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Gamers shouldn't compare console editions of Battlefield 4 to the PC versions, the franchise's executive producer Patrick Bach has told OXM.

Asked about balancing a game which is shipping on PC, Xbox One, PS4, Xbox 360 and PS3, Bach said: "It gives me a flashback to Battlefield 3. We had that problem even back before the next gen consoles, where we made a game that looked amazing on the PC - the better the PC, the better that game looked - and then you had a game that looked amazing on PS3 and Xbox 360, but it didn't look as good as on PC, and people kept nagging us about that.

"It was like, you should compare it to other games on the same platform. And people said, 'OK but still - why doesn't it look as good as on PC? You don't care about the consoles.' Well, we're pushing your hardware as hard as we can, and I'm quite certain that we'll get that this summer as well - because we are pushing the PC, we're pushing the Xbox One and we're pushing the PS4, and also making sure that the Xbox 360 and PS3 software looks amazing, way better than it did for Battlefield 3."

He added: "We'll still get the comparison videos, where somebody will judge us based on that, rather than comparing us to other games on the platforms. You could take the coward's way out, and just set the bar at Xbox 360 and PS3, and make it so that all games look the same on all platforms, but that's not who we are. We want to do our best with the hardware

http://www.meristation.com/xbox-one/noticias/microsoft-busca-al-proximo-messi-callejero-con-xbox-one/45366/1915270

Chris Morris looks at the ramifications of Ubisoft's last-minute delay of one of the hottest new IPs in the industry

Ubisoft
ubisoft.com

Nintendo will be the first company to tell you about the importance of must-have titles at a console launch. The more you have, the better - as it not only increases the initial frenzy (attracting the wandering eye of the mass media), but keeps demand alive long after Christmas has come and gone.

With Ubisoft's announcement on Tuesday that it would be delaying Watch Dogs until Spring 2014, both Microsoft and Sony saw their new systems take a painful body blow.

The game has been high on the radar of gamers since June 2012 - and the buzz has never faded, a remarkable feat for any title. Sony was so high on the game, it announced a SKU that bundled the game with the PS4 - and GameStop put together a similar (though unofficial) pairing with the Xbox One.

Sony is officially declining comment on the issue, but pointed GamesIndustry International to statements from Amazon, which said people who ordered the bundles will still receive their consoles on time. (GameStop is making similar assurances to people who ordered the Xbox One package.)

"Knack might be an amazing game, but it isn't being positioned as a system seller. Ryse, similarly, simply doesn't have the crucial upswell of support needed to lead the Xbox One"

Bundles aside, it's not unreasonable to assume that many buyers of both systems had Watch Dogs on their "must purchase" list. While next generation versions of established franchises (like Call of Duty, Battlefield and Ubisoft's own Assassin's Creed) will certainly be big sellers, gamers have been hungry for a new IP for a while now. And while plenty are coming to the next-gen systems, Watch Dogs was set to lead the pack.

Knack, for example, might be an amazing game, but it isn't being positioned as a system seller. Ryse, similarly, simply doesn't have the crucial upswell of support needed to lead the Xbox One (especially after its boneheaded Tweets Tuesday bragging about crunch time).

Ubisoft, as might have been expected, is being punished for the announcement. Fans who were looking forward to Watch Dogs can appreciate the declaration that a title simply wasn't coming together as planned - and needed extra time for polish. But that excuse comes across a bit thin when the publisher has been touting the game as heavily as it has for the past 16 months.

Investors, meanwhile, aren't happy about the financial ramifications. Ubisoft, in revealing the delay, slashed its sales expectations from between €1.42 billion and €1.45 billion this fiscal year to between €995 million and €1.05 billion.

"Our long term goal is to win the next generation," explained CEO Yves Guillemot wrote in a press release announcing the games' delays. "The tough decisions we are taking today to fully realize the major potential of our new creations have an impact on our short-term performance. We are convinced that, longer term, they will prove to be the right decisions both in terms of satisfaction for our fans and in terms of value creation for our shareholders."

While the delay of Watch Dogs is frustrating for gamers and painful for console makers, it may actually have been the smartest move Ubisoft could have made.


Everyone knew Grand Theft Auto V was going to be huge, but even the most optimistic observers underestimated its impact. Analyst retail checks show the game has legs - and the online component of the game is just starting to run as planned. That creates an enormous blast zone - one that could impact Watch Dogs (which shares the GTA open world design) if it were to come out this fall.

By waiting a few months, Ubisoft can distance itself from GTA - and wait open world player anticipation to build up once again.

At the same time, the installed base of next generation consoles will, naturally, be bigger next year than it will in the waning parts of 2013. A bigger base means potentially bigger sales, which should quiet down those investors who are wringing their hands over the reduced sales expectations.

Finally, pushing Watch Dogs into the spring (or early summer) of 2014 protects Ubisoft's most important existing franchise. Players won't have to decide between a new IP and Assassin's Creed IV now. While the delay of Watch Dogs may not steer people over to Assassin's Creed if they weren't fans, it could nudge people who were thinking of bypassing it "for now" in favor of the new franchise back into picking up a copy.

Of course, the delay isn't without risks. While fans are unlikely to lose interest in Watch Dogs, Ubisoft won't be the only new IP hitting the streets next spring. In deciding to skip the launch of the new consoles, Ubisoft has set the stage for a battle with Respawn's Titanfall.

Different games, certainly. And both new IPs. But instead of being the presumed king of the hill, Watch Dogs may have to fight harder for people's attentions in 2014.

The perks of Microsoft's Xbox Live Compute service will mainly apply to multiplayer gaming at Xbox One's launch, the manufacturer has revealed, with benefits for single player to follow

"Users who want to play multiplayer games are going to play them online," Microsoft's lead program manager John Bruno commented during an interview with GamesIndustry, when asked why he thought Xbox Live Compute wouldn't be met with the same frosty reception as Xbox One's original always-online policy. "So for argument's sake we can assume that there's a connection there.



"The game itself can make the decision about what sort of experience it wants to deliver online vs. offline. I think that obviously there are some benefits to being online, and there are some benefits to being offline, but I generally think that it will be additive to users that are online."
Bruno went on to say that at launch, the advantages and experiences that the cloud will offer will be "predominantly multiplayer," but there will be more to come on the single-player side in the future, if developers decide to use it for that purpose. At the moment, Forza Motorsport 5 and Titanfall are the big adopters.

"We've had Forza 5 working on it from day one," Bruno continues. "We've had Titanfall working on it in the more recent months. I'd say Titanfall is definitely pushing on the additional computing resources, they're doing a good job of taking advantage of what's in the box and what's on the cloud.

"The Forza guys have done a really good job of providing a good multiplayer story as well as the AI technology for Drivatar in the cloud as well. So we've definitely had a great partnership from our development shops, both first and third party," he said.



"We are giving this resource away to them for free, so there is a huge incentive to utilise it on Xbox One as much as possible," Bruno continued. "I don't think that game developers of that magnitude, the Activisions and EAs, are going to put all their eggs into that basket. I think that any good service infrastructure is going to pick and choose the way that they architect the system in the way that's most beneficial to them.
"I think there'll be cases where developers will want services that the Compute isn't designed for, things like database services or CDNs, things that are going to provide different experiences that are unique to the way that they want to build the game.

"But I do think that will be advantages to the smaller game shops that had previously been spooked about getting into the server development because of the financial obstacle or the development obstacle there. That was one of the big intents, to take this barrier to entry of server development away and let these developers really explore what they could do with the cloud without having to worry about allocating financial resources or server developers to the problem.

"We've even heard stories where the developers have had that and wanted to shut down games and servers over time and that really does disrupt their communities. One of the big advantages of our service is that it's completely on demand, so that as games wax and wane in popularity so do the resources that get applied to it from Compute. Providing that elastic scale at a really beneficial cost price point is a big benefit to developers."