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Todd Howard: Being able to focus on one platform will make for better products

I tend to side on the "Todd is full of shit" side of things because historically he always is.

This time though what he says makes perfect sense. Only needing to develop the PC version and make whatever downgrades are needed to shoehorn it onto the Series consoles wiIl mean less time spent on platform optimizations and more time making a finished product. 7.5B being poured into the studio along with Microsoft's current "take as long as you need" approach to schedules makes this easier still. I have a feeling Starfield will release a better final product than it would have if it was paying to keep the lights. Instead Bethesda is swimming in cash and can afford to release when the game is 100% complete (we'll see about that one)

I still think he's full of shit though, he just happens to have said something right. I'll still put 2000 hours into his trash anyways.

Well I hope it will, my friend doesn't have a lot of money and can't upgrade and was really pumped for this (he's a huge aviation fan) so let's hope it will come out even if heavily downgraded.

Flight sim on Xbone:

 
Well for Xbox you just have to make semi current gen games as they have to run on Series S. On PS5 it would take a lot more work to reach an acceptable level imo.
Nonsense. That's a piece of cake compared to making it run on PCs. But oh well, it's not like Howard and his teams are the brightest bulbs in the box when it comes to programing.
 

azertydu91

Hard to Kill
I tend to side on the "Todd is full of shit" side of things because historically he always is.

This time though what he says makes perfect sense. Only needing to develop the PC version and make whatever downgrades are needed to shoehorn it onto the Series consoles wiIl mean less time spent on platform optimizations and more time making a finished product. 7.5B being poured into the studio along with Microsoft's current "take as long as you need" approach to schedules makes this easier still. I have a feeling Starfield will release a better final product than it would have if it was paying to keep the lights. Instead Bethesda is swimming in cash and can afford to release when the game is 100% complete (we'll see about that one)

I still think he's full of shit though, he just happens to have said something right. I'll still put 2000 hours into his trash anyways.



Flight sim on Xbone:


Hey you know for the people that are into this kind of games (I'm mean the passionate about aviation) graphics aren't the problem.
 

CitizenZ

Banned
'Scuse me if im wrong Sandy, but both consoles are powered by AMD and are basically 98-99% identical. They got FO3 running on the PS3 im sure they could easily port to any system today. Hell if they wanted they could port it to PS4 and Xbox ? with few sacrifices.
 

CatLady

Selfishly plays on Xbox Purr-ies X
Great so he has one less excuse to make when the next game will be a clusterfuck.
PlayStation was the recipient of most of the BGS bus and jank.

Fallout 4 on the Xbox at launch was by far the least buggy big open world game I have ever played. Going forward they should be even better now that they can concentrate on Xbox and PC only.
 

shubik

Member
PlayStation was the recipient of most of the BGS bus and jank.

Fallout 4 on the Xbox at launch was by far the least buggy big open world game I have ever played. Going forward they should be even better now that they can concentrate on Xbox and PC only.

I don´t think this is the case for Fallout 76. And as far as I remember each version of Fallout 4 had its fair share of problems. Jank was always part of Bethesdas games.
 

Maxwell Jacob Friedman

leads to fear. Fear leads to xbox.
so the reason they release shit quality titles in the past with a plethora of glitches, bugs etc is because there were to many platforms......lol this aint it chief
 

driqe

Member
Is he saying the games aren’t coming out for PC or Series S? Otherwise, seems like he’s lying.
pinky and the brain 90s GIF
 

Ozzie666

Member
If both boxes weren't based on x86 architecture and so common in terms of abilities, I would fully agree. At this stage, I only partially agree, unless your looking to maximize the game. But developing the games for PC proper, introduces scaling and multiple modes anyhow. So what he is saying doesn't make too much sense. If this was PS3 and X360, sure.
 

DeepEnigma

Gold Member
PlayStation was the recipient of most of the BGS bus and jank.

Fallout 4 on the Xbox at launch was by far the least buggy big open world game I have ever played. Going forward they should be even better now that they can concentrate on Xbox and PC only.
They all contained the same bugs. That's what made for the iconic meme about even the bugs being ported every time they port. Even the Switch version 8+ years later had the same Skyrim day 1 bugs.

The only PS oddball issue was the save file bloat with Skyrim PS3. After that, they were bug parity :pie_roffles:
 
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NickFire

Member
Call it PR if you want to be nice. Call it utter bullcrap if you want to be honest. There's no choice involved, and they aren't expanding access either.

I do hope that cutting out one system makes the game much better on the other. But I'm not so sure I believe it will happen when the surviving system consists of 4 separate spec sheets (until last gen is formally dropped from the roadmap when it cuts down to two), plus PC on top.
 
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Less system s to develop should normally mean a better game, less time trying to spread out on 5 systems instead of 2 or 3. Pretty much what you would expect for an answer if Sony were to buy instead as well.
 

azertydu91

Hard to Kill
For crying out loud - watch the showcase..

Why would they try to backport this game to XB1 at this point?
I mean announcing a release date for a console doesn't invalidate the intent to bring it to older console at later date( look at godfall).
And why would that be a bad thing to downport even if heavily?
 
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But will they finally fix their ultra jank engine?
Well, if you noticed in the Starfield trailer, the first scene where you see the astronaut, she's going up a ladder. That right there was done on purpose. It's actually revealing to the world a ground-breaking next-gen feature now possible on their brand-new and *focused* engine optimized for game-changing experiences:

Going up (and down) ladders.

A first on a Bethesda game!
 

Bryank75

Banned
To be fair, I don't think PlayStation was ever the main focus of any BGS games. They were always much more closely tied to PC and Xbox. Todd frequently sharing the stage at E3s with Xbox only. TES Morrowind exclusive on OG Xbox, Mods for consoles initially only on Xbox, Xbox lead platform for Skyrim, etc, etc.

I also think there was some bitterness when Sony cried about not getting mods on their console and then when BGS went to the trouble of making mods possible and then Sony rejected them.

I think Todd is honestly happy to now be Xbox/PC exclusive.

Help Me Reaction GIF by Travis
 

HoofHearted

Member
I mean announcing a release date for a console doesn't invalidate the intent to bring it to older console at later date( look at godfall).
And why would that be a bad thing to downport even if heavily?

Well - the biggest and most obvious reason - Because Microsoft has discontinued XB1/X...


Any further investment in peeling off resources to backport this game for what is now essentially an unsupported console wouldn't make sense. That's not to say various games still won't be made and aren't possible to be released on XB1/X. However, it was very clear on the showcase that MS is moving forward and leaving XB1/X behind..
 

IntentionalPun

Ask me about my wife's perfect butthole
I have thousands of hours of bethesda RPG gaming behind me across like a half dozen games and I still have yet to see a game breaking bug. I have 700 hours in Skyrim, and again.. no game breaking bugs ever for me.

They are there, but a given bug will only be experienced by people choosing some very specific path through the hundreds of branching missions.

Their games are more complicated than anything else out there.. a world simulation happening across a giant map as you play, persistent items everywhere, branching paths.. people you can kill that effect these paths, etc.

I'm sure someday I'll have a game breaking bug and I'll be annoyed, but I have to wonder if most of the people always spamming Bethesda threads with "bugs!" even play the games? Many millions enjoy them.. Skyrim for instance one of the most popular games ever...

And their engine is what makes their games great.. it's what makes Bethesda RPG's, Bethesda RPGs.. it's fine that people don't understand it, clearly millions of people still do.
 
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tmlDan

Member
Bethesda are masters at creating incredible, believable worlds to be fair, but all gets completely destroyed with their jank….
kjVu0lL.gif

If they could build a modern engine that finally fixes their bugs, animations and 1 actor voices they will craft something spectacular.
Here me out, what if they were bought by Sony, and they used Sony's technical know-how combined with their story telling.......masterpiece I tell ya - hoping they can get better with MS tbh, i've been disappointed with their games for a while.
 
I have a friend who’re 100% into Playstation and loves Skyrim, so no matter how they sell the exclusivity I can’t be glad about it because I know this friend will be sad because of it.

I hope it runs well through cloud at least, that’s a what to jump in for those you don’t want to buy a PC or Xbox.

Luckily BGS games are typically not super twitchy requiring precise inputs, minor input lag should be more tolerable on this type of game than on something like Halo or a fighting game
 

azertydu91

Hard to Kill
Well - the biggest and most obvious reason - Because Microsoft has discontinued XB1/X...


Any further investment in peeling off resources to backport this game for what is now essentially an unsupported console wouldn't make sense. That's not to say various games still won't be made and aren't possible to be released on XB1/X. However, it was very clear on the showcase that MS is moving forward and leaving XB1/X behind..
There's still about 50 000 000 Xb1 out there...
 

yazenov

Member
So he's telling us that Fallout 76 would turn out to be awesome if it was exclusive to Xbox?

Ok cool. No more excuses for junky buggy games. I hope reviewers crucify them going forward since they cant make up any excuses.
 

JOEVIAL

Has a voluptuous plastic labia
PlayStation was the recipient of most of the BGS bus and jank.

Fallout 4 on the Xbox at launch was by far the least buggy big open world game I have ever played. Going forward they should be even better now that they can concentrate on Xbox and PC only.

Agreed on Fallout 4. I had an absolutely fantastic experience on my base Xbox One. I never experienced any game/quest breaking bugs in my entire playthrough. Same goes for Skyrim, which was another smooth experience for me. The only bugs I've in my playthroughs are physics glitches like convulsing bodies and objects, and NPC's getting stuck on geometry. I've gotten stuck on geometry also plenty of times, but I just load the previous save. No harm no foul.

These are bugs that I have happily lived with in all games, not just Bethesda's. All open world games I've played have these same bugs (Rockstar games, Spider-Man, like all Ubisoft games LOL). It's just become "cool" to hate on Bethesda's games. Sure I would like there to be no bugs and glitches, but like I said, I've never experienced game breaking bugs in Bethesda games.
 

IntentionalPun

Ask me about my wife's perfect butthole
So he's telling us that Fallout 76 would turn out to be awesome if it was exclusive to Xbox?

Ok cool. No more excuses for junky buggy games. I hope reviewers crucify them going forward since they cant make up any excuses.
Fallout 76 is awesome.. it's great on PS5 through BC... near instant loads.. probably the best Fallout map ever.. the base building mechanic actually matters now and that makes it more fun too.
 

yazenov

Member
If the next Bethesda game bombs you bet this article and his quote will be used by many to make him eat his words :messenger_tears_of_joy:
 

MetalRain

Member
Well if you think about the support (=resources) PlayStation exclusives have got, I think Todd is right. Surely they can make better game with that kind of support. I truly wish Elder Scrolls 6 will be done eventually and it's bigger hit than Skyrim.
 

Fredrik

Member
Luckily BGS games are typically not super twitchy requiring precise inputs, minor input lag should be more tolerable on this type of game than on something like Halo or a fighting game
Yeah I used to play Oblivion and Skyrim with frame interpolation and lots of latency on 360 because I couldn’t deal with the low fps. Still worked great.
 

Greggy

Member
Lol they called Bethesda " a developer with less than stellar technical expertise like Bethesda Game Studios."
Would have been good to know what led them to that judgement.
 
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Tommi84

Member
So developing the game for thousands of pc configurations+xbox+ps makes it difficult,but when you remove ps then it's easy? Sure, whatever you say :D
 

HoofHearted

Member
Dude you seem really triggered for what was a simple and civile discussion with someone else.Really if it does come out on Xb1 is that a problem for you?
I just trust the studio's words more than yours.
LMAO - no - I'm not triggered at all.

If it does come out on XB1/X - all the better - I honestly could really care less.

However, you're the one arguing over what a developer said they "can do" back in January this year with respect to delivering it on what is now a discontinued and archaic console/platform.

Just because something "can" be done - doesn't necessarily mean that a company is willing to expend valuable resources, time, and effort to accomplish it.

However, if you (and your fried) want to continue hold out hope and interpret a random article about what "can" be done, versus what is clearly being published by Microsoft via the latest showcase about what IS being done ... all the more power to you..
 

Topher

Gold Member
Well if you think about the support (=resources) PlayStation exclusives have got, I think Todd is right. Surely they can make better game with that kind of support. I truly wish Elder Scrolls 6 will be done eventually and it's bigger hit than Skyrim.

That's what I hope as well. It really doesn't make any difference to me who owns Bethesda, but if being owned by Microsoft helps them make a better product then I'm all for it. I'll buy/play their games on PC just like I always have.

So developing the game for thousands of pc configurations+xbox+ps makes it difficult,but when you remove ps then it's easy? Sure, whatever you say :D

Xbox and PC are all using the same development APIs for MS first party whereas PlayStation has its own. The fact that they can code just to DirectX for all those configs has to help their process.
 
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azertydu91

Hard to Kill
LMAO - no - I'm not triggered at all.

If it does come out on XB1/X - all the better - I honestly could really care less.

However, you're the one arguing over what a developer said they "can do" back in January this year with respect to delivering it on what is now a discontinued and archaic console/platform.

Just because something "can" be done - doesn't necessarily mean that a company is willing to expend valuable resources, time, and effort to accomplish it.

However, if you (and your fried) want to continue hold out hope and interpret a random article about what "can" be done, versus what is clearly being published by Microsoft via the latest showcase about what IS being done ... all the more power to you..
So you were just nitpicky just for the sake of it ?You must be fun at parties, have a good day.
 

ARK1391

Member
He's not though... he still has to optimize these games for PC and the endless spec combinations... unless he's hinting that the PC versions of these games will be a disaster, which based on his studios track record with QA (or the complete lack of) that's very believable.

Either way I never believe or take any stock in anything Todd Howard says. It's about as likely to be true as a 4 chan or twitter rumor these days.
 
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