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With the news coming in (even before the current news) there was a lot of speculation as to what was going on with PD... things kept slipping or changing and no one was sure what to make of it. I would say we still can't really be sure, but I recall seeing a lot of opinions and speculations. I am curious to see what everyones thoughts are on how we have arrived where we are. Here is my take:
As PD worked through GT5 (probably starting aroud GT4 launch time) they met with challenges (potentiallylicensinng, partnerships etc) and programing issues (they are squeezing a LOT out of the PS3 which is not known to be easy to program for) which caused estimates of completion to get pushed back farther and farther, that's why we saw slides a while ago alluding to an 08 release.
Comming up into this year at some point Sony made known to PD PS3 slim ideas and price cut plans. Obviously it would be desireable to have GT5 release alongside the PS3 slim and best if it could hit a major shopping period.
PD internally estimated what they could get done to meet that schedule and made cuts where necessary (ie we can't get damage on all cars, ok lets make the deliniation somehwere - whats a natural cutline? Race cars... makes licensing easier and makes some kind of logical sense - done) and timelines were set.
Being as how Kaz and PD really want to release the biggest and best, they aim for the least cuts possible and gun for an 11th hour finish just in time to hit their release date. Everything has to fall into place to make this happen. Q4 2009 is set internally as the release date.
However they all know that they are really aiming for a high target and it's not good to go stating firm details at this point (the 2008 release slide is probably still painfull in their memories). The best thing to do here is to drop hints, try to build marketing and hype without actually putting anything solid out there. If the release date is hit, play off this as a huge culmination to the wait, if needs to push out longer... well nothing was official and solid so the lesser of two evils.
Now remember PD is not just one department but man with many jobs all of which may be of different difficulties to complete. So marketing is off doing their thing, coding is doing theres, R&D and PR etc all doing their own thing all aiming for Q4 09.
Marketing starts putting out heavy hints about 09 release and adverts and promos get leaked or are otherwise seen.
As time draws close PD is hitting it's strides, looks like Q4 09 is doable, hints get stronger, confidence grows... time to test the waters.
GC... not officially announced on the lineup, nothing official, let's dip our toe in the water and see how it feels.
GC demo hits... results are mixed at best. People are seeing the flaws more than the improvements.
Somewhere between GC and TGS, PD and Kaz are back at the conference table with Sony... Sony is saying "GT5 releases with PS slim this xmas, lets go!" Kaz says "no... we saw what the resposne was, we need to go further, we underestimated where we needed to be and the main competition has a lot of features we need to put up at least a cursory answer to or we risk really bad reception and PR. We need to extend 6-12 months out... we need to get great damage across the board, we need to model interiors across the board, we need to deepen/creat our livery editor... on paper GT needs to measure up feature for feature better against F3".
Arguments ensue, Sony needs GT moving consoles and sales and gives in to 3more months... that's it, get that thing out there! PS3 slim is alread out, we already dropped the price we NEED GT5 to hit somewhere near those or else any tie in benefit is lost.
PD goes back to the development table and looks at what they can do. Full exterior damage across the board? Can't do it that fast, but we took so much heat over the "only some cars have damage" ok we give the rest as much damage as we can, scratches and scuffs.
A few other things get the green light to improve or enhance and a new date is set.
Kaz is still unhappy Sony wouldn't give him as much time as he wants and he knows they are again pushing for an 11th hour completion even with scaled back goals... so to give himself as much wiggled room as possible he announces the Japanese release date (which he kind of has to being as he is at a Japanese game show) a little vaguely, keeps playing his vague on anything uncertain game and hopes that if they need to push back again, so far only Japan has a solid release date (so only 1 region has an actualy "delay") and other regions can simply receive a release date later than Japan as their official release dates, saving face rather actually giving a delay (since no official date was said for those regions).
That's how I see it... what do you guys all think?
As PD worked through GT5 (probably starting aroud GT4 launch time) they met with challenges (potentiallylicensinng, partnerships etc) and programing issues (they are squeezing a LOT out of the PS3 which is not known to be easy to program for) which caused estimates of completion to get pushed back farther and farther, that's why we saw slides a while ago alluding to an 08 release.
Comming up into this year at some point Sony made known to PD PS3 slim ideas and price cut plans. Obviously it would be desireable to have GT5 release alongside the PS3 slim and best if it could hit a major shopping period.
PD internally estimated what they could get done to meet that schedule and made cuts where necessary (ie we can't get damage on all cars, ok lets make the deliniation somehwere - whats a natural cutline? Race cars... makes licensing easier and makes some kind of logical sense - done) and timelines were set.
Being as how Kaz and PD really want to release the biggest and best, they aim for the least cuts possible and gun for an 11th hour finish just in time to hit their release date. Everything has to fall into place to make this happen. Q4 2009 is set internally as the release date.
However they all know that they are really aiming for a high target and it's not good to go stating firm details at this point (the 2008 release slide is probably still painfull in their memories). The best thing to do here is to drop hints, try to build marketing and hype without actually putting anything solid out there. If the release date is hit, play off this as a huge culmination to the wait, if needs to push out longer... well nothing was official and solid so the lesser of two evils.
Now remember PD is not just one department but man with many jobs all of which may be of different difficulties to complete. So marketing is off doing their thing, coding is doing theres, R&D and PR etc all doing their own thing all aiming for Q4 09.
Marketing starts putting out heavy hints about 09 release and adverts and promos get leaked or are otherwise seen.
As time draws close PD is hitting it's strides, looks like Q4 09 is doable, hints get stronger, confidence grows... time to test the waters.
GC... not officially announced on the lineup, nothing official, let's dip our toe in the water and see how it feels.
GC demo hits... results are mixed at best. People are seeing the flaws more than the improvements.
Somewhere between GC and TGS, PD and Kaz are back at the conference table with Sony... Sony is saying "GT5 releases with PS slim this xmas, lets go!" Kaz says "no... we saw what the resposne was, we need to go further, we underestimated where we needed to be and the main competition has a lot of features we need to put up at least a cursory answer to or we risk really bad reception and PR. We need to extend 6-12 months out... we need to get great damage across the board, we need to model interiors across the board, we need to deepen/creat our livery editor... on paper GT needs to measure up feature for feature better against F3".
Arguments ensue, Sony needs GT moving consoles and sales and gives in to 3more months... that's it, get that thing out there! PS3 slim is alread out, we already dropped the price we NEED GT5 to hit somewhere near those or else any tie in benefit is lost.
PD goes back to the development table and looks at what they can do. Full exterior damage across the board? Can't do it that fast, but we took so much heat over the "only some cars have damage" ok we give the rest as much damage as we can, scratches and scuffs.
A few other things get the green light to improve or enhance and a new date is set.
Kaz is still unhappy Sony wouldn't give him as much time as he wants and he knows they are again pushing for an 11th hour completion even with scaled back goals... so to give himself as much wiggled room as possible he announces the Japanese release date (which he kind of has to being as he is at a Japanese game show) a little vaguely, keeps playing his vague on anything uncertain game and hopes that if they need to push back again, so far only Japan has a solid release date (so only 1 region has an actualy "delay") and other regions can simply receive a release date later than Japan as their official release dates, saving face rather actually giving a delay (since no official date was said for those regions).
That's how I see it... what do you guys all think?
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