Frictional really needs to release this on Xbox Live Arcade

[iNEXSERTiON]

(10-09-2010 04:03 AM)Bythemark Wrote:  Controllers actually translate mouse movements better than they're given credit for. In fact, with today's analog sticks and the push-in ability, even rotating would be easier on console than with mouse. Amnesia isn't a twitch game like Quake, so the difference in accuracy won't be too bad (provided some help with rotating wheels and whatnot was included).

Right Analog - Look (when action is held, used to rotate and turn objects)
Left Analog - Move (duh! )
A - Jump
Right Trigger - Sprint
Left Trigger - Used to select turnable objects and levers
Right Bumper - Lean to the Right
Left Bumper - Lean to the Left
B - Exits notes, mementos, inventory, etc.
Y - Opens up current objectives and notes
Select - Inventory
X - Lantern

[teraMEL0S]

(10-24-2010 03:59 PM)Spooder Wekd Wrote:  M$ would try to screw them over. And the controls would not work well with a game pad.

In regards to low budget indie developers: "Super Meat Boy is a Success! Sales are high, Reviews are mind blowing and your out pour of love for the game is flooding the interwebs!" - Edmund Mcmillen (One of the two members of Team Meat.)

Seriously, if you think Microsoft is out to get everyone, think about the blood and sweat these two poured into this newly released XBLA title that they are now reaping the well-earned benefits of.

There is a lack of quality horror games on the big home consoles right now and this game would be frightening to play on a 60 inch with surround sound.

Beyond that, the only way I'd be able to play Amnesia is if it were released on Consoles because I have a bare basics laptop for school and no other alternatives. It would be ideal for those like myself.

And there's this: "Its top five XBLA games by revenue have generated more than $22 million" - Eurogamer.net

There's money to be had elsewhere.

[Tzajof]

Although I think an XBLA port would be cool, I'm not sure it's possible (or rather, entirely viable) due to technical limitations.

For starters, there's a size limit on XBLA games that could POSSIBLY be a problem. I'm not sure what exactly the limit is, and Amnesia's a small game (compared to commercial games at least), but it could still maybe be a problem.

Then there's optimising the game for running on the 360. Again, this may not be a huge problem, but memory use is more restricted (whereas Frictional suggest 2GB RAM to play Amnesia), and HPL2 as a whole might not really be designed for these factors currently. Also, HPL2 primarily utilises OpenGL I believe, and although I don't know exactly whether or not the 360 supports OpenGL, my assumption is that the focus would be on DirectX in any case.

There's also the (tedious) problem of pricing. I think XBLA pricing is rather incremental (eg. 800, 1200, and other increments of MS Points) which could create inconsistencies between the PC pricing and the XBLA pricing.

Furthermore, there's the price of the development kits for 360 platform in general. Whereas options like the XNA Framework (which I don't think is a viable option either) are free, getting the tools necessary for Xbox 360 development (and hence XBLA) is not, and quite probably expensive.

Nonetheless, I wouldn't be surprised if Frictional slowly started looking into options like these with their later games.

[gbee]

The reasons you are unlikely to see Amnesia ported to XBox are pretty fundamental.

First - Direct X. Amnesia, Penumbra and their next game are all based on the portable, open industry standard openGL. This allows those games to work on Windows, OSX, Linux and many other platforms. Microsoft meanwhile does not support OpenGL on the XBox, they have their own proprietary API called DirectX because they want to make it much harder for games developers to write cross-platform games. DirectX only works with Microsoft products, it's not an open standard like OpenGL. So for Frictional to support the XBox they'd have to re-write their rendering engine for DirectX doubling the work to support just one platform. They'd actually need to re-write much of the engine, the physics, the control system, the textures and shaders, everything would need to be optimised for the limited resources of the XBox.

Second - Cost. To develop games for XBox Live you must pay Microsoft for a development kit. You have no choice about this. Once your game is being sold on XBLA Microsoft get to decide how much it costs and they take a chunk of the sales, which means that all the extra work may be rewarded with a paltry income or no income at all. You are responsible for all marketing, Microsoft and XBLA make no promise to promote your game.

Third - No guarantees. Even if you've paid Microsoft for their 'kit' and ported your game to work on the XBox there is no guarantee that they will allow it onto the platform. Microsoft review and vet every game, they have _very_ strict requirements and can reject it for many reasons including it being too similar to another game they wish to promote, minor bugs or being too scary. They have the right to force changes to gameplay and content, they become the editors of your game. The review process takes months, so let's assume that they don't reject it, when you take into account the need to rewrite the engine and the review, it could take over 18 months just to get the game to market during which you'll earn nothing. Of course if they reject the game and you are unable to comply with their requested changes then you've wasted months on development and $$$ on the kit plus your other expenses.

I've barely scratched the surface in this post, the list of issues with developing for the XBox is much, much longer. Big firms can afford it and some little firms place all their eggs into one basket taking on the risk (most indie games firms rarely survive their first game). The question is whether it's worth all the work, hassle, money and risks to port Amnesia to XBox when it's clear that everyone in here asking for an XBox port already has a PC they can play the game on?

[Urrah]

Good points gbee. I don't know if this has been said already, but I also don't know if Amnesia's controls would be suitable for a controller.

The main issue I think I would have would be opening and closing doors, I think this would be very imprecise on an analogue stick.

[Mjarr]

(10-26-2010 01:14 PM)Urrah Wrote:  The main issue I think I would have would be opening and closing doors, I think this would be very imprecise on an analogue stick.

The controller itself is not really at the fault, but when you take console FoV and certain other things into account which all combined have major effect for control itself (refer to my post on previous page) there's plenty of parts in Amnesia that would require very major redesign in order to make it more console friendly, to the point it would borderline what would commonly be called "dumbing down" in real meaning of the word.

[hollowleviathan]

The risk of being censored/edited by Microsoft is probably as great as the price of the development kit surpassing potential sales.