The PlayStation 4 comes out in Japan in one month. The privileged who got to pick up theirs out west have been enjoying it for over two months now, but over in Japan gamers and developers alike are anxiously awaiting its release.
This week, Weekly Famitsu gathered the opinions of some notable Japanese game developers on Sony’s latest console. Check out what they had to say.
Goichi Suda (Suda 51) — Lily Bergamo
Of the 5 keywords for the PS4 — “Simple,” “Immediate,” “Social,” “Integrated,” and “Personalised” — the one that left the biggest impression on me is “Immediate.”
I feel that’s the point that the PS4 is most focused on as a game machine.
We are game creators, so we want to focus our energies on making more entertaining and more attractive games. For that, we need hardware that can execute “immediately.” This “immediate” quality is the most reassuring element when making games.
Even now, I can feel the results of that “immediate” quality as I work on development.
Tetsuya Nomura — Final Fantasy XV and Kingdom Hearts III
Looking at the PS4, I thought “they’ve gone too far.” I wish they would just let us off the hook. For the player, having a game that’s “thoroughly made” makes them excited with anticipation, but for a developer, it’s a hurdle we have to overcome.
The number of things we have to do keeps increasing and if we keep trying to expand as far as it will go, we’ll never be finished. I think we’re going to end up being faced with the choice of what to keep and what to give up on [for Kingdom Hearts III].
I really felt the immense response to the Kingdom Hearts III announcement and so it’s now my task to figure out how to satisfy all those people who are looking forward to it.
There have been a lot of different consoles in the past, but I feel that this one is the biggest mountain we’ve had to climb yet, in a good way.
Yoshinori Ono — deep down
The DualShock 4 has a touch pad, it has a light-up part on the top, and if you listen to it, you can hear noises coming from it. We plan on making use of all these features so that players can utilise them in real time in deep down.
The light bar will be used to express the theme of the game, emotional “colour.” For example, players will be able to look at it and see what the emotional colour of the dungeon they’re exploring is.
Additionally, players will be able to listen to the past voices of members of the special group, the “ravens,” through the controller instead of the TV.
In such a way, we hope to utilise [the PS4’s] features in a way that allows players to become more immersed in the world of deep down.
The PlayStation 4 hits Japan’s shores on February 22 and Kotaku East will be there for further coverage.
ファミ通.com [ファミ通.com]
Comments
9 responses to “Japanese Developers On The PS4’s Strengths And Weaknesses”
“JUST HOOK IT TO MY VEINS” – Me, about Deep Down
I got a lot less excited about it when I found it it was free-to-play. I will wait and see if my cynicism is justified before I get too interested in it again.
I think developers are starting to find the right balance with F2P and aslong as its not pay to win or pay to progress im cautiously optimistic, and lucky with F2P, if i dont like it nothing ventured
Wtf is with Tetsuya. How is the horsepower of PS4 a “mountain we have to climb”? Is it because he’s used to making JRPG-style games that don’t push any technical boundaries? Because if it’s graphics he’s talking about, he must be drinking some kool-aid.
I read that as meaning that with the improved power and graphics, its a hurdle because people expect more.
People expect bigger graphics, better effects, realistic physics and a truely immersive audio experience.
If I was a game dev I would probably think the same. “We have so much expected of us, on the same time frame and working to a similar budget as we did 5 or 6 years ago”.
But I could be wrong…
Although we keep hearing about how much quicker and easier PS4 development is compared to PS3 development due to the simpler architecture, better tools, etc. So in theory they should actually be able to do more with the same budget.
Yeah, but development works like this:
1. Make game on PC.
2. Make it run on console dev kit.
3. Not enough fps? Cut out graphics until it runs well.
4. Still not enough fps? Cut out game/engine/etc features to make it run.
All that PS4 does it allow devs to cut less stuff from the game. Which is why there are a couple of cross-platform games currently in existence that only differ in prettiness.
I think Suda51 and Yoshinori Ono had their names switched.
I really like some of the creative ways that people are using the DS4’s touchpad, speaker, and light bar.
Really sick and tired of everyone saying they are useless, just because Western devs have not bothered to utilize them in ANY kind of useful way just yet. I can see many applications for them already.
Killzone was the only game that has used them so far, it was basic, but effective. Using the DS4 speaker for audio logs and things like that is really cool, and throws you off the first few times (Resogun used it as well) and the health colour light bar was kind of not a good use, but still a use non the less.