Minecraft Getting Preferential Treatment From Microsoft

[Reyalsfeihc]

Since Notch is holding so much leverage now over Microsoft's wallet, maybe him and some of the other big XBLA developers should start pushing for a policy change. You know, because Microsoft responds to $$$.

 

[AzrealMaximillion]

"How did you get those stats from MS?" asked Polytron. "We still don't know exactly how much Fez sold almost a month later. You get stats in 24 hours?

Uh, did I miss something? Minecraft broke a record, they told Mojang. Fez likely didn't, they didn't tell Polytron. I'm not saying there's not bias, but that particular hook doesn't look strong enough to hang something on.

Sales numbers are vital to small companies like Polytron. Withholding that info could affect their future plans a lot. Not being told your sales after a month is still BS.

 

[AzrealMaximillion]

Since Notch is holding so much leverage now over Microsoft's wallet, maybe him and some of the other big XBLA developers should start pushing for a policy change. You know, because Microsoft responds to $$$.

And tomorrow I'll be replacing Pope Benedict...

 

[Something Amyss]

Well, it is, because Microsoft's XBLA policies would normally make the updates he's referring to impossible. It's actually directly addressing the article.

Not impossible, just means it'd dig into the gazillion dollar honey pot that is Minecraft. Mincraft is actually in a fairly unique position to do that, actually.

It is telling that they will make exceptions, but then we already knew that. It's part of the reason we know Valve are dirty rotten liars regarding why they don't do updates to XBox games.

 

[Something Amyss]

Sales numbers are vital to small companies like Polytron. Withholding that info could affect their future plans a lot. Not being told your sales after a month is still BS.

Wasn't this an issue for the guys who made Breath of Death VIII/Cthulhu Saves the World?

 

[AzrealMaximillion]

Sales numbers are vital to small companies like Polytron. Withholding that info could affect their future plans a lot. Not being told your sales after a month is still BS.

Wasn't this an issue for the guys who made Breath of Death VIII/Cthulhu Saves the World?

Yeah, he was complaining about not knowing his sales as well. Then he sold the game on Steam and both games sold literally 10 times the amount that the XBLA version did. If your game isn't a sure seller, MS doesn't care to help you out.

 

[Something Amyss]

Yeah, he was complaining about not knowing his sales as well. Then he sold the game on Steam and both games sold literally 10 times the amount that the XBLA version did. If your game isn't a sure seller, MS doesn't care to help you out.

A shame, since those guys REALLY deserved promotion and such.

Those games are awesome, totally worth the price, and I'd like to see more games. But dicking around people on their product is just...awful.

 

[AzrealMaximillion]

Yeah, he was complaining about not knowing his sales as well. Then he sold the game on Steam and both games sold literally 10 times the amount that the XBLA version did. If your game isn't a sure seller, MS doesn't care to help you out.

A shame, since those guys REALLY deserved promotion and such.

Those games are awesome, totally worth the price, and I'd like to see more games. But dicking around people on their product is just...awful.

Of they got they're promotion once the game came out on Steam. As did Bastion. MS just has this ability to make sure that critically acclaimed games on XBLA get next to no promotion.

 

[Calcium]

snip

Well, it's more than just that. The update policy and things surrounding that were part of the problem, but after the first major update or two to the game was out, it was starting to get kind of impractical to get the game to run within the amount of RAM the 360 has, considering just the base game was ported with that limit in mind. At this point it's probably gone beyond impractical to more like not realistically possible without having to degrade the quality of the game. It's not just that they aren't willing to let you pay them for it even though you want to, it's that they also don't want to have to compromise on the quality of their game. Their more recent ones have avoided that problem by being designed with console releases in mind from the beginning.

I really doubt that's a problem. Just look at other games requirements.

Team Fortress 2 asks for 512MB RAM on the PC.
Mass Effect 2 asks for 1GB.
Battlefield Bad Company 2 asks for 2GB.
Battlefield 3 (must be at least 2GB).

All of these games run on the 360 which has only 512MB.

And 3 of those games screw your FOV down to something ridiculous like 60 and have weapon models that literally take up one fourth of the screen.

You can get them to run on consoles but you have no idea how much trickery and work goes into getting Battlefield 3 to run on the xbox. And thats with half the graphical wow factor the PC version packs, less players, loads of overheating and on and on it goes.

Yeah, I'm aware of the trickery involved in chipping away at code to get something to work. The point I was responding to was the idea that downloadable content/updates couldn't be introduced to the 360 due to it's power (or lack-of if you will). Hence why I mentioned Battlefield and other titles which all use more than Team Fortress.

Team Fortress 2 is already on the console, so how much RAM would updates realistically take? Adding models for hats and different weapons and such does take resources, but somehow I don't believe they would take so much that the games quality would have to be lowered from what it currently is on the console.

Comparing requirements of PC titles to their console ports is foolish to say the least.

Agreed. I know games are optomised down and such so that what they require as minimum on the pc is generally higher than their console counterparts but...

The 360 has 512MB Ram.
Team Fortress 2 which runs after the updates requires 512MB on the pc.

To be fair I probably should have only stated this in the first place. It was a bad example listing other games when only TF2's post-update RAM and the console's was necessary to demonstrate my point.

Also Captcha: "weasal words" - I like. It's like a mediaevil slur!

 

[Something Amyss]

Of they got they're promotion once the game came out on Steam. As did Bastion. MS just has this ability to make sure that critically acclaimed games on XBLA get next to no promotion.

I guess what I don't get is why they do this.