Remedy Explains Decision To Make Alan Wake Exclusive
Alan WakeWe call it "the game PS3 owners wish they had" and it remains one of the most engaging, innovative experiences of the generation in our eyes.
So why didn't Alan Wake come to Sony's console? Well, obviously, it's because Remedy signed an exclusivity deal with Microsoft, and the developer now admits that move was a "business risk." On the other hand, it eliminated the "technical headaches" that would go along with producing the game for both platforms; if you didn't know, the game was originally intended to come to the PS3, 360 and PC. But Remedy went with Microsoft's offer; sure, it reduces the number of potential consumers, but Remedy CTO told the crowd at GDC earlier this month that such a move "reigned in the scope of a wildly ambitious project."
"Our strategy was one of focus. That's actually a really core Remedy element, well if you forget the ambitious goals we had. We needed to be top notch in some areas, but we knew we couldn't do everything better than some developers out there. For example, this meant there was no multiplayer. That wasn't in our core set of skills and it would have been a huge effort.
We also took the approach to license middleware that made sense, even when we didn't end up using it all for one reason or another. And then, the big deal - to go with Microsoft and take one big technological effort, the PS3, out of the equation. That then changed the technology risk to a business risk - but that's a subject for a different talk altogether..."
Maki went on to talk about their engine selection for Alan Wake (they passed on the Unreal Engine, by the way), and it's clear they're quite satisfied with their decision. As for a sequel, that is apparently in the works and no, PS3 owners shouldn't expect it. But wait...I have more to say on this subject...
Tags: alan wake, microsoft, remedy, alan wake ps3
3/25/2011 9:12:20 PM Ben Dutka
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Comments (66 posts)
Highlander
Friday, March 25, 2011 @ 9:43:22 PM
Reply
17 up, 2 down
GuyverLT
Friday, March 25, 2011 @ 10:01:26 PM
6 up, 0 down
Lawless SXE
Friday, March 25, 2011 @ 10:10:25 PM
0 up, 1 down
Highlander
Friday, March 25, 2011 @ 10:21:30 PM
1 up, 1 down
Lawless SXE
Friday, March 25, 2011 @ 10:25:51 PM
I know it's not the best source, but it's still information, right?
0 up, 0 down
Highlander
Friday, March 25, 2011 @ 10:35:37 PM
0 up, 0 down
Lawless SXE
Saturday, March 26, 2011 @ 12:24:31 AM
2 up, 0 down
Ludicrous_Liam
Saturday, March 26, 2011 @ 2:35:05 AM
VGcharts = big no no. Most un-reliable source you could of found :)
3 up, 2 down
Lawless SXE
Saturday, March 26, 2011 @ 3:21:07 AM
3 up, 3 down
Lawless SXE
Friday, March 25, 2011 @ 9:58:12 PM
Reply
On the other hand, I applaud their desire for focus. If there's one thing that annoys me, it's devs biting of more than they can chew and adding in tons of optional content at the expense of the core gameplay.
Peace.
4 up, 0 down
Highlander
Friday, March 25, 2011 @ 10:23:52 PM
I don't have a problem with a console maker offering technical assistance and such, or even a publishing partnership with good terms, but a check up front for services rendered makes the developer/publisher signing such exclusivity little more than a paid whore.
6 up, 0 down
jaybiv
Friday, March 25, 2011 @ 11:30:31 PM
2 up, 1 down
Highlander
Saturday, March 26, 2011 @ 3:06:21 AM
Let's say you're a third party developer like Level 5 working on a new JRPG, and you choose to develope it for PS3. If you ask Sony for any help, they'll bend over backwards to give it to you. If you decide to also develop for the 360, Sony will still help you with your PS3 implementation. On the other hand let's say your working for Turncoats Enix, a long time JRPG developer fallen on hard times and you sign an exclusivity deal with Microsoft. Now there's no chance of developing those exclusive games for the PS3 platform, because your contract prevents you. Not only that, but your close relationship with Sony is disrupted because you're no longer developing for their platform. Then when you do develop for them, and agree to make something exclusive (without being paid to), Sony once again offers their usual help, and instead of accepting it and being a friend again you slap the hand back and run off the that other company that paid you for those other games so that they can have the supposedly exclusive game as well.
See, there is a difference, one way is about developing a business relationship, the other is about filling a bank account. It's the long term gain (closer relationships with console makers) vs short term gains (money in the bank). I personally prefer long term gains, but then I despise short termism and investment horizons measurable in weeks.
Last edited by Highlander on 3/26/2011 3:07:43 AM
6 up, 0 down
GuyverLT
Friday, March 25, 2011 @ 9:58:58 PM
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2 up, 0 down
WorldEndsWithMe
Friday, March 25, 2011 @ 10:05:27 PM
Reply
8 up, 0 down
nilos95
Saturday, March 26, 2011 @ 3:36:16 AM
0 up, 1 down
Cesar_ser_4
Saturday, March 26, 2011 @ 4:41:27 AM
0 up, 1 down
kraygen
Friday, March 25, 2011 @ 10:47:48 PM
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The graphics looked sub-par and I just never saw anything that would explain why people think it is good.
Granted I haven't played it, but if it had been on ps3, I don't think I would have played it anyway. I watched a lot of gameplay vids and nothing ever made me feel even remotely interested.
2 up, 0 down
Snaaaake
Friday, March 25, 2011 @ 10:50:55 PM
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I think Free Radical has been a fine example of what happens when your game can't sell, especially when the publisher doesn't give you any financial support for it.
If I were in their shoes and a free check comes in I'd take it too.
0 up, 1 down
Cesar_ser_4
Saturday, March 26, 2011 @ 4:49:41 AM
2 up, 0 down
Kiryu
Friday, March 25, 2011 @ 11:07:43 PM
Reply
Last edited by Kiryu on 3/25/2011 11:08:06 PM
8 up, 3 down
main_event05
Friday, March 25, 2011 @ 11:46:41 PM
6 up, 0 down
BikerSaint
Saturday, March 26, 2011 @ 12:11:22 AM
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4 up, 1 down
Excelsior1
Saturday, March 26, 2011 @ 1:00:13 AM
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apparently, the ps3 is tough to program on using middleware. the unreal engine seems to get much better results on the 360. even the cryengine performed better on the 360.
i would like to play alan wake on my ps3, but the 1st game sold over 1 million on the 360, so it did not flop as bad as many have made it out to be. kz3 hasn't even sold 1 million copies yet, and that's triple a exclusive. i guess we are usd to those slow sales on ps3 exclusives. alan wake did perform poorly compared to other xbox exclusives,
like i said it would be great to see alan wake go to a wider audience, but if these guys don't think they have what it takes to deal with the ps3, so be it. ms published their 1st game, so it makes sense that they would have some loyalty to them.
2 up, 8 down
Highlander
Saturday, March 26, 2011 @ 3:12:34 AM
However after 4 years of development experience the only people still complaining about the 'hard to develop for PS3' thing are the same lazy gits who signed up with MS in the early days and don't have the courage of their convictions to say "we were wrong". Heck, even Gabe Newell of Valve finally relented, and has more recently been quite upbeat about the PS3.
Stop pedaling the myth that the PS3 is hard to develop for. It's a more in depth platform to learn, but that doesn't make it harder to develop for - once learned. Again, after more than 4 years, are we still accepting excuses from developers too lazy to learn?
7 up, 2 down
Lawless SXE
Saturday, March 26, 2011 @ 3:30:22 AM
I have a lot more respect for someone who will try something that they consider difficult, than someone who chooses to take an easier option. Why? Because at the end of it, success or failure, they will be better for having tried.
Peace.
6 up, 1 down
Clamedeus
Saturday, March 26, 2011 @ 6:50:21 AM
@Lawless I also agree with you as well, i don't like rewarding developers who don't try. How are you going to strive to be better if you always take the easy way out of things in life? I don't get it.
4 up, 1 down
Ignitus
Saturday, March 26, 2011 @ 10:43:27 AM
GG efforts went into making the game look good that they forgot (shall I say ran out of time?)to make a normal running single player campain.
If a first party studio strugles to come up with content in a AAA game title,in a given time frame, how do you think a third party developer is going to fare?
2 up, 1 down
kraygen
Saturday, March 26, 2011 @ 2:48:42 PM
1 up, 0 down
Jawknee
Saturday, March 26, 2011 @ 5:15:38 PM
4 up, 0 down
Highlander
Saturday, March 26, 2011 @ 6:10:09 PM
5 up, 0 down
Highlander
Saturday, March 26, 2011 @ 6:26:37 PM
"and I'll go on playing my SP3 exclusives that prove that to be the lie that it is."
should read
"and I'll go on playing my PS3 exclusives that prove that to be the lie that it is."
3 up, 0 down
Crabba
Monday, March 28, 2011 @ 4:54:38 PM
In the end Sony made a mistake when designing the PS3, assuming all third party developers would be willing to spend the extra time to make the PS3 version as good or better than the 360/PC versions. They could have easily put a slightly better graphics card and a little bit more memory on the PS3 and none of this would have ever happened, that's too bad...
0 up, 0 down
JonahFalcon
Saturday, March 26, 2011 @ 1:04:24 AM
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3 up, 1 down
CrusaderForever
Saturday, March 26, 2011 @ 1:05:24 AM
Reply
1 up, 1 down
Excelsior1
Saturday, March 26, 2011 @ 5:12:50 AM
2 up, 5 down
Clamedeus
Saturday, March 26, 2011 @ 7:37:01 AM
FF13 for example seems to be the better version because it was developed for the PS3 and then ported to 360. And look what happened to the 360 version? Same goes if the game was developed specifically for the 360 then ported to the PS3 the same things would happen on the PS3. If developers and the company helped we wouldn't have problems like this.
Taking the easy way out shouldn't be rewarded in this industry, people who work hard and willing to learn should be very successful in doing so, but people would rather have quantity than quality.
Technology changes you can't always use the same technique all the time, you have to learn the program as it gets harder or you will not know what it's capable of. There is other multiplatform games that look good and play better on PS3 than 360. Same for 360 than PS3.
Last edited by Clamedeus on 3/26/2011 7:37:18 AM
3 up, 0 down
THEVERDIN
Saturday, March 26, 2011 @ 4:09:16 AM
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0 up, 0 down
Excelsior1
Saturday, March 26, 2011 @ 5:08:11 AM
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it's more than a myth. many developers have said it. all those games i cited still look better on the 360. apparently the use of certain middleware software doesn't work so well on the ps3. a lot of 3rd party developers don't even use the spus for whatever reason. call it laziness, or maybe it's a business decision to not put the man hours into it. that's a business decision, that remedy is citing. if it were so easy to tap the power of the ps3 then we must be witnessing the greatest conspiracy in the world. countless multiplat games that don't measure up.
Last edited by Excelsior1 on 3/26/2011 5:16:14 AM
3 up, 5 down
___________
Saturday, March 26, 2011 @ 8:09:24 AM
Reply
show us the events leading up to the game, show us how the darkness originated, show us how the lady of light lost her marbles!
thats one thing allot of games are seriously lacking these days!
your thrown into a situation without it being explained why, or any background history.
homefront for example, your dropped into the middle of a war.
why?
why are the koreans taking over the country?
what happened to the US army?
your walking the streets and civilians are getting executed on the spot.
what the hell happened to the soldiers!?
you dont feel like a soldier sent out to fight a war, you feel like a soldier sent out to cleanup after the war!
you feel like youve arrived at the end, what the hell happened here?
the only reason why ME2 has such a good story, and won so many awards is not because its plot is good, its crap and cliche, how many times has the world being overtaken by aliens been done?
its won all those awards because its the only game out there that has some substance behind it!
some history!
ME is the only game ive ever played that actually feels real, it feels like you could hop on a ship tomorrow and find Sheppard and his shenanigans!
storys in games are seriously lacking, but the history behind the game is even more lacking!
to have a unique story is one thing, but to really escalate it and take it to the next level you need a little history!
like KZ3, i thought it actually had a decent story.
but like everything else, theres just no substance, no history!
0 up, 1 down
Excelsior1
Saturday, March 26, 2011 @ 8:28:34 AM
1 up, 1 down
Excelsior1
Saturday, March 26, 2011 @ 4:31:57 PM
Last edited by Excelsior1 on 3/26/2011 4:34:29 PM
0 up, 0 down
Lairfan
Monday, March 28, 2011 @ 3:58:45 PM
For instance, look at Homefront. Why do we need a reason for the Koreans to invade? They invaded because they thought the US was a threat. If you paid any attention to the news you would know that they actually do think that. As for our army being gone, it was pretty conclusive that they kicked our asses, and I don't want to be exposited to for 20 hours about how the army got its ass kicked.
As for Mass Effect 2, the game's story is pretty good, but I gotta say that it has WAY too much exposition. And judging by how you think the game is a masterpiece of having "history" (whilst saying the story is cliche because its about an alien invasion, even though that's not really what its about), I can tell that you really don't know what a good plot is. Good day sir.
0 up, 0 down
Excelsior1
Saturday, March 26, 2011 @ 8:23:27 AM
Reply
4 up, 2 down
Clamedeus
Saturday, March 26, 2011 @ 9:20:03 AM
I can understand to make it open for mutliplatform developers, but we don't make any advances in society if we don't push the technology and that's what Sony is doing.
2 up, 0 down
___________
Saturday, March 26, 2011 @ 9:50:06 AM
sony made a massive mistake on making the ps3 so difficult to program for.
code can always be optimized, tools can always be shrunk, new tools can become available, new methods can become available.
i remember reading a article just before starwars TFU2 released saying they found a new way to have a game running in 60FPS 4xAA with the performance hit of the game running in 30FPS 2xAA.
or like what crytek have done, everyone else does 3D by creating 2 separate images but crytek create one and reuse it which is why 3D only has less then a 2% performance hit when other games see the FPS cut and normally resolution cut in half!
thats the whole reason why we keep getting these half assed ports!
developers can either spend millions on new staff, or re training staff.
or spend that cash on making a new game, which they will get there money back and then some!
spend millions and get nothing back.
or spend millions and get it back, plus profit!
which one would you choose?
sure, training new staff will make it easier for future projects.
but whos to say sony wont go out and create a new architecture for the next systems, thus making said training void?
put your money in a basket your not sure your going to get back.
or put your money in a basket you know you will get back, plus hopefully a good profit!
i know which one i would choose!
its like putting a jar of money on the top shelf of a cupboard, and everyone who lives in the house or even close to the house is a midget!
whats the point of having it, if it will rarely be used?
look at the 360, its so much easier to program for but does that mean we saw everything it was capable on launch?
of course not!
year in year out just like the ps3 we have seen massive improvements, and we will continue to see massive improvements till the system is retired!
Last edited by ___________ on 3/26/2011 9:52:42 AM
1 up, 4 down
Clamedeus
Saturday, March 26, 2011 @ 10:16:04 AM
You don't make advances using the same technology and techniques you have to make new technology and create new techniques to forward innovation.
And besides Sony stated they would help anyone with the development of the game, but they aren't taking that offer Sony provides. Others who have dived into the platform say it isn't really that hard as people seem to think.
2 up, 0 down
Excelsior1
Saturday, March 26, 2011 @ 10:58:42 AM
sony offers help. well, a lot of multiplat developers use middleware like the unreal engine. that engine is notorious for favoring the 360 so all the help in world isn't going to change that. maybe if sony had its own engine to give to devlopers. i don't know. even the cryengine came out better on the 360. even when the ps3 is the lead platform the 360 version comes out just as good. it's a conspiracy, i know.
1 up, 1 down
Clamedeus
Saturday, March 26, 2011 @ 11:56:25 AM
And i know what you are talking about i am sure they can do something to help out, we always don't get a bad port i will play it as long as it plays good, i don't care much about graphics that much, sometimes i do sometimes i don't.
It goes both ways when a console is lead platform, on either side it will have a problem. They could easily use the PS3 version first and optimize it a bit and port it to the 360 and it will work completely fine and look just as good and we wouldn't have any problems we do now. I believe they did that to a game used the PS3 first and then ported it to the 360 and it was fine.
Last edited by Clamedeus on 3/26/2011 11:57:08 AM
1 up, 0 down
Excelsior1
Saturday, March 26, 2011 @ 12:48:40 PM
2 up, 2 down
Clamedeus
Saturday, March 26, 2011 @ 12:59:27 PM
Who knows maybe down the road they can do something to the PS3 to make it easier. And maybe with a new system they will have something similar to the PS3's architecture but it's easier to access, I'm not sure we don't know exactly yet and how the technology will be used.
Last edited by Clamedeus on 3/26/2011 1:02:02 PM
1 up, 0 down
Highlander
Saturday, March 26, 2011 @ 6:20:03 PM
I'm so sick of people who think that because you have to actually learn and study, that means it's hard. The biggest 'problem' for developers on the PS3 is not learning the platform, it's learning to re-think your approach to best use the SPU array. It's the same problem that software engineers faced going to high performance super computers from conventional mainframes. You have to think in terms of running things in parallel and how you can change the process to be data centric instead of code centric so that you can stram data through the processor instead of a more conventional mix of instructions and Data. The Cell BE - Broadband Engine is all about streaming data into and out of the processor. The SPUs are designed to operate in parallel or sequentially on streams of data and the whole thing operates most efficiently when you design your application to use that functionality as much as possible.
But, that is the thing that I guess is difficult, you have to think about your application, about your process, and about the platform. You can't just start coding off the top of your head and let the compiler take care of the detail. It's not easier or harder, it's about the level of detail you go to in your work and the quality of that work.
This kind of mentality that something is hard because you have to learn it is what is wrong with so many things today. Kids coming out of school haven't got a clue how things work any more, they just know that the JRE does this or that, they don't care how the underlying runtime handles it, or how it abstracts it to hardware, or how the hardware does it. They consider that too hard - and *they* are the ones with the technical qualifications.
The biggest mistake made here is the 360. I have no problem with MS making the dev environment easy on the developers, but the platform itself has no gas beyond what the tools let you do. The mistake being that no matter how well someone knows the platform, they really can't do anything better with it than someone else can.
I want developers to have to learn and put in effort, I want their technical creativity to matter as much as anything else does. I want them to have to work at finding ways to use the hardware better. It makes them better developers and makes better games.
The biggest mistake here is thinking that something is easier if you don't have to learn it. Some would argue that if something doesn't require effort to learn, it's not worth learning.
</rant>
Last edited by Highlander on 3/26/2011 6:25:41 PM
4 up, 0 down
Excelsior1
Saturday, March 26, 2011 @ 6:59:59 PM
1 up, 1 down
Highlander
Saturday, March 26, 2011 @ 7:46:29 PM
On the 360/PS3 thing. The main PPC core in the Cell is the same as the three cores in the 360. the 360 simply has 3 instead of 1. Other than that they are nearly identical. The GPU in the PS3 is an older nVidia design that is familiar to many developers, and the PS3 dev system uses many open standards too. So there is no real excuse for the majority of the complaints. It does come down to the use of the SPUs. The thing is, for the developer these are essentially 6 identical CPUs that are interconnected by a very high speed bus. They are optimized for floating point but are in fact RISC processors in their own right. If I as a developer lack sufficient imagination to find a use for 6 3.2GHz processors connected to a very high speed bus, then no one should believe my excuses when I say it's too hard, the real problem is that the developer hasn't got the imagination to use an incredible resource.
4 up, 0 down
___________
Sunday, March 27, 2011 @ 7:44:50 AM
the ps3 was a mistake, sony did not learn a thing from the ps2!
developers whined for every minute the system was out because it was so different, so they go and do the same with the ps3!
if your paying your staff x bucks a hour, are you going to want them to create a new game so you can get some of your cash back.
or are you going to ask then to spend the time and money on learning new architecture, or finding and purchasing staff already capable of doing so?
the only reason why valve have not been on board with the ps3 is because they dont want to go and spend time and money hiring new staff, that time and money could be put to finally finishing half life 2 epp 3!
but they saw the popularity of the console, and want a piece of the pie so they had no choice but to do so.
if sony left the ps3 as standard PC architecture, then they would of not created this mess for everyone!
1 up, 3 down
Highlander
Monday, March 28, 2011 @ 12:24:46 AM
It's comments like this that make me extraordinarily glad that people like YOU do not work for Sony's hardware design team.
Had Sony designed the PS3 using PC technology, it would long ago have become utterly obsolete and unfit for purpose. The design of the PS3 is what it is to pack as much raw power under the hood as possible and let the developers figure out how best to use that. That means that from the get go, it's capable of great things, but as time passes and people learn the architecture greater things result. Using a vanilla architecture like the PC simply dooms any console to immediate obsolescence from the day before it launches, just like every other commodity priced PC in existence.
The fact that you - who frequently claim some level of technical understanding - would suggest this illustrates how little you really do know.
The reason Valve took so long is their heavy investment in PC technology, their very close informal relationship with Microsoft and pure technological chauvinism that prevented them from being able to assess the PS3 architecture dispassionately. That and a healthy dose of lazy developer syndrome, which has thankfully vaporized completely.
Last edited by Highlander on 3/28/2011 12:26:30 AM
2 up, 0 down
Excelsior1
Saturday, March 26, 2011 @ 4:38:55 PM
Reply
1 up, 0 down
Crabba
Monday, March 28, 2011 @ 6:50:05 PM
I remember even when the PS3 launched, I was shocked when I learned how poor of a graphics card was actually in it, and that it only had 256+256mb of memory, I had a more advanced graphics card with twice as much video memory and 2gb of system memory already back then, and I didn't even have an expensive new high-end PC...
Retail consumer prices of 1gb of memory was like $60, it's just silly when you think of the cost-cutting Sony did on the most important things, on an already expensive system.
0 up, 0 down
Highlander
Monday, March 28, 2011 @ 9:28:11 PM
RSX lacks some features compared to 360's GPU, but has higher performance in some areas. It depends on what you want from the GPU. Also, the GPU in the PS3 was not originally intended to carry all the load, originally the PS3 was designed without a GPU.
REgarding the additional costs you think are minimal. Doubling the amount of XDR system RAM in the system would have nearly doubled the memory cost since the XDR costs so much more than the more conventional video memory. Considering that Sony was already losing at least $300 per unit, you can hardly ask them to lost another $50 per unit to satisfy your 20-20 hindsight expressed more than 4 years later, can you?
Used properly the RSX Cell combination more than outpaces the Xenon/Xenos combination inside the 360. stacked side by side in a feature comparison Xenos looks more attractive than RSX because it has a couple of additional features that the RSX obviously lacks. However the raw processing of the RSX is actually higher than the Xenos, so it depends what you are doing and how you do it. Also, RSX serves as the memory controller for the Cell, so it's possible to shunt data back and forth between the Cell and RSX with very low latency and high bandwidth. This allows the RSX to be uses as an extension of the Cell in some respects, and in some respects it allows the SPUs on the Cell to be supplemental elements on the RSX, the two truly can work together as one.
0 up, 0 down
Crabba
Monday, March 28, 2011 @ 6:54:45 PM
Reply
I also think it's rather silly of them to talk about how they had to focus on the 360 and skip the PS3 (and PC), when in fact they easily could have made a PC version without much extra work, so the only logical explanation is microsoft exclusivity money, not "focus", and considering the rather poor review scores and sales, it doesn't look like their so-called focus paid off anyway...
0 up, 0 down
Jawknee
Reply
Friday, March 25, 2011 @ 9:41:42 PM