Feargie talks about Console vs PC

Odin

Odin

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In a thread on the RPGCodex, Feargus Urquhart talked about developing console titles vs pc titles:<blockquote>Some comments about the return on the investment in making games when you compare PC vs. consoles.

1) When a new console comes out generally everyone has to spend a lot of money just figuring out how to now make games for it, while on the PC the engines generally evolve. I can't really quantify this, but I would guess this to cost most publishers $10M to $20M in new technology and cancelled projects every time the new consoles come out.

2) All console games require about a $10 licensing fee, which includes your packaging and DVDs. This can be two to five times the cost of packaging for a PC. When the Whole Sale Price is around $36 (most people will say $40, but I've never found that to be true with all the special dealing that happens). The PC game can start out 20% ahead on the actual net cash you get.

3) Marketing for console games can be a lot more expensive since they have to derive more units to make the same money - so more people need to buy them, which means more marketing. Plus console players have traditionally been less tuned in - so publishers have had to use more mass market marketing like Maxim and TV, which cost a crap load more than websites and ads in Computer Games.

4) Development systems for console development can run upwards of $100K to $200K depending on the size of the team and that is on top of the normal hardware people need like PCs and Monitors.

I have also found that you can make PC games somewhat cheaper as a whole compared to console games. If I budgeted a product like Fallout right now and I had a technology base (like an engine), I would say someone could get it done for between $3M and $4M. It could even be as cheap as $2M or $2.5M with some careful re-use of assets. Now that is just the development budget though, that doesn't include all the other costs of getting a game on the shelf like QA, Audio, Localization, Marketing, PR and payoffs to the mob.</blockquote>So those $5 mill that Titus "stole" from IPLY could have finished Fallout 3...
 
Fergus said:
1) When a new console comes out generally everyone has to spend a lot of money just figuring out how to now make games for it, while on the PC the engines generally evolve. I can't really quantify this, but I would guess this to cost most publishers $10M to $20M in new technology and cancelled projects every time the new consoles come out.

2) All console games require about a $10 licensing fee, which includes your packaging and DVDs. This can be two to five times the cost of packaging for a PC. When the Whole Sale Price is around $36 (most people will say $40, but I've never found that to be true with all the special dealing that happens). The PC game can start out 20% ahead on the actual net cash you get.

3) Marketing for console games can be a lot more expensive since they have to derive more units to make the same money - so more people need to buy them, which means more marketing. Plus console players have traditionally been less tuned in - so publishers have had to use more mass market marketing like Maxim and TV, which cost a crap load more than websites and ads in Computer Games.

4) Development systems for console development can run upwards of $100K to $200K depending on the size of the team and that is on top of the normal hardware people need like PCs and Monitors.

I have also found that you can make PC games somewhat cheaper as a whole compared to console games. If I budgeted a product like Fallout right now and I had a technology base (like an engine), I would say someone could get it done for between $3M and $4M. It could even be as cheap as $2M or $2.5M with some careful re-use of assets. Now that is just the development budget though, that doesn't include all the other costs of getting a game on the shelf like QA, Audio, Localization, Marketing, PR and payoffs to the mob.
Click to expand...

In short, PC games are cheaper to make then console games.

Also, remember that Interplay is being placed on a "console footing".

Now, add it all up, and see what you get. :P
 
He forgot to mention that consoles get a higher sell through due to the nature of console gaming, that while yes, you want to have greater visibility, console games tend to sell more naturally ( of course unless they are critically slammed ).

On top of that, the many Blockbusters, Hollywood Videos, etc, all over the country buy most console games, if only 1 or 2 copies....so there is guaranteed revenue right there. We were working on minor CG film/tv thingy some time ago, and as I was led to understand, even if the film tanked, we could look to get 20 million from direct to video purchases and rentals. I can't verify that particular amount, but if its any measure, there you go.

New console engine developement is also iterative, just like PC, so I'm not sure where he gets that 10 - 20 million dollar investment cost. You're programming on PC's for your console game, so really the only thing is the learning curve of developing the sometimes godforsaken hardware to make it do what you want it to, but nothing above and beyong the programmer costs.

200k for dev systems? Erm, no, unless something's changed. If I recall correctly, PSone dev kits ran for about 20k +/-. This was of course 7 years ago. They had big clunky boards that went inside your computer, hooked up to the fancy blue box PS's and such. I don't have specific figures for Xbox, but the PS2 is/was around 15k, with linux versions of both being had between 200 and 500 dollars( not that that matters a whole lot but whatever ). So I'm not sure where 200k comes in for hardware sans computer system, but if he's doing consoles games I guess he'd know, eh? ( I dont' think he is...err...is he? :) )

Finally, IF he had the engine for FO(or any engine for that matter as he states), it would cost him 3 - 4 million just for development? Fuck, it cost the brilliant( I mean this sincerely ) Peter Molyneux 7 million to make his engine for Black and White AND game from scratch(out of his own pocket I might add). Love or hate B&W, it was an incredible piece of work. So where the hell do you spend 4 million just on asset dev when you already have the engine completed?! Sheesh, no wonder no one wants to invest in games these days unless it is a sure fire hit... :roll:

In order to see games like FO and games expanded beyond the scope of the mainstream, these numbers have to come down a little. There is a lot of waste and bloat that goes into making medium to large budget games. Heh, go find the video of the RIDICULOUS shit the guys that made Getaway for Sony did. It was WAY over the top, completely uneccessary and added absolutely nothing to the final look and play of the game ( which was not very good to add ). Money very much wasted and clearly not evident in the game.

Cheers
 
Who are you? What do you mean? I don't understand. Anyway, I choose to trust Feargus Urquhart on this. Sorry mate.
 
Baboon said:
Who are you? What do you mean? I don't understand. Anyway, I choose to trust Feargus Urquhart on this. Sorry mate.
Click to expand...

What?!?!? You don't know the famous steve-o! Shame on you!
 
Maybe Feargus has some sort of hidden meaning in this message. Sure, it may just be a result of all the news of IPLY's cancellation of FO3 that made him use Fallout as an example, but maybe he's workin some sort of magic behind the scene.

Or maybe not....i just hope to much....
 
Feargus is quite right on the numbers. You have to remember, you are not buying just one development system for each project. You have to buy 10-30 depending on the team size. That's a big chunk of change on top of a PC system for each.
 
ScottE said:
Feargus is quite right on the numbers. You have to remember, you are not buying just one development system for each project. You have to buy 10-30 depending on the team size. That's a big chunk of change on top of a PC system for each.
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You're purchasing a dev kit for every member of the team? Sure, then thats a big chunk of your waste too. Only coders( I thought I said that in my prev post ), sound guys possibly and MAYBE designers/producers would get that setup. Avg. lead programming staff of 2 - 6 ( 6+ is rather large for an avg. game{not counting tools coders} ). Even then not every programmer needs to be outfitted with the kit, again unless they absolutely need to have explicit access to the console. You could arguably have one or two stations for the artists if their art needs to be tested on console, but again one for each and every artist is wasteful...especially when you can get wysiwyg emulators for their systems, such as in MAX lets say, to view their work, without needing to load it up.

Guess all we can say is to each their own. Sure buy a dev kit for every single person on the team and you can go well over those numbers. Silly me... I'm concerned about budget and needless spending. :P

Hehe.

Cheers
 
Uh...the only one(s) who need the actual console kit is the compiling and testing machine(s). The rest can easily be done on computers as that is where they do most of their development. Code and data is code and data until it hits the compiler.

Did Inertplay buy a whole load of $400 hammers? :twisted:
 
Roshambo said:
Uh...the only one(s) who need the actual console kit is the compiling and testing machine(s). The rest can easily be done on computers as that is where they do most of their development. Code and data is code and data until it hits the compiler.

Did Inertplay buy a whole load of $400 hammers? :twisted:
Click to expand...

Yikes, I think we made similar points and actually agree on something... :)

...and its 60' here in Chicago for crying out loud...

....somethings going on....*looks around*

Seriously though, you're absolutely right. I was being reasonable for the sake of argument, but yea, ideally you only need one or two kits.

Cheers
 
I'm no expert, but it seems to me having only one testing computer at crunch time is a bigger waste.
 
Only having a few kits would be a disaster. It's not like you can compile code and check it on your PC or debug it on your PC. You need a kit for that (full on Dev Kit for PS2). At the very least, your entire programming team needs one per code monkey (even the tool guys, because their tools are being used to put assets into the game and they will need a dev kit to see the result of the tool in the game). It's possible two programmers sharing an office could share a dev kit, but it's still less than optimal (especially during crunch where you are tearing through 10 - 20 bugs a day).

Also, at the very least, you need one for the producer (check work in progress, show the game to press/suits) and a few for design and art (ideally, every level designer has one--to check their stuff as they work on it). Generally, the art team gets two or three. One for the lead and one for the rest to share (though you may want seperate ones for animation and modelers as between an entire animation team, the kit can be in use all day). Artists tend to need dev kits in 'bursts', so it is much easier to share.

Having the dev kit on-demand saves more headaches and time than having to fight over them. 200k sounds reasonable (minimally) per-team. If you don't invest in that, expect to miss milestones regularly. Now, that overhead goes away after the first project and you also have the 200 - 500k in programmer resources for the engine development that you don't need to reinvest. Buy-in to consoles is huge, but staying there once you pay the ante is similar to PC. Gus did mention the huge license fee (you don't think MS and Sony make their cash of the hardware, eh?) which can be scary if you aren't sure you can sell.

HDTV and next gen hardware will narrow the gap in visual quality between PC and console--so it should be interesting times ahead. For a Fallout style RPG, however, I think the PC is safely the champ for now. Then again, playing Rainbow 6 on XBox has made me rethink the potential for consoles as a platform for hardcore RPGs--the game responds (very well, I might add) to voice commands...As I said, we live in interesting times.
 
Seems everyone has opinions on dev kits, and since we seem to know alot about these kits,( 2 camps here; dev kits per person vs. dev kits per group ), how about the 6 other points we can address...wasn't just about dev kits :).

Cheers
 
I would trust Feargus and his assessment. Please keep in mind that he was the Director (and eventually President) of Black Isle Studios for six years. During that time he was intimately involved with projects and their funding.
 
You are right that not everyone needs a kit. But each programmer needs one for sure and most of the designers need them too. And you would probably have a least part of your art group have them. And don't forget cross platform development. You'd need PS/2 & Xbox development kits, not as many of both but a few to help on the conversions.

Take BGDA2. We had alot of Xbox kits since that was the version we did most of our work on. And a few PS/2 kits since sometimes things didn't work on both systems equally. When I started doing levels I didn't have an Xbox to test with. I had to use a shared system down the hall. That was annoying as hell and slowed down my productivity drastically. If it was bad for me, think of the programmers. If all of them didn't have a kit then they'd really lose productivity. As we got closer to wrapping up I finally got a kit to work on and it made all the map revisions so much faster to test. We also found that some levels were running slow on the PS/2 so it was back to running down the hall with each new test. And you do need a decent set of test units for QA. You'd never get the game done if all of QA was working on one machine. Sony and MS don't accept buggy games so you need a good QA department running smoothly since each submission can cost you weeks of time.
 
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