Can This Be Done?

[Atrocities]

Can any of the games offered up by Shrapnel be ported to for the consule market?

I have been giving this some thought given the recent changes in the gaming industy as it gears more toward the twitch monkey consule market and less toward the traditional PC market.

Now I am not a big fan of consule games because they simply do not offer the kind of games that I enjoy playing where as the PC market does.

Sure the occational FPS is a hell of a lot of fun, but those kind of games are pretty much scripted from start to finish and although they are fun, they lack the depth, expanse, and play style that most RPG, RTS, TBS games have to offer.

Now I don't know if it is possible to take a PC war game say like Dominions 2, and port it for use with consule games but if you could, would there be a market?

[Hiro_Antagonist]

Land of Legends would probably make a pretty good fit for consoles.

Honestly though, PC games and consoles games are very, very different beasts.

For one, the control schemes are completely different. Do you know why you don't see any RTS games on consoles? It's because you can't play an RTS w/o a keyboard and mouse. There are rare exceptions, like Pikmin and Goblin Commander, but these are extremely 'soft' RTS games, and don't resemble PC RTS games at all, really. The plain fact is that certain gameplay and usability mechanics only work gracefully with certain hardware/control types.

Turn-based strategy games can be a little more accomodating, but if you really look at the control schemes on consoles and of, say, Dom II, you'll realize it would be extremely awkward to implement. Good games are designed around the limitations of the platform they're designed for. Shrapnel games (like most PC games) are designed around the use of keyboard and mouse. Most of these games would not fit well under a console control scheme.

You also have to look at the target markets. People who WANT hard-core games use PC's. They're already buying Shrapnel games. The slice of people who own consoles but not PC's and want Shrapnel depth are very few, and almost certainly wouldn't justify development.

And even if the game's controls could be ported and even if the audience was there, cost would be a prohibitive factor. Console manufacturers require developers to jump through many more hoops. Development teams *must* be larger, development platforms are far more expensive, and you have to pass a certain percieved quality bar (in usability and graphics, specifically) in order to get release authorization from the publisher. Also, pound-for-pound, consoles are just plain harder to develop for than Windows/DirectX or Torque or Java or other common PC platforms.

Platforms like GBA are cheaper to dev for than set-top consoles in all of these regards, but even GBA games require bigger teams and far higher budgets than most indie devs can afford. I'd be surprised if any Shrapnel developers could afford even GBA development, let alone set-top consoles. I know we (Tiny Hero) certainly couldn't afford anything other than PC development...

-Hiro_Antagonist

[Instar]

Depends. Asking developers to be multi-platform is tough. Do you make one unified code base, but lose each platforms strengths? Very few game development groups have the kind of resources to do all platforms, and do them well. If anything, PC games can be ported to XBox with least amount of hassle, because XBox is a specialized PC.
The other issue is actually getting a SDK for the thing. They're usually hard to get, no matter the platform.

[Combat Wombat]

Hiro_Antagonist said:
For one, the control schemes are completely different. Do you know why you don't see any RTS games on consoles? It's because you can't play an RTS w/o a keyboard and mouse. There are rare exceptions, like Pikmin and Goblin Commander, but these are extremely 'soft' RTS games, and don't resemble PC RTS games at all, really. The plain fact is that certain gameplay and usability mechanics only work gracefully with certain hardware/control types.

Starcraft was ported to the N64

[Hiro_Antagonist]

Combat Wombat said:
Starcraft was ported to the N64

... and poorly, I might add.

-Hiro_Antagonist

[Suicide Junkie]

I'd say that starfury could make a decent conversion to one of those portable systems...

D-pad for throttle and turning. Couple buttons for your weapon groups. Hit start to pause and then flip through the menus. Targetting things might be an issue though. Holding down select and then changing to the nearest target with the D-pad could work.

[Atrocities]

Yes, Starfury would make a nice port as would DO.