News Remedy explain Alan Wake Xbox exclusivity

"Frankly, we're a small studio. We're 50 people, and being a small studio, it makes a lot more sense for us to focus on one platform," -Häkkinen

"Saying that Alan Wake is best played of a sofa with 5.1 surround and a big TV screen, I think is more of a preference than anything else...We're not going out there to say that PC gamers can't enjoy it from their own PC set-up. We're certainly not saying that. We have a strong heritage in PC gaming as well."-Häkkinen

"Currently we're fully focused on the Xbox version, and [as for] what the future holds, we haven't got anything to announce, and we haven't thought that far right now,"-Häkkinen

Well, if you can't dazzle them with brilliance, the baffle them with ********! They don't believe M$, but they believe "you" Häkkinen. They'll only be outraged and mad at "you" until the next title goes straight to console! LOL!!

 

$$$$$$$$$$$$.

That's why its on the Xbox 360.

To be fair, its a logical choice as any business needs to make money. Having said that, they ought to release it on the PC afterward, its not a complicated procedure to port it across. Whether it happens or not, I expect is up to whatever contract they signed with Microsoft.

 

Even if it does get released for PC months later, is anyone really going to care? By that point there will be little to no interest in the game and everyone who wanted to play the game will have already on 360.

Then they can use the poor PC sales figures as further proof of "pc gaming is dead".

 

funny thing is if pc gaming dies console gaming would follow it. No hardware to power the next gen systems. As i dout nvidia or ati make alot from console sales of there gpu.

 

I wouln't, the game isn't worth a nut, better refrain yourself from that statement

 

You couldn't be further from the truth if you tried. Both ATI and Nvidia are aggressively seeking ways to expand graphical acceleration outside of the desktop market, as the amount of money in consoles/handhelds/phones is huge.

The graphical lead you see in PC games over consoles is steadily eroding because there are very few developers left dedicated to the PC platform, and those that are, aren't overly concerned with cutting edge graphics (Blizzard, Valve, casual devs like Farmville etc). It's the 'Crysis effect'.

This is further compounded by the recession having a hand in extending the current consoles lifespan, giving developers even less reason to advance the PC gaming market.

If you want to hear a far better summation from somebody much more knowledgeable than I am, listen to the Bit-tech podcast a few months ago where Tim talks about Nvidia's waning interest in the PC market and expansion into others.

 

"Alan Wake is best played of a sofa with 5.1 surround and a big TV screen"

In other words, Alan Wake is a game made for couch potato

 

As opposed to a Computer Chair Potato?

 

Here, here! A bit-tech guy with a sense of the market, and some common sense to boot!

 

Best to release it on the console and make it as good as possible with the best chance of making the most money, then put it out on PC later on when they don't have to worry about being bankrupted by piracy and/or being accused of being evil by internet whiners for putting lots of DRM on their game. Also better than taking a hit on delays and diminished quality by trying to split a small dev team into getting it out on both platforms.

This is probably the best compromise, assuming they release it on PC. The MS statement was just some blowhard being stupid.

 

Wait wait wait.

So it was a PC exclusive, yes?

And it's more cost effective to port the existing code and game assets to the 360 platform rather than finish on the platform it was started on?

Yeah. Did I mention that I'm Santa Claus?

 

An interesting question is how much money do ATI (and less so Nvidia) make on consoles. Nvidia and ATI were heavily involved with the design of the PS3 and 360 respectively. Do they share in the hardware losses with Sony and MS, or does Sony and MS still pay them up front for the GPUs - regardless how much input they had on the design of the consoles.

 

Why do PC gamers always think that the console manufacturers always operate at a loss? The ignorance of the gaming market is absolutely staggering.

 

Who says I'm a PC gamer? Sure I own a PC, but I also own a PS3. I'm not bashing on consoles, I am generally interested in the answer. It's fairly common knowledge that the PS3 is sold at a loss, and if the 360 isn't anymore it certainly was when it debuted. It's one of the reasons why this round of console games are priced $10 higher than the previous generation's. IIRC Nintendo is the only company not selling their console at a loss, due in part to it being basically the same as the GameCube (which was already behind the Xbox and PS2 hardware wise).

 

Well, if you really think about it, consoles sell at a loss, game sales make up for it though.

 

Game and Peripheral sales make up for the loss on the console sale. Got an xbox? Great! Want it wireless? Great! Component cable? Great! Extra controllers? Great! Bigger harddrive? Great! Memory card? Great! etc, etc, etc.. I can't think how much I've spent on hardware, particularly with the Wii.

Which is surprisingly a lot easier to code for than consoles, because of the available APIs (OpenGL, OpenAL, DirectX, etc) and common libraries. PC's have been around for aeons and despite huge and numerous component changes, the basic layer (x86) has remained the same.

Consoles are great, but PC's have their place too. 1080p looks fantastic on a 32"+ TV - Wipeout looks just awesome. 1200p on a 24" monitor looks a damn site better though, with smoother framerates, far higher anisotropy and AA up the yingyang.

 

+1

 

They have to be small for it to have taken this long....? No PC count me out.

 

Uncharted 2 is up for a BAVGA (game BAFTA). MS want a slice of that pie with an exclusive.

 

In a way it makes sense to me. With a studio that small, an exclusive deal will net them a larger reasource bank to help move development along (marketing, QA, support for the hardware).