Don't expect Sony to release games simultaneously on PS5 and PC anytime soon

[takaozo]

I don't really understand why this upsets people so. If you are a PS5 owner, buy the game when it comes out on PS5. If you are a PC gamer, buy it when it comes out on PC. If you are both, buy it when it comes out on your preferred platform. Either way, you buy a game once, you enjoy it, and then you move on. Am I missing something?

Or wait for the cracked version...
Oh no I forgot consoles cant run cracked games

 

[Lounds]

I mean it's a business model that works for them. If it means we get more amazing games like Spider-Man that take 5 years to make then I'm all for the model than having EA/Activision/Ubisofts revolving door of trash games.

 

[Kashim]

I feel like these recent moves by Microsoft to lock down the games do not bid well for the long term outlook of the console. I just see a slippery slope with how Microsoft is handling its subscription services. Everything is OKAY for now, actually pretty good if you ask some people with xbox game pass, but how long is that going to last? Once MS drives up marketshare it's going to start gouging for its services or having ad supported models....or a combination of the two.....

Protip: The article is about Sony not Microsoft. We don't know what MS will do in the future, all we know is that it's going to be bad. Never mind the fact that what Sony is doing RIGHT NOW is already bad, we're totally cool with that. Sony can do no wrong, but MS fugget about it! Sony fans always crack me up, they're almost as bad as Apple fans. They're ok getting gouged by a company they love, but if the other guy tries anything remotely similar they cry bloody murder.

 

[KofeViR]

Fine for me, I will rather wait than getting rushed console ports like TLOU Remake.

 

[Julnor]

I don't even know why the consoles bother releasing PC ports at all, the vast majority of PC gamers don't have hardware that can run them. Rather than question Nvidia and pressure them to actually release reasonably priced proper VRAM and memory bandwidth GPUs, these people would rather fanboy over Nvidia and insist the devs should continue to make only PS3 era graphics games so they can use their 8 GB Nvidia GPUs. Some of that group are at least cognizant that the GPUs they have and overpaid for aren't good enough, so they get the Nvidia upsold 4090, the only decent card of the 40 series, while attacking others as "poors". When rational people see this nonsense they'll just buy the PS5, at which point it won't matter that the port is delayed 3 years---maybe GPUs will actually be available at that point.

PC gaming is a mess and the first step is putting that blame on the PC component companies, all of them. Of course Sony, primarily a console company, doesn't care, the PC is simply a cash grab for them down the line. Virtually every one of their ports have been poor, there are complaints at times but people buy them anyway so clearly they have little standards. And don't care that they're so delayed.

Personally I use my PC for older games, modded games and indies. Some PC only games but those things are designed to run on weak hardware anyway. I can't fathom why anybody would be stupid enough to spend thousands on PC gaming to only play games from a console that costs around $400-500. But these stupid people do that then complain then make up dumb arguments as to why they're actually geniuses. Okay whatever, be a genius in your own mind if it makes you happy, at least you'll get some joy out of your stupid actions that way.

 

[error1984]

I'm devastated...how could they?!
0:02

 

[Nobina]

It's not like PC is missing out on a lot of games. Not every exclusive is worth playing at all. I have no problem in getting a PS5 if I have enough games I'd like to play.

 

[Burty117]

I would expect a few things:
-They are using their own engine that's not well known for porting to other platforms (an oversight).
-They are focusing on launching on 1 set of hardware (meaning that PC's myriad of hardware configurations are not going to just work).
-They put a sub-part team working on it (and/or gave them a ridiculous time frame to deliver it).

Of course, for how much money Sony (and these publishers have), it should be no excuse by now.

If one is developing a game for the PS5, there’s only one hardware configuration to focus on — that means no variations of CPU, GPU, storage drives, operating systems, and drivers to worry about. That spec is also more than just a mere APU - it has a properly unified memory system, not the half-hearted effort you get in laptops, plus dedicated hardware for handling data between memory and storage. Put simply, making a game for just one, fixed platform is far less complicated than it is for the PC.

PC ports are also rarely given the same amount of development time and resources as the original console version was given, even in cases where it’s a concurrent cross-platform title. And that’s down to money — the console version is more likely to generate revenue than the PC one and it has to, in order to cover the licensing fees and development tools costs.

While there are certainly going to be some individuals out there who could be classed as being lazy workers, painting the entire field with the same brush ignores the absolute minefield that PC game developers have to tip-toe through in order to get the title to run as well on that platform as it does on a console.

It's not that I disagree with you both, It's just painful when I can load up Star Citizen, a game that's been in Alpha for nearly as long as my entire working career and is famous for not running very well. Actually works better than a fully released, substantially more expensive (£45 for SC, £60 for TLoU) less complex game.

A client at where I work is a game developer, I'm probably not allowed to list them by name most likely, but I can say They're in the UK, office is by the coast on the east side of the country and they make simulation games. When I visited I got to see a PS5 dev kit and me being a gamer, I obviously asked questions when chatting away to them. It seems picking a game engine is a big part of how easily you can port a game to multiple platforms. Unreal Engine it seems makes it very easy to compile a build of the game to run on almost any platform, then you optimise the crap out of it for that platform.

Maybe in the case of TLoU, the game engine is specifically geared to take advantage of PS5's low level API's and it'll take quite some time and effort to add DirectX support and then test with lots of configurations that it works properly.

As a last note, I just went to Iron Galaxy's website (the devs that did the port for Naughty Dog) and The Last of Us: Part I is not listed at all, They list their port of Borderlands 2 to the PSVita (and that was a terrible port) but not TLoU. I think even the devs behind the port are ashamed of their own work

 

[dangh]

Funny to see that when Nintendo and Sony never released their games on PC people were fine with that. When Sony decided to actually come with idea to release their first party in a way to not harm their own business, suddenly some PC gamers needs more. I bet Nintendo looking at it and taking notes to not be as stupid as Sony and never move their exclusives any other place.
and as for MS comparison... MS started to release their first party games firstly because sales of their consoles went so low that those games weren't selling well, secondly - because it is only a few games in last decade anyway, and lastly - they release those games on microsoft windows store where they do get all the 'sales tax', and are released on other storefronts with a delay anyway. And as they promote strongly their game pass on PC then it is not surprising they want to release games on PC as well - not because they are good guys, but because they work hard to ensure people get used to gaming as a service. They would be more than happy to sell the service on both Nintendo and ps5, and then they would never need to create any new game anymore. Which they kinda already pursuing...

 

[neeyik]

It's not that I disagree with you both, It's just painful when I can load up Star Citizen, a game that's been in Alpha for nearly as long as my entire working career and is famous for not running very well. Actually works better than a fully released, substantially more expensive (£45 for SC, £60 for TLoU) less complex game.

Well, SC has had far more money thrown at it over the years than TLOU and as you pointed out, it's been in development a lot longer too! There's no denying that TLOU isn't a good port but the difference in performance between v1.05 and v1.0 shows that insufficient time was given to optimizing it, and this seems to be a common theme with AAA PC games of late.

It seems picking a game engine is a big part of how easily you can port a game to multiple platforms. Unreal Engine it seems makes it very easy to compile a build of the game to run on almost any platform, then you optimise the crap out of it for that platform.

Maybe in the case of TLoU, the game engine is specifically geared to take advantage of PS5's low level API's and it'll take quite some time and effort to add DirectX support and then test with lots of configurations that it works properly.

Engines are a problem, especially when it comes to the big PlayStation titles. TLOU, Spider-Man, GoW, HZD, etc are all using proprietary engines that were created for the PS4 and PS5 -- adapting them for PCs is clearly a significant amount of work (Nixxes gives examples of this in their Digital Foundry interview). It's lots of little things that have to be accounted for, such as the PS5's dedicated processor for handling 3D audio. The vast majority of PCs don't have anything like this in them so if one maintains that aspect of the game in the port, then it just gets offloaded to the CPU to process.

 

[Burty117]

Engines are a problem, especially when it comes to the big PlayStation titles. TLOU, Spider-Man, GoW, HZD, etc are all using proprietary engines that were created for the PS4 and PS5 -- adapting them for PCs is clearly a significant amount of work (Nixxes gives examples of this in their Digital Foundry interview). It's lots of little things that have to be accounted for, such as the PS5's dedicated processor for handling 3D audio. The vast majority of PCs don't have anything like this in them so if one maintains that aspect of the game in the port, then it just gets offloaded to the CPU to process.

How have I not read this interview?! Thanks for pointing me to it, very insightful.
" the APIs have more overhead, we don't have the decompressor for example, we don't have hardware doing decompression for us as we're streaming in content - that gets left to the CPU."

Lots of interesting stuff I haven't thought about, basically, first party games for the PS5 quite heavily use all available tricks on the hardware, converting those systems to work on PC simply equals much more CPU demands.

 

[neeyik]

It does make you wonder if this is a small part behind Sony's reasoning for keeping a two/three-year gap between PS5 and PC releases. It's obviously mostly about ensuring that it gets as much revenue from both platforms as possible, but the port immediately commenced after the console version launches, then two years should be sufficient time to get the conversion done properly -- especially now that all the primary development houses have gone through the process at least once.

 

[m4a4]

As a last note, I just went to Iron Galaxy's website (the devs that did the port for Naughty Dog) and The Last of Us: Part I is not listed at all, They list their port of Borderlands 2 to the PSVita (and that was a terrible port) but not TLoU. I think even the devs behind the port are ashamed of their own work

I was hearing that ND did it in house, which makes it even more egregious to have such a crappy PC port.

 

[m4a4]

It does make you wonder if this is a small part behind Sony's reasoning for keeping a two/three-year gap between PS5 and PC releases. It's obviously mostly about ensuring that it gets as much revenue from both platforms as possible, but the port immediately commenced after the console version launches, then two years should be sufficient time to get the conversion done properly -- especially now that all the primary development houses have gone through the process at least once.

It shouldn't take anywhere close to 3 years to port over a game, unless you have a veeeery small team working on it (or your engine is really that bad at cross platform). Which is then just Sony being cheap with the port either way.

As you mentioned, they've made it clear that they believe that launching on PC too close to the PS version is somehow bad for their profits. I would bet they didn't start the port until several months before release.

 

[neeyik]

As a last note, I just went to Iron Galaxy's website (the devs that did the port for Naughty Dog) and The Last of Us: Part I is not listed at all, They list their port of Borderlands 2 to the PSVita (and that was a terrible port) but not TLoU. I think even the devs behind the port are ashamed of their own work

I was hearing that ND did it in house, which makes it even more egregious to have such a crappy PC port.

Iron Galaxy doesn't list the Uncharted port either so it's perhaps just a 'Sony thing', but Naughty Dog and IG were both involved in the port of TLOU -- exactly who did what and when isn't clear, though.

It shouldn't take anywhere close to 3 years to port over a game, unless you have a veeeery small team working on it (or your engine is really that bad at cross platform). Which is then just Sony being cheap with the port either way.

The Spider-Man port took just under a year but in Nixxes' own words "the engine was mostly focused on PlayStation, the cool thing was that their own tools were actually quite good. There was already an implementation for PC they were using on the tool side. So that helped us a lot to get up and running quite quickly..." (they being Insomniac). That work was then followed by six months of patches, so one could argue that the port ultimately needed around 1.5 years to get it into a 'perfect' state.

Now, I'm not suggesting that all future PS5-ports actually need two to three years of development time, just that separating the console and PC releases by that much, gives the porting team more than sufficient time. In reality, it will be less time than that, simply because the porting contract won't be issued until Sony are satisfied that the PC version will generate sufficient revenue. If the original version barely breaks even, the contract may never even appear.

 

[dangh]

Unreal Engine it seems makes it very easy to compile a build of the game to run on almost any platform, then you optimise the crap out of it for that platform.

General purposes engines are easy to program and convert, but very difficult to optimize for specific platform. Devs will spend weeks to write plugins only to address some lacking functionality, and even with that you wont match purpose build tool. So while UE is great for multiplatform developers, it makes very little sense for large first party studio to face limitations while developing code for very specific piece of hardware solution.

 

[vimann]

I'd rather get those Sony games 2-3 years later than not getting them at all, but that's just me.