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So, I take it you either just admire the Forza 3 models in the showroom/garage and squint at the in-game and replay graphics so you can't see the flaws, or they're so bad you could never race them?T10 seemed to do exactly that with the showroom car models.
(me, paraphrase) Outsourcing is always more expensive than doing it yourself.
Dev, Dev, Dev... as usual, you are so... you.Actually usually it's the exact opposite... the very point of outsourcing is that even after said other company takes some profit, they are focusing on this type of business exclusively and probably in volume so can still do it cheaper than you could. It's the very essence of the outsource market and why things like temp agencies, per diem companies and contract jobs exist.
I have personally seen many outsourcing operations where it cost the company far less to pay someone else to do it than to hire their own.
I suppose in dealing with you, I need to think like a politician dealing with a reporter who can go where I'd never dream of taking things. So, backing up a bit, I'll explain why this has no bearing.
Yes, outsourcing in general can be much more cost effective, but this is in the context of physical labor and manufacturing of physical goods and products. The reason temp secretaries are cheaper is because you're paying them less than an established employee who will get benefits and raises - and the temp company will take some of this money on top of that. And the savings for a company are even greater vs union labor which these days in many cases is increasingly overpaid. In the case of autoworkers, teachers and the like, pensions are becoming a killer burden.
In manufacturing, it's the same but different. Subcontracting companies offering manufactured components for larger assemblies make huge volumes of products, as they sell these items to many different companies.
Now with computer modeling companies, as far as I know, there is no cottage industry of home businesses of geeky 20-somethings straight out of college cranking out fenders, windshields, brake assemblies or even entire car models for any racing game company to buy. While I have thought of such notions for things like war games, where a developer would love to have a ton of environmental assets available such as interior items for abandoned houses, damaged windows, doors and walls and what not, I'm unaware of any such deal.
From everything I can see, every company has a modeling team which does all the creating of game assets. Unless the game gets bogged down in production issues, and in order to keep content up, they hire out, and from my knowledge of the biz, even with bidding to keep costs from exploding, they have to pay a pretty penny for premium content.
There is a huge difference between a company that cranks out 100 million 9mm nuts and bolts, and a modeling company that does one time custom work. Of course, you would ignore that for the sake of argument, wouldn't you.
I'll see you and raise you ten.You certainly thought it through, but did you just think it or do you know it? Because it seems a lot of the things you think are only possibly true and not backed up by any actual data.
For those of us who have had to deal with Turn 10's games through three iterations, in their case, it sure the heck can...Like i said before, outsourcing does not mean it's a bad model.
I used to think this, until it occurred to me how Polyphony operates. A few of us have discussed this before.Anyway, I do agree that outsourcing would increase the premium car count but I'm not sure it should be the way to go. I'd say they should have hired more modelers, even if temporarily.
PD is much like a family, or even a ninja clan. The employees are fiercely loyal to Kaz. Because of this, they put out pretty close to 110% vs what other companies get. Heck, from what I understand, Kaz had a small hotel built into Polyphony HQ for his people, so they could take a real break from work from time to time, rather than crawl under their desks to cots. While everyone doesn't live there, it does seem a good deal of them do.
Because of this, quality of work puts most other developers to shame, and security is as tight as a high tech intelligence bureau. As far as I know, other than one slip by a head of SCEA over the karts, there have been zero leaks. And of course, this wasn't from Polyphony itself.
We all want a nice big modeling team working on GT6, and I've urged all of you Standard car naysayers to make a fuss to SONY to fund Polyphony enough to perhaps even double the modeling team. But these new hires in PD are apparently going to be very carefully screened for not just quality of work but company loyalty. And I want this tradition of complete loyalty to continue, so not any degreed modeling artist will do.
Just to ping off of this post, M$ is in a completely different position, because they don't actually make anything. Their product is software, the result of hoards of people typing on computers all day.
SONY however, has to manufacture stuff. And if they were rolling in cash, they wouldn't have had to sell off assets, such as blue laser manufacturing plants to Toshiba, or buy their HDTV display screens from Samsung.
I guess I should have put that in quotes. Think... countless remarks by Dan Greenawalt from last year.How can an opinion be definitive?
The sole reason I posted this was because most of the footage I've seen of the standard cars indicated (to me), that it's not something that's easily overlooked. Then again, that might be due to the fact that, while playing, you're focused on actually racing and, thus, don't notice the difference that much. I can only guess, really. It's just that, well, I look at the standard car footage and think to myself 'will I really be able to not notice that'?
So in one sentence, you can differ on how Standards look, then in another, you throw the whole thing out the window.I respect Amar's opinions and all of his contributions to this board (and the GT community online, in general), but Standards are always going to be about opinions. There are a few images of them out there that look really good (Tomcat's work with the Evo III in the full game video/images thread, or his GNX). Then there are ones like the Pescarolo that are hovering around, that look like garbage. There are obviously different levels of quality under the Standard umbrella.
I don't remember anything in Prologue looking like that.
How about, "The Pescarolo looks like garbage... to me."
Maybe I should paraphrase analog on this: Don't apply your views to everyone.
Frankly, I'm about to watch that Le Sarthe Standard car race yet again, and if you guys think it looks hellacious and wouldn't want to participate in it because you might see a polygon on a car or a sawtoothed shadow... wow, you guys can have that!
You guys play GT5 however the heck you want. But as for me, I'm gonna enjoy the hell out of 1000 some odd cars!
Well, you'll have to educate me on how Apple is attempting to invade numerous markets with the intent of hostile absorption. Sorry, I'm not up on that.(Oh, about the "monopoly" comment: I misread your original post. I took it as you saying the only difference between Sony and Microsoft is that one is a monopoly that needs our money (whereas the other doesn't). While it's best left to another thread, and not this one, it's odd how anti-MS you are when Apple is hardly a good example of market-friendly fair play).
Well, that's the internal resolution of Prologue. I'm not sure that GT5's resolution has been established. But even if it still is at 1280 horizontal, I'm fine with that. Prologue looks photo-real in most cases to me, and there are plenty of stories of people who walked in on it and thought they were seeing racing film from The Speed Channel. I'm unaware of any 360 game which is 1080p internal, and in fact, some games aren't even 720p, such as Halo 3.1280x1080.
When we all get our hands on GT5, I do expect a few people to come in here and make "Oh GAWD!" posts. But while they're complaining, I'll be racking up experience and shooting pics.
And by the way, Scottracer's pic is in Photomode, which has extra effects applied which aren't in-game. The Cooper pic with the faceted headlights is actually in-game. Since M$ signed me up for another year of their flocking Live without my permission, I might pop off an actual LOD bot car image. It makes the Cooper pic look like a centerfold.
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