[Rumour] PS3 Cross game chat and why it's currently MIA - EA butthurt?

[+Audioboxer Subscriber²]

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 soundtracks 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 whole 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.

Source: http://forums.n4g.com/Cross-game-chat-and-...IA-m700070.aspx

Think this deserves it's own discussion and before anyone goes "OMGZ N4G LOL", this guy detailed the PS3 slim months before launch even down to the new buttons it was going to have and OtherOS support being removed. You can't do that by chance, at least not the OtherOS part, why would an every day person trying to get some hits even think to touch on Linux support?

I also want people to read this so they stop blaming MS with in-game music like I did, it's nothing to do with patents, tell anyone next time you see them saying it is

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.

As for the whole thing, if we find it who's creating such a fuss over some stupid legacy games from months/years past they're going to get a grilling. Sony is to blame for not making a universal system day 1, but if Sony were sitting on universal music support and now universal in-game voice chat (minus 5% of legacy games), that's a plus on their early software development failure they should be allowed to correct in the gamers interests.

Edited August 26, 2009 by Audioboxer

[Belazor]

As I said in the other thread, why not just work with the game developer to patch their game(s)? That's what makes this story have a certain odour to it.

[+Audioboxer Subscriber²]

As I said in the other thread, why not just work with the game developer to patch their game(s)? That's what makes this story have a certain odour to it.

Did you read my post in the other topic?

Taking development teams off of new upcoming games to sit and spend weeks/months patching some game that's been out for months/years costs money, time and effort. A publisher would rather let their legal department spend their timing mouthing off threats than take their paid developers off a new project to patch an old game that will most likely make no new cash-flow.

Patching something as large as custom music support/in-game XMB or voice chat into a game won't be some walk in the park - They'll be many hooks in the code needing changed, then a large Q&A process of testing the whole game from start to finish. Most devs can't even be arsed patching in trophy support let alone something harder.

When publishers are nickeling and diming us for DLC all over the joint you really think they're going to be nice enough to do all the above for free? Cause they certainly couldn't charge for an in-game xmb/music/voice patch :laugh:

[Ji@nBing]

Did you read my post in the other topic?

Taking development teams off of new upcoming games to sit and spend weeks/months patching some game that's been out for months/years costs money, time and effort. A publisher would rather let their legal department spend their timing mouthing off threats than take their paid developers off a new project to patch an old game that will most likely make no new cash-flow.

Patching something as large as custom music support/in-game XMB or voice chat into a game won't be some walk in the park - They'll be many hooks in the code needing changed, then a large Q&A process of testing the whole game from start to finish. Most devs can't even be arsed patching in trophy support let alone something harder.

Why can't Sony do it then?

Or they could even have a hook in there that detects the games that bork it, and completely disable the feature before loading the game.

[Belazor]

Ah, I missed that post, sorry.

Well, unless it was a staple franchise like MGS (which isn't so staple anymore) then there's no reason for Sony to care about these developers. If they dropped support for the PS3, they would lose a lot of money, end of.

Maybe I'm in denial but I'll believe that proper implementation of these features might still come if Sony feels confident enough that they don't need this developer's games to succeed. Backwards compat with games that use the current implementation shouldn't be a problem, as not only are there few such games but the per-game soundtrack could just override the OS-set soundtrack.

[houlty]

first company i thought of was EA... other then Activision who else is there that's that big?

nothing changes for me though, it's clear now that the 360 is the social console of this generation and sony need to stop chasing it and just prepare for the next generation. i'm not saying this feature wouldn't be welcomed by some, but if you've managed this long without it...

[+Audioboxer Subscriber²]

Why can't Sony do it then?

Or they could even have a hook in there that detects the games that bork it, and completely disable the feature before loading the game.

Uhhh Sony DID do it, the issue is with the way some legacy games are coded, it won't work without code change... It states clearly in post 1...

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 soundtracks working as well.

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.

The issue is the "5%" of titles that didn't work, within that a publishers game was included that went off on a hissy fit.

[DPyro]

It's Ubisoft :p

[+Audioboxer Subscriber²]

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?

SXQncyBub3QgQWN0aXZpc2lvbi4NCkl0J3Mgbm90IFViaXNvZnQuDQpJdCdzIG5vdCBDYXBjb20uDQpJdCdzIG5vdCBJbnNvbW5pYWMuDQpJdCdzIG5vdCBL

b25hbWkuDQpJdCdzIG5vdCBUYWtlIDIuDQpJdCdzIG5vdCBNaWR3YXkuDQpJdCdzIG5vdCBTcXVhcmVzb2Z0Lg0KDQphcmUgd0UgQWxsIGdldHRpbmcgdGhlI

HBpY3R1cmUgeWV0Pw0KDQpPbmUgcG9pbnQgSSB3YW50IHRvIHJlaXRlcmF0ZSAtIHRoZXJlJ3MgYSBkaWZmZXJlbmNlIGJldHdlZW4gdGhlIGdhbWVzIHRoYX

QgZGlkbid0IHdvcmsgd2l0aCBpbi1nYW1lIFhNQiBhbmQgdGhlIGdhbWVzIHRoYXQgRElEIHdvcmsgd2l0aCBpbi1nYW1lIFhNQiBidXQgRElETidUIHdvcms

gd2VsbCB3aXRoIGN1c3RvbSBzb3VuZHRyYWNrcywgc28gc3RvcCBwaWNraW5nIG91dCB0aGUgb25lcyB0aGF0IHNpbXBseSBkaWRuJ3QgZG8gaW4tZ2FtZSBY

TUIuDQoNCkFsc28sIGl0IHdhc24ndCBqdXN0IE9ORSBnYW1lIHRoYXQgY2F1c2VkIHRoaXMsIGVpdGhlci4gQWx0aG91Z2ggb25lIHRpdGxlIGRvZXMgY29tZ

SB0byBtaW5kIGFuZCBpdCB3YXNuJ3QgZXZlbiB3aGF0IHlvdSBvciBJIHdvdWxkIGNhbGwgYSAiQmlnIiBnYW1lLiBJJ2xsIGdpdmUgeW91IGEgaGludDogSF

BhdE9vZlAu

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 ****ed 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 they can eventually, but don't be surprised if Sony themselves denies this, after all their priority is to maintain good ties with publishers and developers.

It's Ubisoft :p

Yup, my bet also.

[Belazor]

The text is base64 encoded, and reads:

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?

One point I want to reiterate - there's a difference between the games that didn't work with in-game XMB and the games that DID work with in-game XMB but DIDN'T work well with custom soundtracks, so stop picking out the ones that simply didn't do in-game XMB.

Also, it wasn't just ONE game that caused this, either. Although one title does come to mind and it wasn't even what you or I would call a "Big" game. I'll give you a hint: HPatOofP.

EDIT: Formatting.

Edited August 26, 2009 by Belazor

[+Audioboxer Subscriber²]

are wE All getting the picture yet?

So it is EA... ?

Damn that's a kicker considering everything EA have done on the PS3, but I guess this is true

Oh sure, on the outside everyone's all buddy-buddy, but that's just good business.

edit: lol Belazor did you decipher that yourself? Looks like you are first :p

Also what is this game?

I'll give you a hint: HPatOofP.

[Kushan]

Don't forget, it simply might not be possible to patch older games that way. You know how it is with console development, you build your game to get as much out of that system as you possibly can. Every byte of data is used to the maximum (ideally, anyway). Essentially, what Sony did was change that system. Maybe custom soundtracks use a little bit more CPU time that the game needs? I dunno, I honestly don't, but its still a possibility as to why it couldn't be done.

But then again, maybe the company in question just didn't want to spend the money to do it?

EDIT: Where did that post come from?

[Belazor]

edit: lol Belazor did you decipher that yourself? Looks like you are first :p

Yeah I did, I recognise a base64 string when I see it, and I have a web server on my computer, just ran it through base64_decode() :p

Also what is this game?

One of my friends theorise it could be a Harry Potter game.

[Corris Veteran]

HPatOofP

The game from the letters would be Harry Potter and the Order of the Pheonix.

I'm assuming he accidentally put the f instead of a t.

[DPyro]

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?

One point I want to reiterate - there's a difference between the games that didn't work with in-game XMB and the games that DID work with in-game XMB but DIDN'T work well with custom soundtracks, so stop picking out the ones that simply didn't do in-game XMB.

Also, it wasn't just ONE game that caused this, either. Although one title does come to mind and it wasn't even what you or I would call a "Big" game. I'll give you a hint: HPatOofP.

This site works too.

[Kushan]

Ohhh, I recognise that now! I used to put base64 stuff in my Livejournal for giggles. I've not seen that for years now. Memories!

[DrunknMunky Veteran]

Well that sucks.

[houlty]

hey, i was right... :p

[Sethos]

Doublelawlsauce.

[Black Flash]

He should've made a riddle to find out which company it was, had to potential to be interesting. Whatever, it'll be entertaining enough to see everyone hating on EA if this is true.

[Michael1406]

Does nobody else want to kick EA in their collective sack? Boo hoo, Harry Potter doesn't work...no one plays Harry Potter games anyway.

[Ricardo Gil]

Fsck EA, we want in-game music and chat support.

I understand that Sony has to maintain compatibility with each change in the OS, but these are major changes for the better and that is just a game that wouldn't benefit from either...

[Bhav]

Jeez...really interesting post, assuming it's all true. Really sucks though. No developer/publisher should have that much control over a platform holder.

[Kushan]

Well, EA effectively killed the Dreamcast, so they certainly are in a position to call all kinds of shots I suppose.

[+Audioboxer Subscriber²]

Jeez...really interesting post, assuming it's all true. Really sucks though. No developer/publisher should have that much control over a platform holder.

Seeing as EA were pretty much keeping the PS3 afloat during it's rougher times (and still generating a lot of income now with things like FIFA), I think Sony would oblige to do everything to keep them happy for better or worse... EA are not a publisher you want to hold back on you, people lap up their sports franchises.

We can only hope this kicks up enough fuss online for either Sony or EA to make a statement of some sorts.