Sony Exec: PS4 Versions of Multiplatform Games Must Be The Best

[Steven Bogos]

Sony Exec: PS4 Versions of Multiplatform Games Must Be The Best

Sony Worldwide Studios president Shuhei Yoshida says the biggest challenge with the PS4 was to make it attractive to third-party developers.

"We need to make sure users consider the PS4 version to be the best and the one they want to play," said Sony Worldwide president Shuhei Yoshida to Japanese publication 4gamer.net [http://www.4gamer.net/games/990/G999024/20130425111/]. "That might mean that the graphics are better, the controller is more comfortable, or the console is more user-friendly, like you don't have to turn the power on and off or you can switch between your game and Netflix at will. Those things will become key." Yoshida discussed at length the PS4's focus on third party development, along with the limitations of the "share button," and where the PS4 stands on the "war for the living room."

Yoshida says that the biggest challenge Sony faced in the PS4's development was trying to make the machine friendlier for third-party developers to make games for. "Even we, had a hard time developing for PS3 [at first]. But third parties had real trouble developing or porting games, because [the system] was so different," explains Yoshida, mirroring comments from big-name third-party developers such as Bethesda, who have run into difficulties with the PS3 ports of its games [http://www.escapistmagazine.com/news/view/119387-Future-of-PS3-Skyrim-DLC-Uncertain] in the past.

The PS3 has seen some amazing games squeezed out of its aging and complicated hardware, but Yoshida says for the PS4 they really want to create a better development environment for third-party developers right from the start. He confirms that the inclusion a massive 8GB RAM for the PS4 was a response to demands from developers who struggled with the PS3's sparse 256MB RAM. "There is a saying that the ease of making something goes hand in hand with the ease of doing business. So we want to make it easier to do business and to build an ecosystem."

"It's difficult to believe that games like The Last Of Us and Beyond: Two Souls are running on exactly the same hardware as those early games. Those developers have studied hard to make a great PS3 game. But it's taken a long time [for developers] to reach this point. This time we're considering how to create a better development environment for third parties from the start"

The "share" button is one of the most touted features of Sony's upcoming console, giving players a dedicated button to desperately try and show off their wicked sick Call of Duty highlights to their friends. It will however, come with a few limitations, as Yoshida explains: "There will be parts of a game that the maker does not want people to be able to see," he said. "For example, on Vita, developers can in certain scenes disable the feature that lets users take a screenshot, and [the Share function] will have a similar mechanism. The creator may not want to make video of the final boss sharable, for instance."

"In terms of the 'war for the living room', we have no intention of abandoning that approach. After all, Sony is a company that has a long history of making audio-visual products that are designed for the living room, so this is a natural course for us," said Yoshida. He said when the PS4 was first revealed, they wanted to focus on the most important aspect of the console: that it is a gaming machine, hence the multimedia aspects of the system were slightly downplayed.

Source & Image: Edge [http://www.4gamer.net/games/990/G999024/20130425111/]

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[Gearhead mk2]

...so, they're saying that their version must be the best and utilise all the exculsive features and stuff, then they say that they had trouble attracting third-party devs, then they're saying that developers don't have to use the exclusive features if they don't feel like it.

Brilliance. /sarcasm

 

[GonzoGamer]

It will however, come with a few limitations, as Yoshida explains: "There will be parts of a game that the maker does not want people to be able to see," he said. "For example, on Vita, developers can in certain scenes disable the feature that lets users take a screenshot, and [the Share function] will have a similar mechanism. The creator may not want to make video of the final boss sharable, for instance."

Hmm. Sounds like another great feature that developers wont implement on their own. The ps3 had a lot of cool features that only showed up in a handful of games: custom soundtracks & saving a clip to youtube.
My question is, will they (the devs) have to put in extra work to make a game use the share features or will they have to put in extra work to block the share features?

 

[VanQ]

The "share" button is one of the most touted features of Sony's upcoming console, giving players a dedicated button to desperately try and show off their wicked sick Call of Duty highlights to their friends. It will however, come with a few limitations, as Yoshida explains: "There will be parts of a game that the maker does not want people to be able to see," he said. "For example, on Vita, developers can in certain scenes disable the feature that lets users take a screenshot, and [the Share function] will have a similar mechanism. The creator may not want to make video of the final boss sharable, for instance.

Fair enough, I suppose. But call me crazy, why not let the players decide what they want to screenshot and upload? Give us the option to "spoiler tag" an image we upload to say, FaceBook, so that the image thumbnail is marked as a spoiler so we can choose whether we want to expand it or not?

 

[sid]

I'm sorry, did he just say that they're giving us a button that allows us to share our experiences, except only the game's developer may deem what we're sharing is appropriate? I was pretty mad about the share button right off the bat, but this borders hilarity.

 

[Abomination]

I mean, I most certainly would rather play Skyrim on Playstation or Xbox if they... you know... had the incredible mod support and community that the PC version offered.

What Playstation has going for it is its exclusives, that's it. It has a roster of some damn fine Playstation only games that would run like a dream on PCs, that PC users would want to mod the fuck out of and that only exist on the Playstation to make people actually want to buy a Playstation.

I guess it also has the benefit of having a better online system than Xbox live which makes one wonder if Xbox would even register if it wasn't for Halo.

 

[GoaThief]

The "share" button is one of the most touted features of Sony's upcoming console, giving promotional s a dedicated will ton to desperately try and show off their wicked sick Call of Duty highlights to their friends. It will however, come with a few limitations, as Yoshida explains: "There will be parts of a game that the maker does not want people to be able to see," he said. "For example, on Vita, developers can in certain scenes disable the feature that lets users take a screenshot, and [the Share function] will have a similar mechanism. The creator may not want to make video of the final boss sharable, for instance.

Fair enough, I suppose. But call me crazy, why not let the players decide what they want to screenshot and upload? Give us the option to "spoiler tag" an image we upload to say, FaceBook, so that the image thumbnail is marked as a spoiler so we can choose whether we want to expand it or not?

Call me cynical, but the reason for that option is to make it trickier for users to expose flaky moments in games. That reassurance to developers and publishers means promo bullshots will still rise to the fore and the underbelly remains hard to expose.

I don't think allowing this kind of blocking is a good thing at all.

 

[ajay708]

You know, the more I hear about next gen the less I see the consoles as consoles.

Remember when the only reason you bought a console was to play games? Pepperidge Farm remembers.

Now its about Netflix, sharing easy to get achievements on facebook and twitter, and surfing the internet. We have PHONES and TABLETS for that. Blue ray players? Its cheaper to get a player than a new console.

Where are the games? Because I don't see them. It seems like the game industry is stuck in 2009 and hasn't realized that the social gaming boat sailed a long time ago. When even Peter Molyneux says we should focus on games and less on facebook, being a voice of reason, that's when something is wrong.

Well you have to give Sony some kind of credit, their the only company left that's focused on games. Microsoft is more concerned with shoving their Windows 8 garbage down consumers throats and trying to make the Xbox an online cable box. Nintendo is lost in the sauce and were too busy building a tablet to compete with ipad that they completely forgot that they're a console manufactuer and their fanbase needs actual games to play in order to use their console. Which leaves us with Sony who so far I've been nothing shy of impressed with. They've said several times their number one focus is games and everything else is just an additional feature. That includes Blueray, sharing, apps, etc. it's your choice if you want to use those features so if you don't like it then you don't have to use it, unlike Microsoft with those, "always online and no used games" rumors, if true you have no choices.

 

[ajay708]

You know, the more I hear about next gen the less I see the consoles as consoles.

Remember when the only reason you bought a console was to play games? Pepperidge Farm remembers.

Now its about Netflix, sharing easy to get achievements on facebook and twitter, and surfing the internet. We have PHONES and TABLETS for that. Blue ray players? Its cheaper to get a player than a new console.

Where are the games? Because I don't see them. It seems like the game industry is stuck in 2009 and hasn't realized that the social gaming boat sailed a long time ago. When even Peter Molyneux says we should focus on games and less on facebook, being a voice of reason, that's when something is wrong.

Well you have to give Sony some kind of credit, their the only company left that's focused on games. Microsoft is more concerned with shoving their Windows 8 garbage down consumers throats and trying to make the Xbox an online cable box. Nintendo is lost in the sauce and were too busy building a tablet to compete with ipad that they completely forgot that they're a console manufactuer and their fanbase needs actual games to play in order to use their console. Which leaves us with Sony who so far I've been nothing shy of impressed with. They've said several times their number one focus is games and everything else is just an additional feature. That includes Blueray, sharing, apps, etc. it's your choice if you want to use those features so if you don't like it then you don't have to use it, unlike Microsoft with those, "always online and no used games" rumors, if true you have no choices.

But they still have to give developers the freedom of choice. He made a lot of since when he was talking about the boss fights. That could be an instant spoiler and actually turn someone away from buying the game. Try to put yourself in the mind of a developer that needs their games to make money and it doesn't take long to understand the extra precaution.

 

[Big_Boss_Mantis]

So far there is nothing really getting me excited about this upcoming (or current if you include the WiiU) generation of consoles. With GTA5 and Watchdogs both getting PS3/360 releases it's looking more and more like I might just hold tight with my PS3/360 for a year or two before making the jump into any consoles from this most recent generation.

The way it stands now I have such a back log of games on my cuurent consoles I've bought and not played yet I could probably start a new game and play it through to completion then repeat the process and not have to buy another game until sometime next year.

Spread the word!

Sony just can`t seem to gasp that GAMES SELL CONSOLES. Isn`t that so simple?
The PS4 has NO BACKWARDS COMPATIBILITY and NO SYSTEM SELLER.
GTA 5, Metal Gear Solid 5, Bioshock, Gran Turismo 6, God Of War, The Last Of Us, Beyond: Two Souls, Dark Souls 2. All these games were announced/released for the CURRENT generation. Those could be system sellers if they came for the new hardware (depending on the taste of the player).
Instead, we have PS4 with Killzone, Infamous and PS3 ports. People won`t buy new hardware to play: 1. franchises that sold poorly, 2. ports of games that can be played on a system they already have. See the WiiU.
Until another one of the BIG NAMES I mentioned above gets released it will be a couple of years minimum. Those ain`t annualized franchises (that`s why most of them remain good)...
Not to mention the huge backlog this current generation left. (I haven?t finished more than half my games)

I may be repeating myself, but I am an Playstation heavy user. I own everything from the PS2 ahead (PSP, PS3, Vita, an Xperia Play and even a Move controller). Still, I see no reason to be remotely interested in the PS4.
So, really? Who is gonna buy this thing?!

 

[Adam Jensen_v1legacy]

Only if it's natural. But if it means that Sony wants third party developers to make their games look and play worse than they can on other platforms then fuck Sony and those developers.

 

[fix-the-spade]

...so, they're saying that their version must be the best and utilise all the exculsive features and stuff, then they say that they had trouble attracting third-party devs, then they're saying that developers don't have to use the exclusive features if they don't feel like it.

Well it kind of is. For the PS3 I'm pretty sure Sony's plan was to try and tie third party developers into a system that was incompatible with the other systems and leave them either developing for the PS3 or missing out on sales for the top console.

Of course, reality struck and struck hard.

For the PS4 they've gone completely the other way by building a machine based on PC architecture, so it's relatively cheap and simple to develop for. They're also not trying to force their 'cool features' onto third parties either, but at the same time they're offering those third parties a high degree of control and options on how to use them if they want to.

It's still early days, but they do seem to have learned from the epic disaster that the PS3 has been, the approach has gone from telling the market 'This is what we will give you' to actually asking what developers want. I don't think it'll propel them back to PS1/2 heights (because I think consoles as a whole are on the wane) but it's a huge improvement over their attitude to customers six years ago.

 

[Irridium]

Just when developers are finally able to best use the power of the PS3 (developing skills, tools, and all that) they abandon it all when a new console comes out.

Anyone else see this as a bit of a waste? With the skills and tools and experience they have now they'd be able to get a good few more years out of the PS3.

 

[PoolCleaningRobot]

At the risk of inciting a shit storm, I really don't see why some people completely hate the ps4. I recognize that lack of backwards compatibility is huge deal for some people but it's not like Sony hasn't been focusing on making it a gaming machine. And if their plan to use streaming to allow a demo of any game before you buy, then they already have something pc's don't do yet

 

[fix-the-spade]

Anyone else see this as a bit of a waste? With the skills and tools and experience they have now they'd be able to get a good few more years out of the PS3.

Not really, even with five years of experiences behind them the PS3 is still a horribly complicated, under powered and limiting piece of hardware.

There comes a point where you just have to drop the lemon.

 

[Mister K]

At the risk of inciting a shit storm, I really don't see why some people completely hate the ps4. I recognize that lack of backwards compatibility is huge deal for some people but it's not like Sony hasn't been focusing on making it a gaming machine. And if their plan to use streaming to allow a demo of any game before you buy, then they already have something pc's don't do yet

Nobody really hates it ay the moment. Rather, people are frustrated about Sony concentrating on the platform, not on the GAMES for said platform. At least that is what I understand.

 

[Erttheking]

Not gonna lie guys, I don't see what all the fuss is about.