.......
Study charts then read the rest....
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Super_Secret
"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.
"
Src:
http://www.n4g.com/industrynews/NewsCom-384538.aspx?CT=1&Page=1&Page2=1#C2708963
Orignial Forum Post:
http://forums.n4g.com/Cross-game-chat-and-why-it39s-currently-MIA-m700070.aspx
Here is Super_Secret's next post....
"Some of you people could really do with learning to read. I specifically said it was NOT Activision. I thought I gave enough hints as to who it was without directly stating it, but I guess not, so lets try this again, except we'll make it interesting. Here lies the answers, lets see who is clever enough to figure it out? SXQncyBub3QgQWN0aXZpc2lvbi4NCkl0J3Mgbm90IFViaXNvZnQuDQpJdCdzIG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 As for those curious as to why I would call the whistle on this, tell me good sir, what would you do? You have a vested interest in the company you work for and you see this other company constantly getting in the way. Oh sure, on the outside everyone's all buddy-buddy, but that's just good business. And that's what it boils down to - business. Why fix something that doesn't need to be fixed when you can just **** over everyone else and get away with it? You know Sony isn't going to make a huge fuss, they can't afford to alienate publishers and developers (especially HUGE ones), not when Microsoft and Nintendo are happy to welcome them with open arms. Still, all our hard work and it just gets pissed down the drain because one company can't be bothered doing some support? I ask you again - what would you do? Oh and I appreciate all of you guys trying to spread this around, I hope that they'll back track and enable that feature for as many titles as"
src:
http://forums.n4g.com/Cross-game-chat-and-why-it39s-currently-MIA-m700070-p8.aspx
DECODED:
It's not Activision.
It's not Ubisoft.
It's not Capcom.
It's not Insomniac.
It's not Konami.
It's not Take 2.
It's not Midway.
It's not Squaresoft.
are wE All getting the picture yet?
..........
I URGE all consumers who have a distates for this to please voice their opinion and make their voice heard in a civil way. I already sent an email. Feel free to use it as a template, correct any grammtical mistakes and add/deleted from it as neccessary.
..........
jriccitiello@ea.com;
sbene@ea.com;
ebrown@ea.com;
fgibeau@ea.com;
pmoore@ea.com;
gtoledano@ea.com;
jlinzner@ea.com;
kbarker@ea.com;
rhumble@ea.com;
jschappert@ea.com;
lcoleman@ea.com;
jhuber@ea.com;
gkusin@ea.com;
glaybourne@ea.com;
gmaffei@ea.com;
pvivek@ea.com;
lprobst@ea.com;
rsimonson@ea.com;
lsrere@ea.com
..........
To whom this may concern,
It has come to my attention through a reliable source,
http://www.n4g.com/ps3/NewsCom-384582.aspx?CT=1,
that EA is directly responsible for the exclusion of several Playstation Network Features. We The CONSUMERS have asked Sony to deliver two major features: Universal Cross-Game Chat and Universal Custom Soundtracks, for the Playstation Platform.
The very idea that EA has threatened and made a fuss about some of their games not working well with said new features, fearing to look slightly inferior, is nothing out of the ordinary, however, to the extent or preventing 25 Million CONSUMERS from enjoying something they have asked for is atrocious. I will not support EA, EA Sports or any EA affiliates until this matter is spoke on, in a public setting to us the CONSUMERS and the matter has been resolved.
I hope you understand 25+ million, kids, teens and adults of the Playstation platform are extremely upset with this information. Please consider working with SONY and Informing us the CONSUMERS about plans to resolve this issue.
Regards,
~NAME
.
