Rozalia1 said:
KingsGambit said:
I agree, it doesn't make a great deal of sense. The game was entirely crowdfunded (my understanding that it's the most successful crowdfunded game to date) so all the development and infrastructure is already paid for by the backers. When the game comes to market, assuming every penny from crowdfunding went into development, on Day 1 RSI will have "broken even" I suppose (for lack of a better term). A single sale will therefore put it into profitability (excepting ongoing costs). When a publisher spends $20mill on development, that means a game has to make at least that much back before breaking even whereas as a backer I get the game, RSI owns the IP and on Day 1 have already broken even.
To port it to console, all the models and textures will have to be significantly downsized, new server farms for each "walled garden" (that is, XBL and PSN), the complexity brought down and most significantly, the back-end/engine will need to support the hardware and APIs of the different consoles (being X86 may help somewhat). On top of that, Sony/MS would want their cut of each sale (30%?).
Its not a near impossibility they'll have difficulties, they aren't a certain success.
Hence why I used the phrase "bend over backwards", a lot can be waved through if they feel like it.
I don't see it happening. For one thing, the Kickstarter proposal was for a
PC space sim, a genre that traditional publishers have no interest in. I happily backed the development for a PC exclusive game, not a cross platform game, so to divert development resources into making a port cannot and should not come from that budget.
For another, as the OP states in the article and quotes from the dev, consoles cannot handle this game. The hardware is not sufficient to process the 100k poly models (consoles, at least last gen were closer to 10k polys or less), the physics, textures, AI and lack the memory to have expansive maps with lots of objects in them. Another thing as has been mentioned by ioc978, the controls couldn't be mapped to a joypad only. Using X series games as an example, the number of functions is greater than the number of buttons available on a joypad. I use a joypad for piloting/dogfighting, but have to use the keyboard for the cargo bay, tractor beam, SETA, transporter, etc. Not even mentioning the trading, management and ship setup screens.
When I browse through kickstarter, or have in the past, I don't back iOS/Android games or anything cross-platform. I want PC games, not ports, but traditional publishers no longer provide those. Hence I gladly funded Star Citizen, Project Eternity, Torment and other PC games. IF they made lots of profit on sales and used that to make a console port, I wouldn't take any issue with that in the least but it's not likely. They'd have to scale it back in every possible way just to have it run on consoles, not to mention creating an entirely new UI, maintaining separate server farms and more.
Halo, published by Microsoft, the very same company that created DirectX and whose Windows OS runs on ~95% of personal computers worldwide is not available for Windows. They *own* the IP, they own the proprietary API and the Windows OS and it's not available for it. I don't hear anything about porting Dragon's Dogma, Last of Us, Uncharted, Heavy Rain, inFamous or other exclusives to other platforms. RSI has no need to port it, just as they don't need to port Heavy Rain. Would they make money by doing so? Most likely. But they accept less money and keep it exclusive.
Lastly, you're missing one crucial point. Unlike a traditional publisher funded/developed game, Star Citizen was crowdfunded in its entirety. When Bungie made Halo, MS paid for and published the development. Bungie got some money from sales, MS got the lion's share 9and own the rights to the franchise) and the game *had* to sell so many copies just to break even on the initial investment. Star Citizen is entirely owned by RSI and they don't need to pay me, a backer, a thing. When the game is released, from Day 1 launch day they will already have broken even, every sale is profit and every penny of that goes to RSI, not other companies (excepting for any licensing issues which might exist but about which I know nothing).
This is a very important point since even if they release an awful game which doesn't sell a single copy, it still won't be a financial failure. There are no losses to recoup, no publishers to appease, no shareholders expecting dividends.
Sony might "bend over backwards" to release a successful game on their platform, so might Microsoft. I don't see it happening. I've not heard of a single instance where any console manufacturer has done such a thing, approaching a developer with an existing game and canvassing or offering special considerations to entice them to release. They either pay for and publish (in whole or in part) the game (such as MS with Halo, Sony with Killzone or Nintendo with every Mario, Zelda, Donky Kong game ever) or pay the developers "a sum of money" for exclusivity (ostensibly to make up for the potential income lost by *not* releasing on a different platform).
