PS4 Architect: Early PlayStation Days Were "Magical"

[StewShearerOld]

PS4 Architect: Early PlayStation Days Were "Magical"

Mark Cerny believes the PS4 can bring us back to the creativity of previous console generations.

You might confuse Mark Cerny for a man concerned with cutting edge technology. He is, after all, the architect of Sony's PlayStation 4. That said, recent comments from Cerny have seen him pointing not to the PS4's power as its best asset, but rather the freedom it will give developers to pursue the creativity that defined previous generations. "The barrier to entry that existed on PS3 technologically is gone. If you can make games for PC, you can make games for PS4. So it's much easier to bring games to the platform, or if you're going to [develop] on the platform, it's once again much easier."

This ease of development was, according to Cerny a key facet that led to the diverse gaming options of previous generations. "I feel like the magical time was the early years of the PlayStation because there was such a variety of products coming out," he said. "There wasn't this sort of consistent overarching pattern that you might have seen in the last few years in the PlayStation 3 generation, and I really think we're heading back to that time. I think that's a very good thing." Cerny comments are, in part, elaborating on statements he made while serving as the keynote speaker at Develop 2013. During that event he said the creativity of the indie game movement, which Sony has been <a href=http://www.escapistmagazine.com/news/view/125431-Sony-Sends-Love-Letter-To-Vitas-Indie-Developers>been helping to foster, could "fundamentally alter the landscape of gaming."

Following a generation of consoles where ballooning budgets and same-y AAA titles were much the standard, Cerny's comments could be somewhat heartening for gamers who might be interested in content outside of current dominating blockbusters. Sony, in the least, looks to be following through on its oft-repeated promise to <a href=http://www.escapistmagazine.com/news/view/122696-Lone-Survivor-Heads-to-PS3-and-Vita>bring smaller, <a href=http://www.escapistmagazine.com/news/view/125552-Indie-Game-Proteus-Coming-to-PS3-and-Vita>more diverse projects to PlayStation platforms. Whether or not this results in a return to the diversity of yesteryear is something we'll have to wait and see.

Source: Edge Online


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[Evil Smurf]

I think the N64 was better then the Playstation, awkward controller aside.

 

[StewShearerOld]

I think the N64 was better then the Playstation, awkward controller aside.

Who needs Final Fantasy VII when you can have Quest 64!

Yeah, I was an N64 kid, too. Though, as I've gotten older I have come to enjoy more PlayStation franchises from that era.

 

[The_Echo]

I think the N64 was better then the Playstation, awkward controller aside.

Honestly, I think the N64 was the start of Nintendo consoles surviving solely on the popularity of Nintendo franchises. There aren't many third-party titles on the N64 that get much recognition.

PlayStation, on the other hand, had a much wider variety of games. Maybe it's my bias having grown up on PlayStation, but it felt like there was a lot of new happening on that console. A lot of weird, experimental games. I agree with Cerny; that era was magical.

 

[WeepingAngels]

I remember loving my N64 and disliking the Playstation because of loading times. Playstation was the first console that I played with loading times. Looking back though, it's clear that the Playstation had the better library. It seems that Sony was offering a breath of fresh air to developers who didn't enjoy working with Nintendo.

The way I understand it, both PS2 and PS3 were difficult to program. I don't understand why any console manufacturer would want that.

 

[Nazulu]

That would be really great but I just can't see it, especially when many believe graphics are the most important. The magic has been dead for awhile now with so many revivals, copy's and poor decisions, including I have to keep researching everything to make sure no one pulls a fast one me.

Good news either way though. I want to see more of EVERY genre, including arcade types, cause the last 5 years or so were terrible.

 

[Mr.Mattress]

Yeah, no. Sorry Mr. Cerny, but the magic creativity of the PS1/PS2 days are long gone, in an era where your game has to be as dark, gritty, bloody and cost billions of dollars to make in order to survive. Without it, your game falls flat, or your Nintendo. And Sony, you and most other companies are not Nintendo...

 

[Vrach]

Well, let's hope the developers take advantage of that. And I might be misreading what he said, but are PS4 and PC development more similar now? If so, here's to more frequent and better PC ports.

 

[Aiddon_v1legacy]

Yeah, no. Sorry Mr. Cerny, but the magic creativity of the PS1/PS2 days are long gone, in an era where your game has to be as dark, gritty, bloody and cost billions of dollars to make in order to survive. Without it, your game falls flat, or your Nintendo. And Sony, you and most other companies are not Nintendo...

The money thing is really why the PS1 and PS2 days were far more diverse; you could actually cater to niches with B and C-tier games that didn't need a huge budget to be realized nor needed to sell millions to earn their investment back. Yet for some reason, TONS of studios have gotten this notion that EVERY title needs to be an A-list blockbuster. In the process they've created this ENORMOUS game between AAA and lower budget titles. That's really not a good business strategy as it makes things too top-heavy and if flops happen they'll happen HARD.

I always see pubs like Ubisoft, EA, Activision, and 2K whining and moaning about budgets being big or how one game doesn't sell enough. I also notice something about these idiots: why aren't they making games for handhelds more often? I can't remember the last time I saw them release a game for the 3DS for instance. You'd think they'd be all over that system and getting their dev teams to work on it, but they seem to actively resent the bloody thing. Although oddly that seems to be a Western-centric problem. Japanese pubs like Namco, CAPCOM, Atlus, Square, and Sega have NO hesitation in releasing game for the thing. Diversity is the key.

 

[The White Hunter]

I dunno, I had more magical moments with my toothbrush SNES than my Playstation...

Although more diverse gaming is a plus, so this sounds good.

He must surely be hinting at Medievil 3 and Ape Escape 4!!

...

I can dream.

 

[The White Hunter]

I dunno, I had more magical moments with my toothbrush SNES than my Playstation...

Although more diverse gaming is a plus, so this sounds good.

He must surely be hinting at Medievil 3 and Ape Escape 4!!

...

I can dream.

MediEvil 3 would make me happy face...

Lets start a riot and demand the game! Screw dreaming! Dreaming is for squares!

But where could it be set?

Also: Ucy is Sabo.

 

[Adam Jensen_v1legacy]

Yeah, no. Sorry Mr. Cerny, but the magic creativity of the PS1/PS2 days are long gone, in an era where your game has to be as dark, gritty, bloody and cost billions of dollars to make in order to survive. Without it, your game falls flat, or your Nintendo. And Sony, you and most other companies are not Nintendo...

I don't think you understand the point he's trying to make. Sure, gaming industry has changed because of publishers that want CoD clones and GoW clones. But the PS4 is easy to develop for and it embraces independent developers. That's where we will hopefully see a lot of creativity and variety.

 

[Toadfish1]

I dunno, I had more magical moments with my toothbrush SNES than my Playstation...

Although more diverse gaming is a plus, so this sounds good.

He must surely be hinting at Medievil 3 and Ape Escape 4!!

...

I can dream.

I will tell you this - I think that, before this generation is over, Sony will have given the Medievil IP to an up-and-coming indie studio to see how they do with it.

Yeah, no. Sorry Mr. Cerny, but the magic creativity of the PS1/PS2 days are long gone, in an era where your game has to be as dark, gritty, bloody and cost billions of dollars to make in order to survive. Without it, your game falls flat, or your Nintendo. And Sony, you and most other companies are not Nintendo...

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AJKtJG7bDME

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ep40T7AwjnU


SO gritty.

 

[Bad Jim]

Yeah, no. Sorry Mr. Cerny, but the magic creativity of the PS1/PS2 days are long gone, in an era where your game has to be as dark, gritty, bloody and cost billions of dollars to make in order to survive. Without it, your game falls flat, or your Nintendo. And Sony, you and most other companies are not Nintendo...

I don't think you understand the point he's trying to make. Sure, gaming industry has changed because of publishers that want CoD clones and GoW clones. But the PS4 is easy to develop for and it embraces independent developers. That's where we will hopefully see a lot of creativity and variety.

But if a PC like architecture and an indie marketplace can change everything, why hasn't XBLA done so already? What about Steam? Really, it was never the problem of programming the renderer or getting published. The real problem is that most gamers have a lot of expectations that are really hard to meet on a shoestring budget.

It's not just graphics. They also expect the game to be virtually bug free. They expect it to be well playtested. They expect to be able to remap controls. They expect PC games to support both controllers and keyboard+mouse. They expect properly placed checkpoints. They expect functional AI. They expect difficulty settings. They expect aforementioned difficulty settings to be properly designed rather than lazy damage scaling. They expect achievements. They expect physics. They expect cutscenes to be skippable, pausable and rewindable, but more significantly they expect them to be there. They expect a well written story. They expect the gameplay to conform to the story yet still be fun.

Even just writing that list is starting to feel like a lot of work to me. Toss out graphics and you still have loads of work to do if you want people to play your game rather than the AAA games that do all that stuff. And of course a lot of people expect the graphics too. In the 90s, most games did not meet those criteria very well, so it was possible to produce games for about $100k and be up there with the best of them.

 

[Saltyk]

I suppose we'll see. But with the PS4 being very open to Indie Developers, I think we may see some cool stuff from them. They also seem to have a nice bit of variety in their games, which has me excited. Even if I don't intend to buy all of them, seeing some odd quirky games, like Octodad, makes me more confident about the direction they are going.

Yeah, no. Sorry Mr. Cerny, but the magic creativity of the PS1/PS2 days are long gone, in an era where your game has to be as dark, gritty, bloody and cost billions of dollars to make in order to survive. Without it, your game falls flat, or your Nintendo. And Sony, you and most other companies are not Nintendo...

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AJKtJG7bDME

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ep40T7AwjnU


SO gritty.

You forgot one.

 

[Angelous Wang]

I have to say that that 5 year period where the PS2 was the undisputed ruler of all consoles was like the golden age for me. Hell even though the Xbox did nowhere near was well it still put out Fable, KOTOR and Halo making it an even better time to be a gamer.