killians45
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disagree with this one. I happen to love my xbox. As well as my PC. Geeky or just following a trend??? Well, neither. I do computer programming, ladder logic/PLC, network engineering (cisco catalyst and soon to cross to a AD system), and also full knowledge of hardware software architecture. I also am an avid reader. I am also ex military, play football, work out, and am not the stereo typical looking geek. So as far as the stereotype that has been painted, your modern geek and last gen geek (like my father, who is also a computer and network engineer as well as ex marine)... you have the wrong of it. I would not trade in my xbox NOR my computer games for anything. The XBox is nice for developement due to the simple fact of easy single configuration. The complaint about the lack of power of them is also a crock. Trust me, 64 MB of memory is MUCH more than you think because you are comparing apples to oranges here. A computer has MUCH more to keep up with, bios config changes, o/s, possible network o/s configs (PXE), and then there is just the o/s itself to take care of. Much of console o/s is contained on flash memory and can be because there is very limited configuration possibilities thus a less inflated o/s software. Yes, a computer can be upgraded and ultimately will be more powerful because of that reason. However, it is unimaginative at best to call those who use them and those who develope on them un-intelligent and trend followers. Its a crock line. There are games on the XBox that I enjoyed MUCH more than the PC counter part and vice versa (true, the majority of games I enjoy are computer games but lets think of the developement time and software titles and history comparison... not very fair to compare the two).
So, I have to say that although it is true that some developers out there just want the bottom line of profit... I seriously doubt they just rush them for profit. Think of the process here. The developing teams (not the producing company who finances it that most people blame) usually have there own in house QA process. The test players give all there little advices and what not. Then they have to decide if the changes the play testers recommend is possible in the deadline given to them, and if not will the people who are producing it give them the extension. The decision on rather to extend is will it still be profitable if delayed?? For example, say you develope a game based on a movie. You want it released RIGHT before it, or during it... not delaying it for at least a year, especially if the movie bombs. Or what if delaying it would interfere with some major upgrades, like directX or a new line of vid cards. Well, time to take this suckers engine back to the drawing boards, call all the developers, model and rendering studios, and basically expand out an already (probably) quickly inflating budget. Or, you can do the best, cross the fingers that some small changes are enough (because trust me, major changes have a whole mess of retesting, debugging, and pushing some major deadline time again to fix bugs that were not there but are now due to some "tweaking". So you have nervous producers wondering if the release time is going to be during a slow game purchase phase, to late due to movie timing, during hardware/software upgrades, to futuristic (modern systems just WONT run it... it does happen), to buggy (sometimes in programming (ask any programmer) the best approach is to just scrap the whole thing and start again (on parts of a program), legal issues, outdated, and other things. Much also goes for the developer, too because if the producer wont front the money then they have to shop for a new developer... in comes the legal problems of purchasing rights and if not rights, changing it enough so legal infringements dont happen. Now, once ALL that is done (oh, and this by the way is why you hear of cancelled projects) they will release as gold. Sometimes they have beta versions but the budget by then is so high that the copy of creating a gold and pressing copies (VERY expensive) just isn't worth it. So, swallow the loses you already have and dont make a bad problem even worse.
So, these arguements are about problems not so clear cut.
So, I have to say that although it is true that some developers out there just want the bottom line of profit... I seriously doubt they just rush them for profit. Think of the process here. The developing teams (not the producing company who finances it that most people blame) usually have there own in house QA process. The test players give all there little advices and what not. Then they have to decide if the changes the play testers recommend is possible in the deadline given to them, and if not will the people who are producing it give them the extension. The decision on rather to extend is will it still be profitable if delayed?? For example, say you develope a game based on a movie. You want it released RIGHT before it, or during it... not delaying it for at least a year, especially if the movie bombs. Or what if delaying it would interfere with some major upgrades, like directX or a new line of vid cards. Well, time to take this suckers engine back to the drawing boards, call all the developers, model and rendering studios, and basically expand out an already (probably) quickly inflating budget. Or, you can do the best, cross the fingers that some small changes are enough (because trust me, major changes have a whole mess of retesting, debugging, and pushing some major deadline time again to fix bugs that were not there but are now due to some "tweaking". So you have nervous producers wondering if the release time is going to be during a slow game purchase phase, to late due to movie timing, during hardware/software upgrades, to futuristic (modern systems just WONT run it... it does happen), to buggy (sometimes in programming (ask any programmer) the best approach is to just scrap the whole thing and start again (on parts of a program), legal issues, outdated, and other things. Much also goes for the developer, too because if the producer wont front the money then they have to shop for a new developer... in comes the legal problems of purchasing rights and if not rights, changing it enough so legal infringements dont happen. Now, once ALL that is done (oh, and this by the way is why you hear of cancelled projects) they will release as gold. Sometimes they have beta versions but the budget by then is so high that the copy of creating a gold and pressing copies (VERY expensive) just isn't worth it. So, swallow the loses you already have and dont make a bad problem even worse.
So, these arguements are about problems not so clear cut.
