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X360 Splinter Cell 4 developed by Ubisoft Shanghai

Mrbob said:
This sucks. I want UBI Montreal on the 360 version. Not the B team.
I don't see a problem. Montreal's working on the core content and it looks as though the "upgraded" versions are being outsourced to Shanghai to be res'ed up to look all purdy.
 
Wasn't it the Shanghai team that did the GC port of the original Splinter Cell?
 
Currently in the pipeline are Prince of Persia: The Two Thrones (out Thursday, with the DS version available Dec. 8) and Tom Clancy’s Splinter Cell 4 (spring 2006). The Montreal studio is making the PlayStation 2, Xbox and PSP versions of Splinter Cell 4 while the PC and Xbox 360 versions are being made in Ubisoft’s Shanghai studio.
I'll sum it up real purdy like. The A-Team (Montreal) is concentrating on making the game for current consoles and not worrying about doing the graphical upgrade rigmarole for the most powerful platforms. Meanwhile Ubisoft has the B-Team (Shanghai) working only on the 360/PC ports. This is a win-win scenario, no quality is spared and all appropriate talents are working on making this looking great for all platforms.
 
TekunoRobby said:
I'll sum it up real purdy like. The A-Team (Montreal) is concentrating on making the game for current consoles and not worrying about doing the graphical upgrade rigmarole for the most powerful platforms. Meanwhile Ubisoft has the B-Team (Shanghai) working only on the 360/PC ports. This is a win-win scenario, no quality is spared and all appropriate talents are working on making this looking great for all platforms.

Or in other words, the 360 & PC versions are just ports. That is, they are not being developed with the 360 in mind. Or the gameplay that could be done by the 360 but not current gen system. Better AI, larger levels, graphics that impact the gameplay in a meaningful way.

How would people think of Metal Gear Solid 4 being developed for the PS2 by Kojima and the PS3 version being developed by the guys that did Frogger?
 
TekunoRobby said:
I'll sum it up real purdy like. The A-Team (Montreal) is concentrating on making the game for current consoles and not worrying about doing the graphical upgrade rigmarole for the most powerful platforms. Meanwhile Ubisoft has the B-Team (Shanghai) working only on the 360/PC ports. This is a win-win scenario, no quality is spared and all appropriate talents are working on making this looking great for all platforms.

Yep, sounds like the main game structure and code will be handled by Montreal and Shanghai will be tasked to mostly upgrading the art assets for the PC/360 (and maybe a PS3 port down the line). Understandable they're still keeping the core development on the current platforms as the userbase advantage is obvious. Still its unfortunate it wont truly take advantage of the next gen hardware this way though. We probably wont see a significant jump for the franchise until 360/PS3 becomes the base.
 
sonycowboy said:
How would people think of Metal Gear Solid 4 being developed for the PS2 by Kojima and the PS3 version being developed by the guys that did Frogger?
They would be like me, blown away that the Frogger team could do something of that much quality, ha ha.

Well approach it from this angle, SC4 was never going to be a 360 exclusive and was always planned to be released on the current gen systems. So considering the options we get the best results, an entire team of competent programmers working solely on updating the graphics for the more powerful platforms.
 
I thought the Shanghai studio did a great job with Pandora Tomorrow, personally. The single-player campaign was a lot better than SC1's (aside from some questionable production values like the enemy guard voices, typos, and lack of datapads) and the multiplayer was both groundbreaking and fairly well-executed.

So this news is fine for me. I'm also not sure what people are expecting with regard to "next gen" gameplay on the 360--I have trouble seeing what it could possibly do that current-gen consoles and the PC can't do already.
 
I don't care who's making it. I just wish I could get a time frame for when companies will be done making these 5-6 platform ports. Late 2006?
 
Mike Works said:
Why the fuck are they making Splinter Cell 4 for the XBox (and PS2)? What's the point.

Yeah why make a game for systems that have millions of customers? That's just stupid!
 
Yeah why make a game for systems that have millions of customers? That's just stupid!


Well, even though the Xbox has the capabilities to make an amazing looking console version of this game, its sales in the US aren't going to get much better.
 
MadOdorMachine said:
There's not one mention of a GC or Revolution version and people are bitching about who's porting it to 360.

BUY AN XBOX! Actually, in fact, basically buy ANY other console except a Nintendo-branded one if you want quality third party support already. Haven't you already learned that?

The only thing that makes me sad from this news is we have to wait until Splinter Cell 5 for true ground-up next-gen Splinter Cell. And I was hoping they'd do it on this, 'cause the scenario for SC4 really sounded like it was gonna turn the series for a twist.
 
Amir0x said:
BUY AN XBOX! Actually, in fact, basically buy ANY other console except a Nintendo-branded one if you want quality third party support already. Haven't you already learned that?

The only thing that makes me sad from this news is we have to wait until Splinter Cell 5 for true ground-up next-gen Splinter Cell. And I was hoping they'd do it on this, 'cause the scenario for SC4 really sounded like it was gonna turn the series for a twist.

I'm willing to bet SC5 comes to current gen consoles as well. I expect PS2 / Xbox to be fully supported by EA, Ubisoft, etc for the next couple years. You guys seem to forget there are a shitload of gamers that will not upgrade for quite some time. :P
 
Razoric said:
I'm willing to bet SC5 comes to current gen consoles as well. I expect PS2 / Xbox to be fully supported by EA, Ubisoft, etc for the next couple years. You guys seem to forget there are a shitload of gamers that will not upgrade for quite some time. :P

Hm, you might be right. BIG companies like Ubisoft and EA like to manage resources such so they can optimize return as best they could. Still, I think maybe Ubi will go out for Splinter Cell 5 for next-gen only to give the series a big push into next-gen.
 
I know an ex-colleague of mine who worked on SC3 at Ubi Montreal went and transferred to work on SC4 at Ubi Shanghai about a year and a half ago. He wasn't the only one on the team to go either, apparently.
 
olubode said:
Wasn't it the Shanghai team that did the GC port of the original Splinter Cell?

yes, they did all the ps2 and gc games. i dont believe this news. why would ubi soft switch the teams???? shanghai was always the b-team and had no priority.
 
ram said:
yes, they did all the ps2 and gc games. i dont believe this news. why would ubi soft switch the teams???? shanghai was always the b-team and had no priority.

Sorry,

but Chaos Theory PS2 and game cube was made in house, in montreal.

The PS2 and Game Cube version had a seperate producer in house.

Do your research.
 
really? i thought they were made in shanghai, only with some producer from montreal. shanghai did all the bad ports of the clancy games in the past. why would ubi soft change that?
 
I'm playing SC3 right now and it's really great. I haven't played SC2, but chaos theory is just better than the first SC in almost every way. I can't wait for SC4, I just hope they don't water down the franchise..
 
ram said:
really? i thought they were made in shanghai, only with some producer from montreal. shanghai did all the bad ports of the clancy games in the past. why would ubi soft change that?


I dunno why they'd do that, Management decision.
 
Razoric said:
Yeah why make a game for systems that have millions of customers? That's just stupid!
YES THAT LOGIC IS INFALLIBLE WHY MAKE A GAME FOR THE GAMECUBE WHEN THE N64 HAS A LARGER INSTALLED BASE

The more sequels you make for a system/generation, the more you dillute the franchise's name (sports games aside of course). Why should Microsoft make Halo 3 for the 360 when there are more XBox owners out there?

Releasing Splinter Cell 4 now, or within the next couple of months would've made sense (ala King Kong) since we're in the transitional period now, but in the middle or late next year? It destroys credence to the franchise's name in the long term.
 
Mike Works said:
YES THAT LOGIC IS INFALLIBLE WHY MAKE A GAME FOR THE GAMECUBE WHEN THE N64 HAS A LARGER INSTALLED BASE

The more sequels you make for a system/generation, the more you dillute the franchise's name (sports games aside of course). Why should Microsoft make Halo 3 for the 360 when there are more XBox owners out there?

Releasing Splinter Cell 4 now, or within the next couple of months would've made sense (ala King Kong) since we're in the transitional period now, but in the middle or late next year? It destroys credence to the franchise's name in the long term.

Agreed.

The Xbox version does look pretty damn good though.
 
Mike Works said:
YES THAT LOGIC IS INFALLIBLE WHY MAKE A GAME FOR THE GAMECUBE WHEN THE N64 HAS A LARGER INSTALLED BASE

The more sequels you make for a system/generation, the more you dillute the franchise's name (sports games aside of course). Why should Microsoft make Halo 3 for the 360 when there are more XBox owners out there?

Releasing Splinter Cell 4 now, or within the next couple of months would've made sense (ala King Kong) since we're in the transitional period now, but in the middle or late next year? It destroys credence to the franchise's name in the long term.

First party strategy is completely different from 3rd party. A first party has the responsibility to PUSH a platform. The 3rd party has the responsibility of making money.

Perhaps, Ubisoft would have preferred that this gen not end early because of how much more life it had ahead of it? I do agree that 4 versions of a franchise in a generation is a bit much, but that's more a factor of publishers feeling the need to do a sequel every year as opposed to mixing in some new IP's, or at least more liberally using the IP's they already have (Ubisoft has quite a few).

Of course, it's not like Ubisoft is worried about "diluting the franchise's name" too much seeing as how they've released Splinter Cell every single year since the game's introduction and put it onto the GBA, NDS, Mobile phones, & 2 on the NGAGE :lol
 
sonycowboy said:
Or in other words, the 360 & PC versions are just ports. That is, they are not being developed with the 360 in mind. Or the gameplay that could be done by the 360 but not current gen system. Better AI, larger levels, graphics that impact the gameplay in a meaningful way.

How would people think of Metal Gear Solid 4 being developed for the PS2 by Kojima and the PS3 version being developed by the guys that did Frogger?

Not kinda a remotely similar comparison considering the SC games have always been multiplatform releases, there was little chance of SC4 360 being much if any more then its PC counterpart to begin with, which wouldn't have been much more then the console versions. We don't even know enough about it yet to see exactly how either game is similar.

While i'd feel more confident if the montreal team were handling the 360 version theres only assumptions to know exactly how they're handling it, none of the Xbox versions have been crippled when they were designing it for PS2 in mind either.

Nevermind the fact that "better AI" is probably really down to the just their programming rather then the consoles spec itself at this stage, larger levels aren't really applicable to a game like SC either, and i dont think theres many gameplay advances you can get from graphics from a game like SC at this stage, the lightings already evolved enough at this point i think.

I really don't think SC is a series that its quality is driven by hardware to begin with.
 
sonycowboy said:
Or in other words, the 360 & PC versions are just ports. That is, they are not being developed with the 360 in mind. Or the gameplay that could be done by the 360 but not current gen system. Better AI, larger levels, graphics that impact the gameplay in a meaningful way.

How would people think of Metal Gear Solid 4 being developed for the PS2 by Kojima and the PS3 version being developed by the guys that did Frogger?

People ten to turn a blind eye to the whoring of the SC series;) But in all seriousness (even though I wasn't kiding:p) Splinter Cell is a multiplatform franchise, as multiplatform as you can get, I'm not sure why anyone would have expected a 'special' version for the 360 and PC.
 
Zen said:
People ten to turn a blind eye to the whoring of the SC series;) But in all seriousness (even though I wasn't kiding:p) Splinter Cell is a multiplatform franchise, as multiplatform as you can get, I'm not sure why anyone would have expected a 'special' version for the 360 and PC.


Are you kidding me....

Didn't you hear all the "SC4 kills MGS4 graphics" comments during X05???
 
Argh! Pandora Tomorrow sucked.

I really like the first game, abhored PT, and absoutely LOVED the last game.

What does all that mean? Yeah that's right, it means the Shanghai team fucking sucks.
 
The Montreal studio is making the PlayStation 2, Xbox and PSP versions of Splinter Cell 4
.

How is that gonna work? Splinter Cell needs another analog stick and as many buttons as it can possibly get to work? On the flip side, a capable Splinter Cell multiplayer on the go would be pretty awesome. I'm just so confused, I don't know what to think.
 
TekunoRobby said:
I'll sum it up real purdy like. The A-Team (Montreal) is concentrating on making the game for current consoles and not worrying about doing the graphical upgrade rigmarole for the most powerful platforms. Meanwhile Ubisoft has the B-Team (Shanghai) working only on the 360/PC ports. This is a win-win scenario, no quality is spared and all appropriate talents are working on making this looking great for all platforms.

The problem I have is that Shanghai didn't impress me with their technical prowess with Pandora Tommorrow. We needed Montreal back again to make the leap with SC3.

I expect the 360 version to be Xbox 1.5'd now.
 
i really hope that Sam ends up looking like this in-game..... the detail is amazing.

play.jpg
 
puebla said:
i really hope that Sam ends up looking like this in-game..... the detail is amazing.

play.jpg
I thought that was a pic of the Tomb Raider developer. There is no way that that's realtime.
 
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