Topic: Capcom Kills Platform Exclusivity Deals, Strengthens PC Gaming Division

[idolminds]

Story

Capcom's ninety-page 2008 financial report announces a complete abandonment of platform exclusive development and a company-wide roll-out of MT Framework, their in-house development system that allows for platform parity. Also highlighted is their intention to tap into the strengthening PC market with releases such as Bionic Commando, Bionic Commando Rearmed, Street Fighter IV, Age of Booty, and other unannounced titles such as Resident Evil 5. I hope.

It only makes sense with game development costs being what they are. Why limit your potential audience of a game to a single platform? Especially now when the PS3/360/PC versions can all be nearly the same?

Also, woo for more PC releases! Dead Rising, you fuckers! Get on it!

[K-man]

I think the era of the third party exclusive is coming to an end rather quickly.  I don't know if that's a good or bad thing for us.

[sirean_syan]

I'm sorta hating what this generation has brought to gamers in general these days. Big games are too expensive for their own good and the returns that cost has brought to the gamer doesn't seem to be worth it. One thing about exclusive games was they tended to have something special to them. It was like the developer put some extra omph into things in order to make their money back or something. When you consider the general quality of titles coming out, something's not matching up with the money that's supposedly going into these projects. Granted this generation has brought a lot of smaller games to the forefront with XBLA and PSN and in a lot of ways I think these are becoming the shining gem of this round in consoles, but they are still few and far between. Even worse, the cost is literally killing studios left and right.

I'm not sure if I want to blame gamers or the companies. It's probably a bit of both (stuff being crammed down our throats and gamers clamoring for shiny huge graphics). Either way, the gaming world has come to a crossroads and lots of change happening. I'm not a fan of how it all looks.

[Quemaqua]

I understand what Sy means, and I think I more or less agree.

But I'm also conflicted because I'm typing this as I play through The Darkness for the 4th time, this time on PS3 after the first 3 on 360.  I'm not sure where that leaves me.

[gpw11]

I'm not sure if I want to blame gamers or the companies. It's probably a bit of both (stuff being crammed down our throats and gamers clamoring for shiny huge graphics). Either way, the gaming world has come to a crossroads and lots of change happening. I'm not a fan of how it all looks.

I'd say it's a combination of both as well as the natural state of things.  I mean, with the way the technology evolves games are just going to end up costing more and more and the law of diminishing returns is only going to become more and more obvious. A way around it could be finding new ways to sell new consoles, such as the Wii (although that's obviously flawed as well), or just extending the lifespan of the consoles, which I'm sure the companies would generally love to do.

[scottws]

To me it sounds like game-making tools just haven't caught up with the current technology consoles are able to display visually.  If there was a pretty quick and easy way to make high-poly characters and maps, it wouldn't be such a painstaking and expensive process.

[gpw11]

Yeah, good point.  Middleware gets a lot more use these days, and that will probably only expand into new areas in the future in order to make what you're talking about happen.

[Pugnate]

Well, the the new id engine is apparently designed in a way that allows developers to develop on one platform (PC,PS3,360) and then seamlessly switch between the other two major ones, with a single command. The reason this has the industry so excited is that it would mean developers saving countless resources. It would also result in games being released much faster.

This is where Carmack is trying to outdo the Unreal engine.

Also, woo for more PC releases! Dead Rising, you fuckers! Get on it!

Let's hope they do a better job of it than RE4. I am surprised they want to go for PC games, to be honest. In the last couple of years we've had a big push for the PC with normally console exclusive titles being ported to the platform. Games like Virtua Tennis, Top Spin, Devil May Cry, Marvel Ultimate Alliance etc. all surprisingly showed up on the PC, yet none sold well, and some publishers went on record stating the ports hadn't been worth the effort, casting doubt on any future endeavors. In fact, Top Spin's latest didn't go past the consoles, while M:UA2 is reportedly being developed for consoles only.

But even back then, Capcom talked about wanting to continue to support the PC market, despite believing that DMC4 sold poorly on the PC because piracy.

http://kotaku.com/5031799/devil-may-cry-4-getting-pirated-to-hell-and-back

When quizzed about the state of Devil May Cry 4's PC sales on Capcom's forums, Christian Svensson replied:
 I'm not sure about how Capcom in general feels but It's not doing as well as I would like in the US at retail. It's such a good version and it really deserves better sales. I know it's getting pirated to hell and back (it was up on torrents literally the day it shipped).

I'm sorta hating what this generation has brought to gamers in general these days. Big games are too expensive for their own good and the returns that cost has brought to the gamer doesn't seem to be worth it. One thing about exclusive games was they tended to have something special to them. It was like the developer put some extra omph into things in order to make their money back or something. When you consider the general quality of titles coming out, something's not matching up with the money that's supposedly going into these projects. Granted this generation has brought a lot of smaller games to the forefront with XBLA and PSN and in a lot of ways I think these are becoming the shining gem of this round in consoles, but they are still few and far between. Even worse, the cost is literally killing studios left and right.

The same can be said for the consoles as well. Apparently, MS can simply not recover the money invested into the 360. From what I read, both Sony and MS have realized they went too far with the current gen of consoles, and plan to be a bit more realistic when they launch their new consoles in 2012.

[Cobra951]

Well, the the new id engine is apparently designed in a way that allows developers to develop on one platform (PC,PS3,360) and then seamlessly switch between the other two major ones, with a single command. The reason this has the industry so excited is that it would mean developers saving countless resources. It would also result in games being released much faster.

This wraps back into what Scott said. It can be quick or it can be optimal for each platform.  It can't be both.  The PC and 360 share a lot in common, but the PS3 is a very different beast, requiring splitting up of work along lines I don't think an automated compile is going to handle well at all.

[MysterD]

Well, the the new id engine is apparently designed in a way that allows developers to develop on one platform (PC,PS3,360) and then seamlessly switch between the other two major ones, with a single command. The reason this has the industry so excited is that it would mean developers saving countless resources. It would also result in games being released much faster.

That would be great.

Let's hope they do a better job of it than RE4.

My biggest complaint with RE4 PC was the KB/mouse controls suck; throw those out the window. But, the gamepad controls are great. And if you have a X360 gamepad, just plug it into the PC.

Thank God they fixed the lighting issue w/ a patch for UK users; and put the lighting issues patch right on the USA version of RE4. RE4 was pretty good, if you ask me -- as long as you have a gamepad.

I am surprised they want to go for PC games, to be honest.

I'm not surprised. I'll elaborate why, further along...

In the last couple of years we've had a big push for the PC with normally console exclusive titles being ported to the platform. Games like Virtua Tennis, Top Spin, Devil May Cry, Marvel Ultimate Alliance etc. all surprisingly showed up on the PC, yet none sold well, and some publishers went on record stating the ports hadn't been worth the effort, casting doubt on any future endeavors. In fact, Top Spin's latest didn't go past the consoles, while M:UA2 is reportedly being developed for consoles only.

I'm sure Capcom has gotten e-mails from PC gamers over the years if they would get PC ports of their consoles games. I was one of them, after I heard how great RE4 for the consoles was. 

But, yeah -- I mean, since the 360 is somewhat close to a PC, it'd be a no-brainer to put your game on both the X360 and PC.

Svensson instead goes on in great detail about the company's big plans for future digital distribution on the platform, which is encouraging reading for the kind of people that think playing DMC4 on a PC is a good idea.

I think this is where the market is going, eventually. Steam figures seem to keep going up. You know, even a person who ain't too fond of Steam like myself, I'm starting to suddenly buy games from them to buy-to-download -- even if they're cheap for like $5.00; I bought Heretic/Hexen Collection and BG&E recently over Steam -- b/c it's so convenient and b/c I can't find boxed copies of these games for a cheap price.

On the PC with digital distribution (such as Steam, GOG.com, Metaboli UK, etc etc), developers and publishers don't have to press physical copies of games. Just put the game-files up on one of those site for buy-to-download. Hell, let the gamers press copies of the game on disc, if they want. No manuals to print, either -- let the gamers who got printers that want to print it out do so. You know, that must save them dev's and publishers LOTS of money.

Plus, I think games are also being often so costly to make nowadays, they can't afford to miss a channel to put the game on. Multi-platform it as much as possible.

Also, I think Street Fighter 4 coming to the PC is a big deal. Can you imagine a Street Fighter game on the PC with a gamepad being player by thousands to millions of gamers challenging each other over the Internet? Internet gaming took over the gaming world in ways a local coin-operated game arcade never could.

There is NO PC gaming brawler right now that everybody is playing on the PC. It's a DEAD market. Street Fighter 4 PC would win by default. And even if there was competition on the PC, keep in mind, Street Fighter is one of the best series for fighters of all time; it probably still would win.

[MysterD]

Christian Svensson of Capcom talks about digital distribution, piracy, and why Capcom is now focusing on the PC market

RPS: Hi Christian, can we start by talking about Capcom’s increased interest in the PC, and perhaps a little about the attitude of your company towards the PC as a platform?

Svensson: Sure, well, I think it’s fair to say that for PC audiences, when you think of the PC platform, then Capcom probably isn’t a publisher that comes to mind right away. But there are two initiatives going on, one in Japan, and one in the West.

People might remember Devil May Cry 3, Resident Evil 4, and Onimusha - these were projects that were outsourced, and run by our licensing team, rather than internal R&D. They were thrown over the wall to a developer, and the ports were quick and dirty, and even internally were not viewed favourably. As part of the licensing deal Ubisoft had the rights to distribute. Shortly thereafter the US side of our business decided to bring that back into the consumer software side and grow it. At the same time there were two things happening in Japan: number one was the development of the MT framework, the technology which would allow us to port over work we’d done on PS3 and 360 to the PC. The second thing was a broad online initiative towards Japan, Korea, and China, headed up out of the Tokyo office. The first title that has shipped is Monster Hunter Frontier, which is now one of the most successful MMOs in Japan.

So that’s how we got to where we are with bringing titles to internal development on PC. Lost Planet was the first game to ship with DX10, and it had some of the code that became Steamworks in it. They had to peel out some of the code that we worked on for that game, to make what you see today on that platform. So we were forward thinking with all that kind of functionality. Since then we’ve released Devil May Cry 4 and Lost Planet Colonies. And MotoGP ‘08, NeoPets, Flock, Dark Void have all come, or are coming out, from the West. We also have Streetfighter 4 coming out from Japan on the near horizon, and Dead Rising 2 a bit further out. There’s more too, but we’ve not announced that yet.

RPS: You’re a high-profile new member of the PCGA, who we’ve talked to recently, but what are you getting out of it?

Svensson: Look at the mission of the PCGA. It’s to improve the PC gaming ecosystem. How do we go about doing that? One of the problems, to be candid, is that retail is falling away. What are the reasons for that? Partly it’s that return rates are very high. Returns of a PC title are usually double that of a console title - why? Because it’s not a great consumer experience because there’s variation in minimum spec, and it requires a lot of consumer knowledge to figure out exactly what is in their box, and what that will run. If we can improve that, if we can improve issues with DRM and create an anti-piracy policy that is friendly to consumers, that will remove barriers to sales, and improve the ecosystem. Being completely mercenary: all this will improve our bottom line. The more successful we are on a platform, the bigger the risks we can take, and the better content we can produce there. Our membership of the PCGA is about improving the market: we want to improve the experience for consumers. More selfishly, if there are going to be “best practices” suggested that become standards, we want to make sure our interests are looked out for.