Polyphony should Learn From Square (development)

[DaveS1138]

No, funnily enough. As clever as you want to act to try to spin it, the fact of the matter is that it wasn't a Ford GT production car. It was a hand-produced, bespoke, nonfunctioning and absolutely-not-road-legal show car that wasn't created with any intent to be produced; making it completely irrelevant to the development of the Ford GT production car, which had to be designed to completely different circumstances and needs. The only thing that directly carried over is the styling, which had to be modified for production as well. So please. Enough of this painful metaphor.

and was the video you showed of GTSP the final production model of GTSP? Or was it simply a concept to see if the ideas would work on a handheld?

We seem to have a "nonefunctioning and not road legal show car" that you argue is not the start of production of the Ford GT vs a Video that is a nonefunctioning game for the PSP that you are saying should be taken as the start of production.

I'm sure you can see the contradiction. Even though it doesn't prove anything about the efficiency of either production team.

No. Because a feature was not only planned for the game; but is advertised in the game's manual, on the game's box, and shown on the company's website as being in the game but isn't actually in the game when it comes out makes the game incomplete. The difference is that something like the YouTube feature was shown off months in advance but ultimately removed, whereas things like Remote Racing were shown off as being confirmed features in the game when you buy it but weren't actually put in for several months after release.

And the Mona Lisa does not have eyebrows even though you would think a picture of a womans face would have them......I have seen trailers for movies that contain scenes that dont make it to the finished movie......are these all "unfinished works" as well?

As I said you can choose to think of that as an incomplete game if thats your personal opinion. It means nothing when talking of the efficiency of a game developer.

Probably has something to do with you claiming that one title every two-ish years contradicts Simon's claims that they are inefficient, when one of those titles was so blatantly unfinished at release that even the person who made it apologized for it repeatedly over specific features that were missing, promising that they would be coming soon; and the other one was basically just a port of an existing game.

And I do find it ironic that Kaz's fans seem to be less humble than him when it comes to admitting mistakes, considering you so conveniently forgot why it mattered while at the same time bringing it up the "they release this many games in this many years" bit again.

The question was how does a feature that was planned during production not being in the final game have to do with PD being an efficient company or not.

They said you would be able to upload your replays to YouTube. That feature was not in the final game and has not been patched in.

Now assuming that the feature was dropped because the way GT5 handles its replays makes it impossible or impractical to add that feature then how does that make PD inefficient as a company.

They planned a feature.....could not get it to work....dropped it.....just as many, many other software developers do during production of a game.....again....how does that make PD inefficient.

They had an engine already going that was good enough to make that video with, and had gotten at least two cars and at least one track running on it. That's a fairly extensive amount of work done.

Was the video running on a PSP or was it running on some kind of development machine. If it wasn't running on a PSP then how can you make any claim about how far along the project was based on a video running on unknown hardware.

Okay. Let's look at the other work.

James Cameron wrote a script in 1994. He started getting stuff together in 1996. Then he stopped for a decade when he realized that he needed to wait for technology to catch up. During that time he made 6 movies.

Sony announced GTPSP in 2004. Showed off the amount of work that PD had done thus far, and gave it a release date. And we also know that PD continued to work on it throughout 2006, because Sony kept making it known that the game had not been cancelled and was still being worked on at enough of a capacity to give it release dates that PD kept missing (until towards the end of 2006, when it was indefinitely delayed). So let's make the assumption that PD just stopped bothering with it then until the very end of 2008. What had they done in the meantime? They released two work-in-progress demos, one of which was just a developmental build of GT5 (and the other of which arguably was as well) that they kept updating as they kept working on GT5. Meanwhile, that PSP game still wasn't making any progress until (presumably) Sony put their foot down and forced PD to release it in time for their new hardware revision; all with no problem equivalent to Cameron's (since it was fundamentally the same technology that they started working on).

Absolutely none of which you know or have any way to show.

You do not know how long PD spent working on GTSP
You do not know what resources they dedicated to GTSP
You do now know what other projects they were working on at the same time.

So you have no way to make any claim about the efficiency of the project.

Feel free to add some actual proof instead of assumptions if you have any.

Did they announce that it was currently being worked on in 2004? Yes. Did it eventually come out in 2009? Yes. So the 5 years part is kind of inarguable, then. More arguable is that what it ended up being didn't justify nearly that much time, but I'll get to that.

Did James Cameron write a draft of Avatar in 1994? Yes. Did it eventually come out in 2009? Yes. So is the 15 years part of it inarguable? No. because it does not take into account how much time or resources were being dedicated to it in those 15 years...

Exactly the same for GTSP.

So yes the 5 year part is very arguable and if you want to make an argument about the quality of the game vs its development time your going to have to prove they spent 5 years working on it.

No. What you actually did was fob off the screen shot as being from GT4 and that the video was from 2007, then ignored when it was pointed out that neither was true; which is particularly odd since you were so quick to say that there was no proof that the game even existed in 2004.

This is the screen shot you posted.

can you please tell me what it says in the bottom right hand corner of the screenshot and then perhaps wonder why I might think that is a GT4 screenshot.

Except you said exactly that:

In addition to you saying several times that there was no proof that they had ever worked on it, even after it was pointed out how ridiculous that statement was. Hence me asking the question again now that it has been made absolutely clear to you that they were in fact working on it in 2004.

and as I said wether they were working on it in 2004 is irrelevant unless you can show me how much they worked on it in 2004 and every other year from 2004 to 2009.

If you cant do that then you can make no claim about the efficiency of PD.

Which was pretty much Simon's original point: That simply getting the game done doesn't constitute anything when a far better (and, dare I say, more efficient) use of their time would have been spent on GT5 and letting someone else make the portable title rather than switching back and forth between the two to the detriment of both. And considering what the game ended up being (a port of most of GT4's content with the structure removed) and what it did to GT5's development (because Kaz outright admitted that he had to throw almost the entire weight of PD at the game, taking them away from GT5, because it was giving them problems), I daresay he's right.



Hence, as hard working and passionate as they are, they aren't paragons of efficiency. They try, but they made bad decisions, most of which they have admitted to since, which caused them problems in development.

You have no way what so ever to show that having somebody else produce GTSP would have been a more efficient use of PD. That is simply you pushing your opinion that you think PD would have been better off working only on GT5 and not making GTSP.

The falacy of the argument is shown easily by taking it to its extreem conclussion.

If PD would have been more efficient by having somebody else work on GTSP whilst they worked on GT5 then they would have been even more efficient if somebody else had worked on GTSP and GT5 and allowed them to get Tourist Trophy 2 out the door.

I'm sure you can see just how silly that is.

 

[TokoTurismo]

Well a lot around here blame Sony for telling PD to release it as it was.

Make of that what you want.

I'm thinking its PD's fault for not finishing the game in the first place. And Kaz is asking for two more 2 years to continue making GT5, NO Kaz, that is enough. He should know better than that.

I don't blame Sony at all, but I do blame PD.

 

[Ridox2JZGTE]

I understand you point of view Simon, in my view PD is not efficient enough in making the last few GT games, the last game they were efficient was GT3 and GT4. This is my opinion, my expectations for those 2 games of course dictates my view.
The last 2 games could have been better with shorter work time, if only PD was more efficient in development process, regardless of how efficient they were in the eyes of Kaz and SCE.

I respect your opinion Dave, everyone have the right to make an opinion, there's no need to defend an opinion and trying to make others as invalid. We can make opinion based on facts, point of view, taste, likes or dislikes, but it will stay as an opinion. Everything that leaves to subjective interpretations would be next to impossible to be considered as fact.
Being efficient is a subjective matter, you can never have enough or less. You don't want less efficiency, and you always want to be more efficient.

 

[Spagetti69]

I'm thinking its PD's fault for not finishing the game in the first place. And Kaz is asking for two more 2 years to continue making GT5, NO Kaz, that is enough. He should know better than that.

I don't blame Sony at all, but I do blame PD.

Well the fans/customers were getting onto Sony about release info. The Question session to Andrew house was spammed for realise date. (He ducked it).

When GT released a lot (not everyone) blamed Sony for forcing PD to release it.

Freaking hilarious.

 

[daus26]

I'd like to quote many of you, but it's just too much. Most of you make very good points, but are in short of the reality here.

The reality is that you can't compare PD to any other developers. Unless the other development team is working on the same type of game, has the same amount of resources/employees, and dealing with the same issues, it's not a valid argument. What would be your REAL basis of argument on whether they're efficient or not?

Many of you are aware of PD's past plans but are not realizing on what they REALLY went through. If anything, efficiency is not PD's problem here. It's managing issues. Whether you want to think they're the same thing, then so be it. Around the time of GT4, PD didn't simply work on GT5 right after, nor did they PLAN on it. First of all, Tourist Trophy and GTPSP was partially a part of that development time. Second, the first GT game that was planned was GThd. You could say that GThd's development time is a part of GT5, but that's not entirely true. There had to be structure and marketing planning SPECIFICALLY for GThd. Then what happens after that? They scrapped everything and the game-engine altogether to build it from scratch. If not, improve tremendously on it. Then, of course, GT5P came into play. Again, saying GT5 is a part of GT5's development is not entirely true either. GT5P required specific structure and marketing planning as well. On top of that, it had specific updates for it. If GT5P's work was in direct correlation with GT5, don't you think we would've got something as simple as individual transmission adjustment or "PP" in the beginning of GT5?

Bottom line is PD is a unique company of its own with very limited resources. Whether or not they're efficient will be nothing more than our own opinion, not fact, especially if you have zero real life experience on the subject.

*edit

...

We as consumers have the right to say that one developer company is not efficient, but it's only an opinion, not a fact. The real fact is only known to the company's management, where they have all the datas, the records of all their work done so far and how those records are being interpreted by the stake holders who then decides how efficient they are as a company.

....

Agreed. I enjoyed reading all of your post, but I quote this tidbit because it's something we both can definitely agree on. If I had read every post thoroughly (especially this one), I would've worded mine differently.

 

[Tornado]

and was the video you showed of GTSP the final production model of GTSP? Or was it simply a concept to see if the ideas would work on a handheld?

It was made as proof to show that the game was in development and on its way. The Ford GT40 concept from 2002 was not. End of.

We seem to have a "nonefunctioning and not road legal show car" that you argue is not the start of production of the Ford GT vs a Video that is a nonefunctioning game for the PSP that you are saying should be taken as the start of production.

Yep. That's about the size of it.

I'm sure you can see the contradiction. Even though it doesn't prove anything about the efficiency of either production team.

You're right. Your metaphors don't prove anything. So long as we're in agreement about something, perhaps you can stop forcing everyone to take the time explaining why they are so meaningless.

And the Mona Lisa does not have eyebrows even though you would think a picture of a womans face would have them......I have seen trailers for movies that contain scenes that dont make it to the finished movie......are these all "unfinished works" as well?

As I said you can choose to think of that as an incomplete game if thats your personal opinion. It means nothing when talking of the efficiency of a game developer.

The question was how does a feature that was planned during production not being in the final game have to do with PD being an efficient company or not.

They said you would be able to upload your replays to YouTube. That feature was not in the final game and has not been patched in.

Now assuming that the feature was dropped because the way GT5 handles its replays makes it impossible or impractical to add that feature then how does that make PD inefficient as a company.

They planned a feature.....could not get it to work....dropped it.....just as many, many other software developers do during production of a game.....again....how does that make PD inefficient.

I like how you keep talking about the YouTube bit and intentionally misrepresenting it to apply to my argument even after it was pointed out how irrelevant it was. You seem to have quite a funny habit of doing that, I've noticed. Let me ask you something: Was the YouTube replay export feature promised to be in the game when the game release? Because I can't see it anywhere on PD's website, or in my game manual, or on the game case. Because fair enough if PD planned on including it but had to strip it for whatever reason before the game came out.


But you know what was? Remote Racing. Matchmaking. Leaderboards. Sharing/Using custom tracks online. That is what makes it different from the YouTube feature, or the 18MP Photomode pictures, or the multiple-car Photo Travel. PD said, when the game released, that those four things were in it. Not 9 months before the game came out that they would be in it. Not off-hand suggestions of things that might be there. Those features were in no uncertain terms confirmed to be in the game while it was on sale.

And then half of them didn't make it in until 4 months later. The other half still aren't there. Drone on and on about developers dropping functionality all you want, but the fact of the matter is that very few developers say features are in the game when the game is on store shelves and those features aren't there. Even fewer go out of their way to apologize for those features not being there, which alone makes your "Mona Lisa" comparison moot. da Vinci did not, as I recall, apologize for not drawing eyebrows on the Mona Lisa when he delivered it saying it had eyebrows. Kaz did apologize for not implementing the features he said the game had while people were buying it.

Was the video running on a PSP or was it running on some kind of development machine. If it wasn't running on a PSP then how can you make any claim about how far along the project was based on a video running on unknown hardware.

Are you seriously saying that PSP development hardware would be so different from the final machine that any work done on it would be moot in terms of effort expended? How the hell do you think games get made?

Absolutely none of which you know or have any way to show.

You do not know how long PD spent working on GTSP
You do not know what resources they dedicated to GTSP
You do now know what other projects they were working on at the same time.

So you have no way to make any claim about the efficiency of the project.

Feel free to add some actual proof instead of assumptions if you have any.

For what is probably the fifth time now: It's not an assumption that PD was working on GTPSP when Sony and/or Kaz were saying that PD is working on GTPSP. Which Sony was doing from the time it was announced to about the time the PS3 came out, at which point they stopped saying anything about it until 2008.

Did James Cameron write a draft of Avatar in 1994? Yes. Did it eventually come out in 2009? Yes. So is the 15 years part of it inarguable? No. because it does not take into account how much time or resources were being dedicated to it in those 15 years...

Exactly the same for GTSP.

So yes the 5 year part is very arguable and if you want to make an argument about the quality of the game vs its development time your going to have to prove they spent 5 years working on it.

Seems to me that the issue here is that you consider writing a screenplay and then sitting on it for a decade until technology progresses enough that you can actually make it to be the same as constantly pushing a game back for half a decade while you work on something else before ultimately releasing it on the same technology.

This is the screen shot you posted.

can you please tell me what it says in the bottom right hand corner of the screenshot and then perhaps wonder why I might think that is a GT4 screenshot.

Hm. Can you please tell me what the game was originally called, and the context which I posted it under? Or maybe even tell me that I posted it in response to someone's (namely, you) specific claims of fact ("You do not know that they started work on GTSP in 2004")?


Though, please forgive me if posting a widely circulated screenshot for someone who claims they know enough about the game to make definitive (but ultimately nonsense) claims about it is a faux paus. In the future, I'll just forgo assuming you've bothered to do any research at all when talking about something you claim you know about.

and as I said wether they were working on it in 2004 is irrelevant unless you can show me how much they worked on it in 2004 and every other year from 2004 to 2009.

Oh, I see. When you want proof that it had been worked on in 2004, it's relevant. But when you get that proof showing it was in development at the time, suddenly it's irrelevant.

You have no way what so ever to show that having somebody else produce GTSP would have been a more efficient use of PD. That is simply you pushing your opinion that you think PD would have been better off working only on GT5 and not making GTSP.

Not at all. Again, I suggest you actually look some shred of information up about GTPSP's before you talk about it as if everyone else is just making this crap up. It has been hammered into everyone's minds by now that GTPSP development set back GT5 development because they had to take away resources from the latter to work on the former and get it done in time because they were having serious trouble with it. That's why every time a GT Vita thread comes up it is flooded with people saying they don't want PD to divert any manpower whatsoever away from GT6. So unless you are seriously stating that GTPSP was as important of a game for Sony as GT5 was, it should be blatantly obvious that letting (or, as it were, forcing) PD focus on the game that they spent somewhere between $60-80 million and letting some other developer port GT4 assets to the PSP would be a better use of their time. Like Sony has done for every other first party game on the PSP.


To say nothing of how people who wanted to play a GT game on the PSP (of which there were many who bought a PSP just to play it) almost certainly would have gotten one sooner had it been given to someone who didn't have to do a resource juggling act to get it out.

The falacy of the argument is shown easily by taking it to its extreem conclussion.

If PD would have been more efficient by having somebody else work on GTSP whilst they worked on GT5 then they would have been even more efficient if somebody else had worked on GTSP and GT5 and allowed them to get Tourist Trophy 2 out the door.

I'm sure you can see just how silly that is.

Yeah, because that totally follows, because Tourist Trophy is totally the franchise by which PD lives and dies.

You're getting so purposely obtuse with your arguments now that it really isn't worth it at this point. So whatever. You win.

 

[Samus]

One final thing I will add because it's really bugging me, you continue to say that we can't make any claims on PD and their efficiency because we don't know exactly what they were doing between 2004 and 2010. Day in day out, we don't know what they were doing. Which is true. However let me refer back to something I said a while ago. PD are a video game developer. Their primary job is to develop video games. It's what they were created for, it's what they do.

Would you not therefore agree that in those years the main thing they were doing is making video games? The bulk of that time should have gone on video game creation, no? Now, we've already agreed that by February 2006 at the absolute latest, Tourist Trophy was finished. That left them with two games in the works, a PSP GT game and PS3 GT game. Unless you want to claim that up to 2010 they were working on a another game that nobody knows about, even to this day?

So from 2004 to 2006 they had up to three games in the works, from 2006 to 2010 up to two games in the works. Are you still in agreement at this point?

So, if PD were working on those two games and it is of my and many peoples opinion that the games are unfinished, and the creator himself admits that one of them is unfinished, do you not see how we can also come to the opinion that PD were ineffiecent at building those two games? It doesn't matter that we don't know which game they were working on when or for how long, all we need to know is that they were building them in that time. This is without getting into how they used that time, namely spending 60% of their time solely modelling cars which again in my opinion is not an efficient use of time or limited resources.

If you're going to go back to the other things they were doing not directly related to video games may I refer you back to the original point, which is that they're a video game developer, and a small one at that. Would you therefore not see the point that if they're using their limited time and resources doing non video game things, that's an inefficient use of their time? Time that could have been spent on the video games?

Ok, now I am absolutely done. Good night.

 

[Griffith500]

Well the fans/customers were getting onto Sony about release info. The Question session to Andrew house was spammed for realise date. (He ducked it).

When GT released a lot (not everyone) blamed Sony for forcing PD to release it.

Freaking hilarious.

Even more so if it was the same people in both instances!


My issue around this whole "PD are inefficient" thing is that they must somehow be blessed with miraculous precognitive abilities in order to predict and avoid pitfalls. I dare say their apparent "inefficiency" was due mostly to unforeseen circumstances, and a desire to make something of quality instead of just making something (the irony being that GT5 ended up with questionable quality in some areas as a result of whatever difficulties they ran into).
It's been mentioned already, but pulling the entire team off GT5 and onto the side-project indicates that they somehow under-estimated the scale of that task. Giving it to someone else to do does not necessarily change that fact (that some new and terrible obstacle should appear unforeseen), so it's possible GTPSP could have been far worse a game had they outsourced it, or maybe even required PD to step in anyway - then they would have been wrong for outsourcing in the first place (more hilarity).

I've said it many times now, but GT6 will be a better demonstration of where PD are at, and may shed some light on where they've "been" in the last 6-7 years, too.

 

[DaveS1138]

So from 2004 to 2006 they had up to three games in the works, from 2006 to 2010 up to two games in the works. Are you still in agreement at this point?

I dont see any evidence that they had up to three games in development from 2004 to 2006. You are still picking an arbitrary start date for GT5 based on your assumption that they must have started development on it as soon as they finished GT4. I see no reason for that assumption.

It's also a bit of a double standard since you claim we have to take a 5 year development time for GTSP based on it's announcement to it's release date. But wasn't GT5 officially announced at E3 2009? Why do you use the official announcement for GTSP but just an arbitrary date for GT5? I would suggest it is a deliberate manipulation of the data to make PD look as bad as possible for your argument.

The rest of your post fall for the same issue as the others. With no way to know what resources and what timeframe PD were working on any game you cant make any claim for their efficiency or lack off. All you can look at is how often they release a game and base a judgement off that.

perhaps you can stop forcing everyone to take the time explaining why they are so meaningless.

Forcing?

I'm Forcing you and everybody else to take the time to explain this to me?

Can you please explain to me how I am forcing you to do anything? I wish I knew since it would apear to be a very usefull power to understand for any future posts

You're getting so purposely obtuse with your arguments now that it really isn't worth it at this point. So whatever. You win.

Fair enough.

 

[Samus]

Good work dodging most of the questions asked and points I raised. Also you know what the phrase "up to" means? Because it doesn't seem so. Finally if you're really trying to suggest GT5 went into production in 2009 then it's clear that it's impossible to have a rational discussion with you.

With no way to know what resources and what timeframe PD were working on any game you cant make any claim for their efficiency or lack off.

I think you'll find I can for reasons already covered.

 

[DaveS1138]

Good work dodging most of the questions asked and points I raised. Also you know what the phrase "up to" means? Because it doesn't seem so. Finally if you're really trying to suggest GT5 went into production in 2009 then it's clear that it's impossible to have a rational discussion with you.

I'm not suggesting it went into development in 2009. I'm asking why you use the official announcement of GTSP as the start point of its development but choose an arbitary date of the end of GT4 development for the start of GT5.

I think the answer is fairly obviously that that is the method that gives you the longest possible development time for both titles and allows you to show PD in the worst possible light.

Doesn't make either true though.

I think you'll find I can for reasons already covered.

Thank you. I actually meant to say that you cant back up any claim.

You can make any claim you like.......but lacking the ability to back up that claim you are really not saying anything at all.

 

[Bigbazz]

Diablo 3 - Unvieled in 2008 with a playable and polished looking version of the game, released in 2012. Diablo 2 was released in 2000, with the expansion "The Lord of Destruction" released in 2001.

That is an 11 year wait since the last release and a 4 year wait since the first playable demo was shown.


It happens to a lot of games, no point in complaining about it, doesnt change it.

 

[Machate-man]

PD is inefficient in the fact that their progress in improving the game in the form of DLC is slow. DLC, which T10's Forza seems to specialize in for the genre, is their primary way to improve the game. It is also the one thing many potential buyers look at. PD's patches and Spec II are significant improvements in and of themselves, yet are consistently overlooked by new, desirable content. Something which has been missing from GT5 for quite some time...

 

[Earth]

Diablo 3 - Unvieled in 2008 with a playable and polished looking version of the game, released in 2012. Diablo 2 was released in 2000, with the expansion "The Lord of Destruction" released in 2001.

That is an 11 year wait since the last release and a 4 year wait since the first playable demo was shown.


It happens to a lot of games, no point in complaining about it, doesnt change it.

No point in complaining? So everyone is fine if we have to wait another 6 years, or until 2016 for GT6? Because other games do it doesn't mean it's OK. And GT has Forza and Turn 10 rolling with all sorts of thunder. Turn 10 had made it their goal to be what Gran Turismo is not. They listen to fans, they add almost everything they want. That's not good news for Gran Turismo. Alot of guys are going to jump off the GT bus and on the PC sim bandwagon or even Forza if PD keeps back peddling.

Point is Turn 10 is kicking out Forza games every 2 years. PD is going to have to step up to the plate and match that. If they're going to take longer then they need to release a polished, awesome game that was worth the wait. Some of GT5 was worth the wait, but alot of it, or most of it wasn't. They make the fanbase wait so long again and throw out another unfinished game that may be their final bad move. Square has admitted they took too long with Final Fantasy XIII and the game wasn't that great and wasn't what the fans wanted. PD needs to learn from Square's mistakes as they are making very similar ones.

PD's patches and Spec II are significant improvements in and of themselves, yet are consistently overlooked by new, desirable content. Something which has been missing from GT5 for quite some time...

I think any great, major update, like an event creator/editor will be held back until GT6, and I can understand that.

 

[ZoidFile]

Polyphony should Learn From Square (development)

 

[amar212]

They listen to fans, they add almost everything they want. .

No they are not and that is the single greatest misconception regarding Forza.

But tell a lie 1000 times and it will become a truth.

They do not add anything fans want besides pumping out new cars and twisting their PR to make them look extremely competent and listening to the community. While in the same time they're just doing what they want (pumping car-DLC every month and nothing else) and do not care about actual developments they *should* do.

But nevermind, all this types of discussions are getting ridiculous. Believe in what you want but you're deeply wrong IMO.

 

[Spagetti69]

They do not add anything fans want besides pumping out new cars and twisting their PR to make them look extremely competent and listening to the community.

Not tracking you Amar, Honest lol.

Does PD/Sony ever promote PR for GT?
Seems as though their like politicians dodging questions and such.

Just a different side of the coin my old chum.

 

[amar212]

Not tracking you Amar, Honest lol.

Does PD/Sony ever promote PR for GT?
Seems as though their like politicians dodging questions and such.

Just a different side of the coin my old chum.

No probs mate

I am talking about common conception of "listening what the fans wants". But in the same time almost NONE of the things that "fans" wanted ever made its way into the FM3/FM4. I wrote about majority of that "things" in posts *overthere*

 

[d2deek]

You have provided no start date for GT5 you just use an arbitrary date of your own by claiming that they must have started work on GT5 as soon as they finished GT4. Considering that they were working on other games between the release of GT4 and GT5 that proves nothing.

You have stated that GTSP went into production in 2004 based only on it being talked about at E3 that year.....but you provide no proof what so ever of when they actually started work on the project, how much time and resources they spent on it or if they ever stopped work on it to work on other projects.

You have provided next to nothing.

Actually, I can pretty-much guarantee that GT PSP went into production long before it was even mentioned at E3. You don't EVER start a project after you announce it; first, you make sure it's possible, create the framework of the project, figure out what you'll be able to do with the hardware you have available, and you use the assets you already have to do it. As time goes by, you are better able to know all the things you'll need to know to FINISH the project, but you know the basics going in because you already have something working.

In 2004, when it was announced for 2005, you can be SURE that there was something already functional (not as a game, but as a tech demo that could be readily turned into a game).

Similarly, you can be absolutely sure that someone (and really, a significant number of "someones") were working on engine, assets, etc. for a fifth Gran Turismo installment even before GT4 final release, since not doing so essentially means you no longer have a job. The standard post-gold vacation is usually already over by a title's "street date", and everyone who doesn't have to be involved in worldwide marketing of the newly-shipping title is already starting work on whatever's next on their particular plate.

A month or so after RTM (release to manufacturing), you're already working on stuff for the next title, and in PDI's case every employee would already know what's next would involve cars and/or bikes. Engine programmers are working on improving and/or replacing the current engine(s)' components, modellers are busy making new master models (the high-polygon models you will eventually use to make the game models) and improving the old ones, etc.

It really is quite shocking that Gran Turismo 5 took as long and had so little to do as it did, even (perhaps especially) considering the size of the development team.

If PDI or Yamauchi were simply being perfectionist about the project, it wouldn't be as incomplete as it turned out -- there would be much less "missing". Instead, there's a very strange combination of fetishism about the premium cars (but not to the point where you can interact with them, see them with doors open [even though it's clear most of them do actually have opening doors], or in many cases even see how damage might affect them) and half-assedness in how much "game" there is in the game, not to mention the number of bugs in what WAS released.

What I find more likely is that Yamauchi tried and failed to do vastly more in GT5 than what we eventually saw, so much so that GT5 isn't much more than a pale ghost of what he envisioned, and that it had to be trimmed down from the original much-more-massive game that just wasn't good enough to ship.

And frankly, it's much better that way, because any other scenario means PDI were lazy, incompetent, or both. In the game industry, being too ambitious is forgivable (quite concerning, but forgivable), but laziness and incompetence are terminal faults.

 

[Earth]

No they are not and that is the single greatest misconception regarding Forza.

But tell a lie 1000 times and it will become a truth.

They do not add anything fans want besides pumping out new cars and twisting their PR to make them look extremely competent and listening to the community. While in the same time they're just doing what they want (pumping car-DLC every month and nothing else) and do not care about actual developments they *should* do.

But nevermind, all this types of discussions are getting ridiculous. Believe in what you want but you're deeply wrong IMO.

Maybe that's PD's issue, lack of good PR.

Right now Turn 10 is making themselves look like the kings that listen to the fans whether they really do or not, and PD has done nothing but disappear again for 2 years with no word on future projects or anything. Its ultra frustrating.

I wish PD would fly you, amar212, to their Japanese headquarters every now and then and let you play test their latest project...that alone would help so much

 

[krioto]

I wish PD would fly you, amar212, to their Japanese headquarters every now and then and let you play test their latest project...that alone would help so much

This I can agree with you on.

Your other points, not so much.

 

[Foxiol]

The unique developer that PD needs to take note is SimBin. (if GTR 3 is as good as GTR 2 or a combination between Race 07...just say that PD needs to put a huge amount of work in some departments...mostly in the AI, sounds and regulations (flags, times between cars, realistic championships)...

 

[daus26]

PD is inefficient in the fact that their progress in improving the game in the form of DLC is slow. DLC, which T10's Forza seems to specialize in for the genre, is their primary way to improve the game. It is also the one thing many potential buyers look at. PD's patches and Spec II are significant improvements in and of themselves, yet are consistently overlooked by new, desirable content. Something which has been missing from GT5 for quite some time...

Compared to Turn 10, it's certainly not productive regarding DLC, but it is for reasons we don't know. Perhaps they don't have much to give out... Or maybe, they're trying to save a lot for GT6?

I think it's pretty clear now that Turn 10 can produce more cars (and tracks?) in the same time frame. Again, that's for reason we also don't know. Whether it's because Turn 10 have more people, more resources, more methods, or the premium quality of GT5 requiring more work, it's all a plausible explanation.

Anyway, at this point, if you compare PD and Turn 10, PD will always be the more inefficient one, but might not be so according to their own. We just don't know that. What we all can agree on is in the hopes that PD can be as efficient as other developers like Turn 10, with all unknown facts aside.

In my opinion, saying they're insufficient is like saying they're lazy, not experienced, or aware enough as other developers with current technology or such. I just don't think that's the case with PD. If they are, then yes, they would be an insufficient bunch.

 

[CorvetteConquer]

Turn 10, based in Seattle, has outsourced sound design to a firm in the UK and car modelling to an Indian studio called Dhruva Interactive, and it's worked for them.

http://www.ign.com/articles/2012/07/02/gran-turismo-6-what-polyphony-needs-to-do#comment-574810254

Click the author's name and you can see his many responses to the readers.

Dhruv'a site: http://www.dhruva.com/newsite/inside.html# Games Art Studio,Projects

 

[daus26]

Turn 10, based in Seattle, has outsourced sound design to a firm in the UK and car modelling to an Indian studio called Dhruva Interactive, and it's worked for them.

http://www.ign.com/articles/2012/07/02/gran-turismo-6-what-polyphony-needs-to-do#comment-574810254

Click the author's name and you can see his many responses to the readers.

Dhruv'a site: http://www.dhruva.com/newsite/inside.html# Games Art Studio,Projects

I'm close to Seattle and have visit them. It was nothing much, but I did learn about their use of outside resources.

Anyway, YES, this is something PD has never really done; outsourcing. It is things like this that makes comparing the two invalid. If we are talking about what PD should do, then yes, but comparing sufficiency is unfair.

 

[d2deek]

I'm close to Seattle and have visit them. It was nothing much, but I did learn about their use of outside resources.

Anyway, YES, this is something PD has never really done; outsourcing. It is things like this that makes comparing the two invalid. If we are talking about what PD should do, then yes, but comparing sufficiency is unfair.

Actually, it's part of the problem and a good part of why it IS valid.

If there are external companies out there that do nothing but model real-world objects (like, say, cars), then simply not using one of them is, all by itself, inefficient. And if there aren't any companies doing it that are up to PDI's standards, then they ought to spin off their OWN modelling group and eat the lunch of the guys who are doing it half-assedly (and thus be able to hire many more modellers, in turn being able to model many more cars with high quality). Either way, you get more work done faster and cheaper.

Yes, this would mean that the people who build the GT6 cars and tracks could wind up being the same people building cars and tracks for Forza 5 or a PC sim or even a Need For Speed game, but it could also mean lots more quality cars and tracks for Gran Turismo at a lower price (and Polyphony get to focus a lot more on actually making the game, not just the stuff that goes INTO the game).

That's actually why I'm disappointed in the DLC packs that have been released -- cars and tracks don't add much to the game unless they add new GAME content. For example, if I don't race online, what's the point in buying Motegi? No new A-spec or B-spec races, no new special events (new trophies!), etc.

The Spa-Francorchamps track pack should have added a Special Events group where you drive Ferrari F1 at Spa, where you do all the qualifications for, and race in, the Spa 24 Hours race, and so on. Maybe even add an add-on trophy for winning Spa 24, matching an Audi R8 LMS record lap time, etc. The Motegi track pack ought to add Super GT races and such, shouldn't it?

It can't be all THAT much harder than the Scion FR-S pack adding Scion to the NCD.

Yes, new cars and tracks are nice to have...but wouldn't they be a whole lot better if we had something new to do with them?

 

[Raitziger]

t pumping car-DLC every month and nothing else

And they still manage to put together car packs that GT5 players can only dream of. Also t10 is openly at forums which improves the image for community. I do not disagree with anything you posted though.

 

[xxDingerxx]

And they still manage to put together car packs that GT5 players can only dream of. Also t10 is openly at forums which improves the image for community. I do not disagree with anything you posted though.

I wouldn't say T10 are completely open on thier forums. Many a time I have witnessed a post (or thread) just disappear as it didn't pass thier good PR check.

Also, a number of thier community managers etc have been caught flat out lying in attempts to promote a Forza game. Hell, one of them was caught on Neogaf trolling the hell out of GT5 with his corporate e-mail addy.

What i'm saying is PR is nothing but smoke and mirrors. It may seem good but it never really amounts to much good

 

[patriotzero]

Square****x

 

[Raitziger]

I wouldn't say T10 are completely open on thier forums. Many a time I have witnessed a post (or thread) just disappear as it didn't pass thier good PR check.

Also, a number of thier community managers etc have been caught flat out lying in attempts to promote a Forza game. Hell, one of them was caught on Neogaf trolling the hell out of GT5 with his corporate e-mail addy.

What i'm saying is PR is nothing but smoke and mirrors. It may seem good but it never really amounts to much good

Ok. I forgot about that. Smoke and mirrors seem to work. I remember now that they deleted messages when users complained about steering aids etc.