I’m confused why Kotaku mentioning next gen in the title when Rockstar only commented on current generation PS5 and Xbox Series X/S.
I’m confused why Kotaku mentioning next gen in the title when Rockstar only commented on current generation PS5 and Xbox Series X/S.
As much as I understand the disappointment, from development point I tolerate them as Rockstar ever since they had their own in house Game Engine, they does not shoehorn the game into a mess of unplayablility (see common AAA studios). Not to mention those jack of all trade engine (e.g UE, Unity, CryEngine) while you can make the project multiplatform, the optimization that need to be done is far more time consuming (reading the docs of the SDK) compared to an Engine you build your own, an example of this on recent release is Yakuza Ishin, Ishin use Unreal Engine and run worse compared to every Yakuza games they released prior (which they did use their in-house game Engine).
Rockstar made it clear focus on to deliver console optimization on front ever since GTA III released (technical standpoint see GTA San Andreas on PS2, GTA V on PS3 and X360, Max Payne 3 on console).
Even though from PS4/XONE we have x86 arch console, the uniformity of console specs leads the easy to work on optimization rather than plethora of hardwares that available on Personal Computer space.
Maybe I am sounded defending Rockstar but I gave my opinion from my past experience as game modder so knowing those SDK a bit. If you want to blame, you can blame the higher up on T2 since those parties the one tied up the Rockstar (R* owned by T2). I do have a share of disappointment when they took down the Reverse Engineered code of 3D era gta codes, but that incident also have grey area as some says that some portion of the code are part of original code.
Thanks for the drop of sanity here. There are reasons this happens and this right here is why. Console is ready faster…that’s it. Rockstar is just making the natural business decisions given the situation. Does Rockstar also get that double dip? Yes. Do they get incentives from the various console companies vying for exclusivity? Yes. Villainize that all you want but the other option is choosing to not make money on a finished game by making it unavailable for literally no reason.
Inversely, for those complaining, demanding Rockstar to not release a finished game on any platform until it is available on the device you prefer sounds pretty stupid.
Yup.
The VAST majority of people play this kind of game on console.
PC has infinite configurations and therefore is harder to test for.
That’s it. It’s way more work for way less users. When they release for Xbox and PS5, they are basically testing against two fixed PC builds, and that’s it. The other stuff is a factor, but a minor factor at most. Those are the two big reasons, everything else is an afterthought, and there is no big conspiracy at play.
Plus, literally every Rockstar game in modern history has been released on console first and then PC, if it gets a PC release at all. Why would this be any different?
This is coming from someone who never played RDR1 because at the time I refused to play anything not on PC, so I understand wanting it. But you can want/hope that it happens and still accept the reality without inventing a conspiracy as to why they chose not to target it.
To put it simply, people nowaday spoiled with choices while they wanted needlessly to be served what they want.
Back in earlier gaming era (90s and 00s), console exclusive and PC exclusive is a thing and no one even complain, people back then accept the fact that mostly game are only available on Consoles, and those that released on Computer are mostly Online/LAN games or MMOs, This trend continue until late 00s where some of console games get ported to PC because there is demand.
Pushing through 10s, PC is relevant as the cost of the system is almost same (or even cheaper) compared to the console, back then you can build gaming pc out of dell optiplex and slap a 750 or 750 Ti and you’ll get something similar to PS4/XONE performance. Once it gets to late 10s where entry price of PC is a bit high (you can thank Intel for keeping re-releasing 14nm up to 6 generations and then Ryzen came) if you want to have more FPS and prettier graphics on PC.
Now in the 20s, we have tons of hardware variation that can play a game ranging from components from 2014 that still holding up although struggling to get 30/60fps, to something workspace component that can run games 144 FPS+ on casual games. Heck you can even run game without owning the hardware by streaming them (GeForce Now)
In my opinion these people probably those who back then owned consoles and jump ship to PC and expecting same treatment as console player. And of course you cannot guarantee A PC (without specify its components) to run games as much as I encountered some kids tried to run AAA games on their school laptops that had Intel Celeron with dinky 4GB of RAM, while on console it is definite to run as it was mean to run games.
Yeah, to put it constructive criticism, seeing Rockstar re-releasing GTA V three times that makes people mad is understandable, but to be fair people who owned PS4/PS5 that want to play GTA V/Online back then no way they would patch backward compatibility themselves specifically on PS4, the difference was “night and day” compared on PS3. While I did not have newer console upward from PS2, I would treat those improvement and the online availability as service that runs by R* and legally they able to charge you (but the end decision was on each own right?).
Simply to be put, if someone want to blame whom, blame the system and the people. These entities follows business rule and they serve from the demand, as funny as it sounds the demand is from each individual, that’s why vote with your wallet is make sense for consumable product, similar to (underaged) children who play games and spending their parents CC, the parent is to put the blame because they could not control their kid or even bother to parenting.