Submitter: red8316 - (http://forums.n4g.com)
Site Tags: rumor cross-game chat currently missing ps3
Category: PlayStation 3
Today N4G insider Super_Secret has shared on their boards (linked above) why Cross-Game Chat is currently missing in action on the PlayStation 3 console.

To quote: I promised you all an update on Cross-Game chat, so here it is. And you're not going to like it.

As I told you before, Cross-game voice chat has been in the works for a while now. I mentioned last time that it was on target for 3.0 providing that we didn't hit any snags. Well guess what, we hit a snag! An all too familiar snag.

Time for a history lesson. How many of you remember what it was like before FW 2.4? That's right - no in-game XMB. No custom soundtracks. In-game XMB was the most heavily requested feature at the time and we worked tirelessly in order to get it in (By "we", I mean Sony Japan - as I said before, FW isn't my department).

It very nearly didn't happen, you have no idea how difficult it is to backport a feature like that onto a system (the game) that doesn't even know its there, but somehow we managed it. Well, for most titles. There are still the odd few titles out there that don't support in-game XMB ("black" titles).

Custom soundtracks was another one we had working in nearly every title. Obviously it was never going to work in black titles, but about 95% of the titles that worked well with the in-game XMB, had custom sountracks working as well.

So what happened? Why is it that titles HAVE to be developed specifically with custom soundtrack support when it was working more or less just fine?

Is it because Microsoft owns the patent on custom soundtracks in games?

This is something that makes me laugh every time I see one of the less educated ones spouting it off. That's an absolute fabrication. Patents don't matter, Sony as a while infringes upon thousands of patents through the whole company, both hardware and software. If you infringe a patent, you pay royalties to the owner or find a different way of doing the same thing that doesn't infringe. That's it. Microsoft infringes upon all kinds of patents we own but that's up to legal to sort out.

No, the reason we had to drop Custom soundtrack support like that has nothing to do with Microsoft. It does, however, involve a different company. A rather large company.

You see, one of their games happened to fall into the 5% that didn't support in-game custom soundtracks. And they did not like this. When they found out that a new firmware update was going to suddenly make one of their games look inferior to just about every other game released, they protested. A lot.

They threatened everything, from legal action to dropping support for the PS3 all together.

What could we do? There was almost no way of getting it to work correctly due to the way their game was made (i.e. Poorly) and we certainly couldn't leave a broken implementation in there. That's when the hard decision was made to remove all support for older titles and instead adopt the "opt-in" approach that, to this day, most developers simply ignore.

I have to hand this to Microsoft - they did their system right from the beginning and by completely separating it from the developers, they have universal support. Its very unlikely that you'll ever see mandatory support for custom soundtracks in games on our system, I'm afraid.

So yeah, lets nail this on the head: The next time someone starts blaming Microsoft for something the PS3 doesn't have, tell them they're an idiot, they don't know what they're talking about. Are we clear on this? This is a pet peeve of mine because while everyone's happy to go around blaming Microsoft, the real culprits are getting off scott-free.

Of course, I can't actually name them directly or, should I get caught, I might even get done for slander (you can never be too careful), but you can figure it out - it's not Activision and they have a poor history with the PS3.

So what has this got to do with Cross-game voice chat? Guess.

I warned you that we might hit a snag and we did. We've found a couple of titles that just don't like it. Similar to the custom soundtrack fiasco, it can cause lag, crashes, desyncronisation (very very bad when this happens), you name it. It can't be used in these games and it just so happens that some of these games are owned by the same company I've been talking about above.

So we're in a predicament: Cross-game chat is useless if only certain games support it. It's not too bad if its just the odd one that doesn't like it, but at this rate we'd have to drop support for the ENTIRE back catalogue, which would (As I said) make the whole thing useless.

Furthermore, we can't rely on developers to implement direct support for it. It didn't work with Custom Soundtracks, so why would it work here?

So right now, we're trying every little trick in the book to find a solution that works for everyone, but don't hold your breath on this one, so far it looks like the best you're going to get is a gimped implementation of it that only works with a handful of new games.

Now as I said, FW isn't actually my department and even I'm not supposed to know some of this stuff, but this is actually where we are right now. It sucks majorly, but there you have it.

Depending on the end result, it could come in FW 3.1 or it could come in FW 4.0, hell it might not even come at all but rest assured they are working very hard on it. And if it doesn't come, you know who to blame.


Rumor: Why Cross-Game Chat is Currently Missing on PS3

Posted 86 days ago      13 Comments      PermaLink


Comments

#1
By PS3 News on 12 weeks ago:
I know the article/author doesn't specifically name the company, but many at N4G are speculating it's Electronic Arts. :wonky: +Rep though!

#2
By grudge1981 on 12 weeks ago:
Quote:
Originally Posted by PS3 News View Post
I know the article/author doesn't specifically name the company, but many at N4G are speculating it's Electronic Arts. :wonky: +Rep though!
Yep sounds like ol' EA to me..

#3
By gtxboyracer on 12 weeks ago:
Yep, they also specifically mentioned the latest Harry Potter game, Order of the Phoenix.. LOL i just read this article earlier today and was thinking about submitting it.. ahh someone bet me to it! red8136 :)

#4
By BlingOnMyWrist on 12 weeks ago:
Enchanted Arms - Ubisoft

Call of Dudy 3 - Activision

Ironman - SEGA

Blacksite: Area 51 - Midway

Lost Planet - Capcom

Need for Speed Carbon - EA

Record of Agarest War - Aksys Games


These are the alleged titles that don't support in-game XMB.

#5
By gtxboyracer on 12 weeks ago:
If you read the thread linked to the OP (Original Post) - the guy mentions that its not the just the games that can't access the Ingame XMB - it also includes the ones that load the Ingame XMB sluggish.. some games can only just load it - and not smoothly.. meaning that Cross-Game voice chat would pull on what already low resources are available to the system - and give really terrible results.. such as lagged conversation, being out of sync - possibly also crashing the game as a result of the Voice Chat taking too much ram etc.

All possibilities.. what he was getting at was the Developer's coding was that shocking but Sony can't cause any trouble with the developer as they don't want to lose the partnership. Would be a loss to Sony...

#6
By red8316 on 12 weeks ago:
Quote:
Originally Posted by gtxboyracer View Post
Yep, they also specifically mentioned the latest Harry Potter game, Order of the Phoenix.. LOL i just read this article earlier today and was thinking about submitting it.. ahh someone bet me to it! red8136 :)
LOL thought I would try posting news for change :-)

#7
By JesusFMA on 12 weeks ago:
lol,

I read this article a little bit earlier at the PS3 Boards and, doesn't seem so interesting to me at all. :D

nah, seriously, is it possible to "Mysterious Company" to sabotage the in-game chat development? I don't think so. It's very different when it comes to music, because if you put some of it in the game, is because, either you pay a lot for it, or you want that music to be listen (it's all about business).

Now, I don't think Sony is scared of this company's "tantrum" haha ... I mean, they didn't give up on the Activision's threats (we even know the response to that ;)).

Anyway, I just hope in-game chat to be release soon (unless this "situation" is just an excuse for not to develop the functionality), because it sure will be so useful for me.

#8
By SquidgyG on 12 weeks ago:
Enchanted Arms (Ubisoft) and NFS Carbon (EA) both support the XMB, but as stated, it runs slower than it should.

#9
By semitope on 12 weeks ago:
Sony is letting a software company dictate to them what to do with their console? Should just tell them to take a hike because improved features on the ps3 help everyone down the road. Is it the company just sucks too badly to fix whatever was wrong with the way they make their games?

I really thought this would be activision, another nail in their coffin it would be.

#10
By dud0r on 12 weeks ago:
If it is EA as speculated then i understand sony doesn't want to piss them off, they are a big company and made 60 games for the ps3 already so you don't want to lose something like that.

#11
By semitope on 12 weeks ago:
Quote:
Originally Posted by dud0r View Post
If it is EA as speculated then i understand sony doesn't want to piss them off, they are a big company and made 60 games for the ps3 already so you don't want to lose something like that.
Thats just childish of them or whichever company might be doing it. It wouldnt even need to be a feature massively advertised or used extensively for a while giving them time to integrate it into future games and boast of it with everyone else.

Would the fact that there is no crossgame chat really make someone not buy a game for ps3 at this point? I highly doubt that. We have been playing without it forever.

#12
By twitch on 12 weeks ago:
Lately I have been buying my games for my 360 just because of cross game chat my friends and I use it every time were on and i catch myself using my PS3 less because of it. Sony better step this up or like my friends and I will be purchasing stuff for the other system..... Its kinda sad I love my PS3 but its lacking key features that should have been there from the start.

#13
By CyanCaze on 12 weeks ago:
Hm.. Activision not responsible? Was that a sarcastic remark as dort of a "It's not Activision *Wink Wink*" or was it serious.

Well since we already know if it's sarcastic that it is Activision. But I suggest Nintendo if not.

That was also sarcasm :P

I'm sure I am not alone in Suggesting Capcom. This has their piss all over it. (Excuse my language).

The reason don't think it's EA is because they have virtually monopolized on sports games. You can't go around them to play any of the major sports tittles so no other game like the ones they make exists. So they would have to worry about being "Out featured".

And although the lord knows I hate Activision, more then any other company as a matter of fact. It doesn't sound like them anyway.

First off Infinity Ward makes the call of duty even numbers (meaning CoD 2, 4, and now 6). They are not going to screw up and make it impossible to use custom sound tracks, and or in-game voice chat, and even if they did it doesn't matter as Call of Duty 4 is said by many to be the BEST First person shooter ever.

There is also no reason for them to worry about Custom soundtracks of voice chat in a game like Guitar Hero. So that is cut out.

However Capcom does have a reason for this. And I will explain.

If it is Capcom then we can assume that games like street fighter 4 will not support in-game voice chat or custom sound tracks. This is a problem because there are TONS of fighting games out there. Most of which many consider better then Street fighter in general. If nearly every single other fighter Supported those features then this could be a problem for them.

In addition lets look at Mega-Man 9. This is a 8-Bit game running on the PS3. What if I told you games like Metal Gear Solid 4, and Uncharted could run custom sound tracks, AND in-game voice chat. But a game like Mega-Man can't? That would make Capcom look very weak indeed.

In addition, you have RE5 which is a third person shooter. What if that couldn't handle in game voice chat. I think if Capcom is worried about RE5 they are crazy personally as they have Co-op already. A feature most games don't even try.

Point is based on how these companies operate and so on. I would guess Capcom is the person to blame, provided this article is true.



Post a Reply


Please Register or Login to Reply!



Affiliates | Categories | Contact Us | PS3 Hacks | PS3 Reviews | Privacy/Terms | Copyright © 2009 PlayStation 3 News.