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Late: Why Did Criterion halt GCN support?

What I'm wondering is how Burnout Legends for DS will turn out. For a big-name game that's supposed to be released about two months from now, we've learned virtually nothing about it.

Is Criterion programming that version of the game themselves, or did EA farm it out to a different developer? Also, is it going to be a port of Burnout Legends for PSP, or are they making a "different" game that just happens to have the same name as the game on PSP?
 
JavyOO7 said:
But Criterion saw it differently. They certainly see something that we don't. Alot of publishers from 2003-2004 basically gave up; they did'nt believe in Nintendo's business model.

It's not politics neither; in a perfect world I don't doubt that developers would develop for all platforms but just can't.
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That is politics, perception. How many companies put out absolute junk on a system and then blame the system for poor sales? Companies kick themselves in the ass with their platform selections and release schedules. Often it feels like a bunch of lemmings chasing after the new buzzword. The most likely cited and believable reason for Criterion not putting the new Burnout games on GC is because of them being online, correct? So has the online Burnout pushed sales?
 
dark10x said:
Another question...

In the Burnout Revenge thread, we were looking at the sunglare effects in the game. From the common "sunlight" effect to the appearance of sunlight on surfaces (kinda like bloom lighting). How are these effects achieved? They really weren't ever seen prior to the PS2...but they've become very common today. I've always wondered how they work.
Click to expand...

Fake HDR lighting, also refered to it as as "Bloom" as you pointed out, is possible on all three consoles... but again, because of the lack of good "blur", the gamecube doesn't have as nice looking bloom as the other consoles.

The "cheap and fast" way to do this is to grab the frame buffer, blur it (whichever way...), and then multiplying that back onto the current frame. So hot spots of light have a slight halo (because of the downsampling making their outlines less precise, and therefore, "fuzzy") and the multiply moves the pixels more towards white in the RGB (i.e. 255 255 255), creating a sort of "blasted light" effect.

AniHawk said:
WHY DO YOU HATE NINTENDO
Click to expand...

Hopefully, this is a joke with tongue planted firmly in cheek.

If not, please re-read my message and see that I am being as subjective and balanced as possible.

I do have some strong feelings, as a developer, on the decisions Nintendo made when creating their console, but I'm far from hating them. As I said, I own a Gamecube. I also have a DS... and an SP... and a GBA... and an N64...
 
JavyOO7 said:
But Criterion saw it differently. They certainly see something that we don't. Alot of publishers from 2003-2004 basically gave up; they did'nt believe in Nintendo's business model.

It's not politics neither; in a perfect world I don't doubt that developers would develop for all platforms but just can't.
Click to expand...
Indeed. Sales of GC versions of titles weren't THAT far behind the Ps2 or the Xbox, except for sports games (and it wasn't NEARLY the gap it is now.). Maybe a couple k, or at the most, 50k, in the most extreme situations. Some multiplatform games even sold best on cube, in fact.

Developers just started giving up in 2003-2004. (well, publishers, most likely).
 
Drinky Crow said:
1. The Nintendo audience consist of little kids and jaded fatasses, the former of which play whatever their parents buy them -- usually family-friendly Nintendo fare -- and the latter who don't buy games to play them but to make a smug ideological statement of preference on messageboards.

2. The GC is underpowered and couldn't handle a game as visually complicated as Burnout 3+.
Click to expand...

Wow. I guess some people find this stuff "funny" and that's why you're allowed to stick around.
 
Jonnyboy117 said:
Wow. I guess some people find this stuff "funny" and that's why you're allowed to stick around.
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Drinky Crow's motto: "It's ok to troll, if you're against Nintendo!"
 
etiolate said:
...

PS2 doesn't have all the games. Are you dull enough to try to lure me? You understand exactly my point and I know that, so I'm not even going to troll with you.
Click to expand...

I'm sorry, I forgot. PS2 doesn't have games from Nintendo. My bad.
 
GaimeGuy said:
Same reason why Atari, despite GOD: DAMM selling 500k on the GC and 50k on the Xbox, announced an exclusive sequel for Xbox: they didn't want to bother making a game online for the cube.
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what game you refering to.
 
I've always assumed that several "odd" cases of GC support being pulled (Burnout, Godzilla) were part of the odd nature of GameCube support during 2003. The big GC price drop for Christmas gave the GC a bit of a rebound and got system sales (and software sales) going again, but some companies had already predicted death for the system and dropped support early. Returning to GC development would either be difficult or make them look like they had made the wrong decision.

It could also be that their predictions for future GC software sales were significantly lower than true sales were... but with the assumption that their titles wouldn't sell, they dropped out early. Past sales strength is no guarantee of future sales strength...

(I still think EA and Criterion were silly in refusing to sell a GC port of the newer Burnouts, and Atari even more inane in their snubbing of the GC for a port of Godzilla. Granted, I liked neither game, but I know a lot of folks did.)
 
Ikaris said:
Fake HDR lighting, also refered to it as as "Bloom" as you pointed out, is possible on all three consoles... but again, because of the lack of good "blur", the gamecube doesn't have as nice looking bloom as the other consoles.

The "cheap and fast" way to do this is to grab the frame buffer, blur it (whichever way...), and then multiplying that back onto the current frame.
Click to expand...

AFAIK neither XBox, PS2 or Gamecube got something like a dedicated "blur" unit, but instead you can use your original framebuffer as a texture and then do multiple passes with slightly different texture coordinates and alpha to do a multi-tap blur effect. I don't see any reason why gamecube wouldn't be able do that, other than lack of ram, because you can't use the embeded framebuffer as a texture without first copying it to the main ram.
 
Wow, just wow, I think this thread must have set some sort of record for the number of stupid
and inncorect things said, and I am trying to figure out who is worse the Nintendo fanboys or the Nintendo haters.

Anyway, here is a fun fact the original Burnout was actucally designed with the Gamecube in mind as it was the first system Burnout was developed for, the reason that the Playstation 2 SKU came out first is due to Criterion and/or Accliam electing to release that version first.
 
One would hope publishers would take the proper lesson from their GC support, which isn't "stuff doesn't sell on GC unless it's made by Nintendo" but is really "Nobody likes a gimped, late, buggy port." All these companies have done is shoot themselves in the foot by not ever really properly supporting one console's audience and tarnished their own reputations by releasing overpriced, late garbage on it. Had they done the same thing with the Xbox or PS2, they would have had the same results.

Could Criterion have released a solid, on time, feature equivalent version of the new Burnout games on GC? Absolutely.

No excuse, really.
 
Well, it depends on what you mean by on time since the Cube version of multi-platform titles usual come out a week or two later due to the manufacturing of the proprietary Cube discs.
 
Agent X said:
What I'm wondering is how Burnout Legends for DS will turn out. For a big-name game that's supposed to be released about two months from now, we've learned virtually nothing about it.

Is Criterion programming that version of the game themselves, or did EA farm it out to a different developer? Also, is it going to be a port of Burnout Legends for PSP, or are they making a "different" game that just happens to have the same name as the game on PSP?
Click to expand...
yeah, I wonder the same thing. Tons of press for the PSP and other versions but nothing, other than a release date, for the DS version. I just want to know what it's going to look like (better than RR: DS I hope) and how it's going to play (again, better than RR: DS please).
 
bune duggy said:
yeah, I wonder the same thing. Tons of press for the PSP and other versions but nothing, other than a release date, for the DS version. I just want to know what it's going to look like (better than RR: DS I hope) and how it's going to play (again, better than RR: DS please).
Click to expand...
Thing is, I can't imagine it looking too much better than RR DS. The tracks alone are more complex (in terms of what is displayed) and a Burnout game needs to display many more objects at once. The traffic and opponents are a big part of the game, so massively reducing them would be a problem. Also, there are some decent physics there in terms of how cars interact with everything. You also can't simply drop the view distance without damaging the game (at high speeds, you NEED to have a long view distance). There were reductions made to the PSP version, but they kept all track detail, all traffic, and all other elements the same...they just don't look as good as BO3/Revenge.

A straight racer with just you and some other cars against a simplistic track is no problem for DS, but Burnout seems like it could be tough to pull off. I could see the game simply disappearing. It just doesn't seem like a good fit for the DS.
 
dark10x said:
Thing is, I can't imagine it looking too much better than RR DS.
Click to expand...

It could look as good as Asphalt: Urban GT, which looks a bit better than Ridge Racer DS. But the important question is whether it will play well, as the core of Burnout gameplay, crashing, seems like it would be hard to pull off on the DS.

Speaking of racing games on the DS, I wonder how long it'll be until some developer tries implementing a full vertical display across both screens, so that you can see far into the horizon? I'm not sure if it would work well, but it would be interesting to play and find out. One problem with such a design is that you'd be pushing 3D on both screens, so the graphics would probably suck.
 
dark10x said:
Thing is, I can't imagine it looking too much better than RR DS. The tracks alone are more complex (in terms of what is displayed) and a Burnout game needs to display many more objects at once. The traffic and opponents are a big part of the game, so massively reducing them would be a problem. Also, there are some decent physics there in terms of how cars interact with everything. You also can't simply drop the view distance without damaging the game (at high speeds, you NEED to have a long view distance). There were reductions made to the PSP version, but they kept all track detail, all traffic, and all other elements the same...they just don't look as good as BO3/Revenge.

A straight racer with just you and some other cars against a simplistic track is no problem for DS, but Burnout seems like it could be tough to pull off. I could see the game simply disappearing. It just doesn't seem like a good fit for the DS.
Click to expand...
totally agree, especially with the disappearing. It's pretty easy to make a game that has no assets (as far as released shots/video) disappear. That's one reason I'm not really holding much hope for the game. Until they show me something, it doesn't really exist.
 
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