs to exist to plant the seed for tomorrow at the cost today.

I expect that tension existed at Sony, and Ryan being a money man first, tilted the scale towards immediate gain, while carrying the bravado of being able to deal with what happens later to still be under his control.

Once the PS5 is readily available on shelves, these games will sell. We can see that PS5 games rarely see meaningful discounts, they have plenty of steam left going forward.

Except now we know that both Horizon Forbidden West and God of War Ragnarok started production for Ps4 in 2017 and 2018 respectively when Yoshida and Layden were leading PlayStation. Jim Ryan started in 2019 when these decisions had been made.

 

[SlimySnake]

I'm not sure if the multiplatform nature is the root issue. COVID is a big one for both 343 and H:FW. Mismanegement in general is a big issue with 343 and has always been an issue.

I don't like that these cross platform games continue to come out, but the reality is that games are too big to fail these days so I expect this to only increase going forward. It probably will be mid-generation before true exclusives come out as a norm, sadly.

We had pretty much every launch and holiday 2020 game make it last year. Demon Souls, Miles, Godfall, yearly Cod and AC entries. Returnal and Ratchet launched soon after. Covid is just that, an excuse.

The way I look at it is very simple. The game was delayed by say 2 months right? How long does it take to port a game? no one here knows for sure, but lets take the bare minimum Cerny talked about. Time to triangle= 1 month. So say it took a month to do the PC version of Horizon 1, another month to do PS4 Pro port for Horizon 2, and another month to do the PS5 port. That's 3 months. You take those out and the game is launching in November 2021. We know it was longer than that especially since GG devs were fixing dozens of bugs in every patch of the PC version for 6 months. How much time did they waste there?

I brought up how MS had hired Bluepoint to do the Titanfall port leaving respawn to finish the game on time. Nixxes did the same for Crystal Dynamics. If porting was that easy, these studios wouldnt have any gigs. It takes time. It takes resources and clearly these studios are struggling.

 

[James Sawyer Ford]

We had pretty much every launch and holiday 2020 game make it last year. Demon Souls, Miles, Godfall, yearly Cod and AC entries. Returnal and Ratchet launched soon after. Covid is just that, an excuse.

The way I look at it is very simple. The game was delayed by say 2 months right? How long does it take to port a game? no one here knows for sure, but lets take the bare minimum Cerny talked about. Time to triangle= 1 month. So say it took a month to do the PC version of Horizon 1, another month to do PS4 Pro port for Horizon 2, and another month to do the PS5 port. That's 3 months. You take those out and the game is launching in November 2021. We know it was longer than that especially since GG devs were fixing dozens of bugs in every patch of the PC version for 6 months. How much time did they waste there?

I brought up how MS had hired Bluepoint to do the Titanfall port leaving respawn to finish the game on time. Nixxes did the same for Crystal Dynamics. If porting was that easy, these studios wouldnt have any gigs. It takes time. It takes resources and clearly these studios are struggling.

it’s easier to deal with Covid issues if the game is in the beta phase, since it’s mostly testing/iteration at that point

mid-development is trickier since the core game isn’t locked down

what you’re saying may be true, there’s definitely a cost to multiplat development but in this case the ps4 engine was already mostly ready