NHL 09 Fridays: Community Questions #3

[OddyOh]

Welcome to the world of gaming.

My guess is (and this seems to be pretty much the common answer): PS3 is terribly difficult to program for vs. 360.

That's the common excuse anyway, I wouldn't accept that as an answer. But I can't blame EA for this glaring omission...I'd suspect Sony didn't get Custom Soundtracks support into the SDK until it was too late for NHL 09. I think Sony didn't enable it until the Spring, iirc.

That said, there's no reason that EA can't patch it later on...this is now very common across several PS3 titles.

Also some PS3 games are starting to feature built-in uploading of video to YouTube...I hope EA makes that happen too, for NHL 2010. Dunno if the 360 has the horsepower for that. Maybe they can miss out on that feature next year. Fair is fair.

[ChaseB]

Re: NHL 09 Fridays: Community Questions #3

Custom soundtracks have been done on both consoles so it's not a harder to develop thing at this point. Especially since the Burnout guys have done it and that's EA now.

[rellix1]

Re: NHL 09 Fridays: Community Questions #3

That's the common excuse anyway, I wouldn't accept that as an answer. But I can't blame EA for this glaring omission...I'd suspect Sony didn't get Custom Soundtracks support into the SDK until it was too late for NHL 09. I think Sony didn't enable it until the Spring, iirc.

Well, it's a fact that MS went to lengths to make sure their console was developer friendly, much more than Sony did.

That said, there's no reason that EA can't patch it later on...this is now very common across several PS3 titles.

Possible? Yes. Likely? No.

Also some PS3 games are starting to feature built-in uploading of video to YouTube...I hope EA makes that happen too, for NHL 2010. Dunno if the 360 has the horsepower for that. Maybe they can miss out on that feature next year. Fair is fair.

Can't you upload to EASportsworld or whatever it's called in Madden already? on 360 no less.

[rellix1]

Re: NHL 09 Fridays: Community Questions #3

Custom soundtracks have been done on both consoles so it's not a harder to develop thing at this point. Especially since the Burnout guys have done it and that's EA now.

Could you elaborate a little bit on Burnout's custom soundtrack system? I haven't played any version of that game in ages, so I can't really make any fair comparisons. I will however suggest that if in Burnout, you can simply exchange the background songs with your own, then that seems quite little compared to what the NHL 09 crew is trying to attack. Also let's not forget that while EA may be one large company, EA Canada does not (correct me if I'm wrong) make Burnout, and while they may share their secrets, they, much like other companies spread into different development crews, are basically little companies just functioning under the same name (see R*).

[ChaseB]

Re: NHL 09 Fridays: Community Questions #3

Could you elaborate a little bit on Burnout's custom soundtrack system? I haven't played any version of that game in ages, so I can't really make any fair comparisons. I will however suggest that if in Burnout, you can simply exchange the background songs with your own, then that seems quite little compared to what the NHL 09 crew is trying to attack. Also let's not forget that while EA may be one large company, EA Canada does not (correct me if I'm wrong) make Burnout, and while they may share their secrets, they, much like other companies spread into different development crews, are basically little companies just functioning under the same name (see R*).

I don't think the Burnout guys keep it hidden. And yes I'm well aware of the differences, but nonetheless -- it's not like it's impossible.

Burnout it's for the background tracks as you race -- just like it has always been.

[rellix1]

Re: NHL 09 Fridays: Community Questions #3

I don't think the Burnout guys keep it hidden. And yes I'm well aware of the differences, but nonetheless -- it's not like it's impossible.

Burnout it's for the background tracks as you race -- just like it has always been.

Well - replacing background music I imagine is very easy, as you literally just specifying the location of the MP3/whatever you're going to play.

Organizing this for different portions of a game, while it may be similar in specifying the file, it also has to deal with a vast number of files (assuming do you different sounds for every arena). This is not a 1 for 1 switch, but rather a 30 for 1.

I'm not going to defend their decision, I'm not part of EA and I don't know what's *really* going on back there, but what I can say is that there are numerous issues developers must deal with for the PS3 that are virtually nonexistent on the 360, and custom soundtracks were probably placed on the backburner.

[ChaseB]

Re: NHL 09 Fridays: Community Questions #3

This is an argument that was valid more than a year ago. It's not anymore.

[rellix1]

Re: NHL 09 Fridays: Community Questions #3

This is an argument that was valid more than a year ago. It's not anymore.

Can't pass the class without showing your work.

I really don't understand what makes this year invalid vs. last year. This is the first year EA Canada has implemented this type of feature - are we forgetting that?

[ChaseB]

Re: NHL 09 Fridays: Community Questions #3

Can't pass the class without showing your work.

I really don't understand what makes this year invalid vs. last year. This is the first year EA Canada has implemented this type of feature - are we forgetting that?

I'm just saying the, "well it's hard to develop on PS3" argument is very tired, don't let developers and publishers keep using it. These major third parties know what they're in for at this point.

[rellix1]

Re: NHL 09 Fridays: Community Questions #3

I'm just saying the, "well it's hard to develop on PS3" argument is very tired, don't let developers and publishers keep using it. These major third parties know what they're in for at this point.

Just from my experience as a professional programmer, I've always found that the first time you try something in an unfamiliar environment, the odds of issues arising are much much higher than usual.

Agree to disagree on this, I suppose.

[ChaseB]

Re: NHL 09 Fridays: Community Questions #3

Just from my experience as a professional programmer, I've always found that the first time you try something in an unfamiliar environment, the odds of issues arising are much much higher than usual.

Agree to disagree on this, I suppose.

F U I say, F U!

[rellix1]

Re: NHL 09 Fridays: Community Questions #3

F U I say, F U!

no u

[OddyOh]

Hmm, I'd hadn't visited EASportsWorld Beta for about a year...not since it had all those server problems back on the Tiger Woods 08 launch. Looks good now. YouTube seems a little easier to share on, but I can see why they'd want to reinvent the wheel for their own games. At least I won't have to film my TV with my digital camera anymore...

I agree with rellix that the NHL custom music feature is probably more specific than simply custom background music. Who knows, Sony may not even have prepared for such a thing in their software. Hopefully EA is bugging them everyday for support for this type of feature if that's what the problem is, as it should be standard across all sports games. Ideally, you should be able to map a "penalty" or "home goal" to a folder or playlist of songs, and not just one song per event. That way you don't get sick of a single song. Basically like how the old PC versions used to work.

Hopefully they patch it, like most other PS3-savvy developers are doing. I realize EA isn't big on patches, but this could be the year they step up. Why get an 8/10 rating, when you can get 10/10. The Burnout guys are the gold standard for how to do multi-platform development. Basically you set your goal of 60fps on all platforms, and then don't rest until you get there, finding every single bit of power/features on all systems in the process. They even cranked out a PC version after all that, which nobody expected. Best dev team ever.