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how difficult is cross platform?

ChildofBhaal599ChildofBhaal599 Member Posts: 1,781
in Off-Topic
I don't know anything about this, but I was just wondering why more games don't have it. BGEE is supposed to have it (or has it, I don't keep up enough) so I was wondering a little about the subject. I was just trying to get a copy of payday 2 to play with friends who have xbox and I can't find it ANYWHERE! of course I could get it on steam for pc, but I want to play this with friends rather than randoms and certainly don't want the basic ai that are there to shoot and nothing else. more games seem like they could benefit from cross platform, bringing players together no matter which system so I was wondering why is it not done?

Comments

  • DeeDee Member Posts: 10,447
    In a lot of cases, it's not so much the challenge of getting them to work together as it is the difference of hardware. In competitive games, developers prefer to keep the matches "gated" so that everyone is playing with the same version of the game. It's easier to keep things fair (especially if there's a bug on one platform that isn't on another).

    You'll hear players complaining that so-and-so won because their controller was more responsive, or because the person who lost was suffering from system slow-downs, etc. I imagine it also helps them to promote community engagement within a given system.

    From a purely fiscal point of view, it encourages people to buy the other system so they can play with their friends. :)
  • ChildofBhaal599ChildofBhaal599 Member Posts: 1,781
    @Dee that is good reasoning. guess it doesn't work in explaining my case considering the game is purely co op. I think at the least co op games should be able to because we are working together.
  • Morte50Morte50 Member Posts: 161
    I would expect it is generally an issue of whether investing the time and effort involved in making this possible is deemed to be worth it, even aside from the 'fair play' issue Dee mentions. Even if in principle it shouldn't be a problem (which, given possible differences in implementation, is hardly guaranteed), having to test to make sure it isn't in practice might still be rather involved (especially if you have to do it again every time patch comes out for any of the platforms).

    Just out of curiosity, how common or uncommon is it anyway? I only play games on Windows PC (well, and Mario Kart Wii), so I have no idea how often it comes up to begin with. Are there many games that would realistically benefit from cross-platform support and if so, how many have it?
  • ZanathKariashiZanathKariashi Member Posts: 2,869
    Next gen consoles, with exception to the Wii-U will be running on standard x86 architecture and with extremely similar hardware, so multi-platform titles between PC, Bone, and PS4 should be almost identical in function and will ultimately come down to whether the game can be realistically played with a controller or not. If it can't, it's less likely to get a console port and if it does get ported it's probably going to be a very different game, at the very least with a dumbed down interface to fit it on to the console button limit.

    Sacred 2 for instances is an even bigger POS on consoles then it is on PC due to a even crappier interface. Meanwhile Skyrim is an annoying piece of clunky garbage (more so then usual) on PC because the interface was designed for consoles in mind, despite the plan to for simultaneous 360/PC release.


    Keep in mind, multi-platform is one of contributors of the great video game crash back in 1983. And people were absolutely paranoid of it happening again to the point that very few games were released across multiple systems for years after (also since Sega and Nintendo had a largely uncontested strangle hold on the mainstream gaming market (at least till Nintendo pissed off Sony and Square and ultimately gave birth to the Playstation which came with long term exclusivity of the Final Fantasy series and several other RPG IPs....ever wonder why the N64 and GC had fairly lackluster RPG showings? There ya go), they could actually demand that developers give them exclusive rights to "killer apps" or they would have to hope that one of the other less mainstream systems would catch on (they didn't...for one reason for another....which is sad...the 3DO was a solid system that just came out 2 years too soon and was too expensive to sell at a loss like Nintendo/Sega were doing (they also had charge more for the system to make up for charging miniscule royalties to attract developers away from the Big 2) and sell and they usually had very different features even when games were released multi-platform (the least different being Mortal Kombat, and was mostly due to Nintendo's censorship hard-on) up to games like Shadowrun, Jurassic Park, or Aladdin that had the same name but were completely different games in execution (and while I preferred the SNES Shadowrun, the Sega Jurassic Park and Aladdin blew the SNES versions away).


    @Morte50
    Final Fantasy XI
    DC Universe Online

    ......that's about all I can think of.

    And then you've got a strange situation like Dust514/Eve Online which aren't technically cross-platform, but is 2 completely different games that share the same server and are interconnected.


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