PS4 Announcement Discussion

[r4pt0r]

I feel continually obligated to point out the repertoire of games that this secondary developer produces: http://www.ftmobile.com/Products.aspx

While I am sorta glad its coming to PS4, just to upset the PC elitists, I really feel this will turn out like the battle of Cannae, an unrivaled disaster.

That game library looks like garbage.

Console KSP could be great, but I think that letting....whoever those people are, handle it will only result in failure.

[Accelerando]

Just gonna leave this here, too. Not empty quoting, to elaborate a little for people who are more passing by, on the nature of Squad's chosen.

For those who need a little more direct confirmation of the absurdness of this deal SQUAD is cutting, by the way, here you go. It's official.

http://i.imgur.com/jyQRPUz.png

Link to Flying Tiger's facebook here.

Joy to the world.

So, does anyone want to comment further on this decision, in light of the fact that the scad of "featured products" created by this shady, unknown studio that SQUAD claims to be partnering up with is made up entirely of software diamonds like these? Here is a lovely crop straight from their pages:

Here, have a further look at a couple of screenshots of the gem Nova refers to straight from the mouth of the tiger itself:

http://www.ftmobile.com/images/products/screens/Hookups-Wallpaper/Hookups-2.jpg

http://www.ftmobile.com/images/products/screens/Hookups-Wallpaper/Hookups-0.jpg

This is almost beyond words.

[passinglurker]

Oh hush

Remember ever devnote where max said "I've been doing business deal stuff that I can't tell you about yet"? This was it. The sudden jump to 0.90? Rush to be ready for the console port. Releasing 1.0 by a fixed date no matter how unfinished it is? console port. The fact that we will never get more planets because the game is nearing its "limit" for content they can stuff in? console port.

[Wallygator]

I feel continually obligated to point out the repertoire of games that this secondary developer produces: http://www.ftmobile.com/Products.aspx

and this...

http://www.ftmobile.com/Company/News.aspx?Id=1005

I'ma gonna break out my old E50 and fly it to the Mun. Wait I think my N93 is CDMA compatible also - Woot!!!!

Also, as I mentioned somewhere else - please be sure to keep all bugs in their current state to ensure a homogenous user experience across multiple platforms.

[Tankman101]

Remember ever devnote where max said "I've been doing business deal stuff that I can't tell you about yet"? This was it. The sudden jump to 0.90? Rush to be ready for the console port. Releasing 1.0 by a fixed date no matter how unfinished it is? console port. The fact that we will never get more planets because the game is nearing its "limit" for content they can stuff in? console port.

k

Saying that a port is a sellout is stupid, and you're overacting.

[soulsource]

I'd say: Worry not.

• I've been using a gamepad to fly my craft since I don't remember, and that's way superior to keyboard. But, to be honest, an additional keyboard doesn't hurt, for action groups and such. But again, to be fair, I've seldom used more than 4 action groups, and those could for instance be bound to the d-pad. I'm using the Wiimote Classic controller, but I've also tried to play with a DS4 and the game plays excellent with both.
  
• For building craft, there's a very well working touchpad on the DS4.
  
• The CPU power of the PS4 isn't that bad. Each single bulldozer module may be slow due to the low clock rate (1.6 GHz base clock, but under load it clocks to a higher frequency, which we actually can only guess, as Sony afaik never revealed the maximum turbo core clock rate - speculations are it's 2.75 GHz), but it has 4 of them (or 8 cores, if you prefer AMD marketspeech). I'm absolutely certain, that SQUAD wouldn't think about a PS4 port, if they wouldn't already have multithreaded physics up their sleeve. What this means is obvious: An incredible performance boost on the PC! And also, very likely acceptable performance on the PS4, probably comparable to what you get on "high end" AMD hardware on the PC right now (depends on how well the calculations scale with number of threads, but Newtonian physics usually scales very well).
  
• If one doesn't like DS4, one can always plug a keyboard and a mouse. You know, the USB ports on the PS4 aren't decoration. The only thing needed to get mouse+keyboard working is support in the game, and I would be very negatively surprised if the standard input on PC would be disabled on the console for no reason.
  

Nevertheless, I do have two negative points:

• Mods. I feel kind of sorry for people going to play KSP on the PS4, as they will, if at all, only have a very limited number of mods available, and I guess all of those mods will have to go through an inspection by Sony before they can be released. Probably not many mod authors will want to waste their time with this process.
  
• Fonts. The UI is currently optimized for sitting close to the screen. There are several threads here where people complain that text in KSP is hard to read when playing on a TV screen. I'm curious how the port will display stuff, as there is significantly less space on the screen available when a bigger font size is used.
  

For us PC users I think not much will change, apart from performance improvements. For instance I don't see how adding additional keybindings for a DS4 would negatively impact our keyboard bindings. Also, I don't expect the UI on the PC version to change, at best those of us who play on TV will get an additional option for a bigger UI (if code of the company doing the PS4 port flows back upstream...).

Edit: There's another thing that troubles me more: I don't think that the fraction of console users interested in a game like KSP is as large as the fraction of PC users. Is there a market for it?!?

Edit 2: Regarding the company contracted for the port: They will likely "just" have to adjust UI and input. Platform specific bugs should be rather minor, given that the PS4 OS is based on BSD. On the other hand, their current product lineup is less than convincing...

Edited June 17, 2015 by soulsource

[falloutaddict]

how exciting

[maceemiller]

I own a PS4 but could not imagine playing KSP on it for one minute. I feel it would be quite cumbersome to build rockets, etc on a control pad. Maybe you can plug a keyboard and mouse into it, but then all you have is a PC imo! I imagine though the game will end up an expensive buy which, imo wont sell that well as most console heads prefer action as opposed to a sim-style game (I used to be a console head myself)

Still, not wanting to start another pointless war over PC V's console, I will firmly remain playing KSP on PC.

Just my 2 cents worth

[Shpaget]

I feel continually obligated to point out the repertoire of games that this secondary developer produces: http://www.ftmobile.com/Products.aspx

Ugh.

12 out of 16 "games" there are, apart from the sprites, exactly the same.

Also exactly the same as this, which was published in 1982.

[NovaSilisko]

Ugh.

12 out of 16 "games" there are, apart from the sprites, exactly the same.

Also exactly the same as this, which was published in 1982.

That doesn't seem to be their modern roster, but I can't call the stuff beyond that terrifically impressive. This seems to be the biggest thing that's happened to them before KSP: http://kotaku.com/the-first-game-announced-for-the-apple-watch-is-arm-1632651696

[basic.syntax]

It's just speculation to think that 1.0 was "rushed," given their previous release schedule of something new every 4 months or so. Each and every release, early access or the one Beta, players wished for more bug fixing and features and testing. It's then another leap of speculation that it was "rushed" because Sony asked for it by a certain date. Sony announces the game should be available next year, I think if Sony was so demanding, it would have been announced today for holiday delivery, not some unspecified date in 2016. A Holiday 2015 release would be the fastest way to build on free advertising, from E3 news reports.

During its PlayStation Latin America event tonight at the Electronic Entertainment Expo, Sony revealed that Kerbal Space Program will come to the PlayStation 4 in 2016.

[sapienza]

I don't own a PS4, and almost certainly will never have one, but this looks like a good move. Lots of people are going to benefit from it.

• Squad gets more sales to support development.
  
• The market for KSP expands dramatically.
  
• PS4 players who want to learn how to do more with their game and who hear about mods will realise they shoulda got a PC.
  
• ... and if, as many people have pointed out before me, they're going to figure out how to get it to work on a PS4 controller than can only mean massive usability improvements in UI/UX (which, let's be honest, could use some touch ups). No more moving your mouse frantically as you try to click on a rotating ship, etc. That stuff is barely tolerable on PC; no console player will stand it.
  

Good on ya, Squad! Maximise this opportunity and pay no heed to the whingers.

[Shpaget]

That doesn't seem to be their modern roster, but I can't call the stuff beyond that terrifically impressive. This seems to be the biggest thing that's happened to them before KSP: http://kotaku.com/the-first-game-announced-for-the-apple-watch-is-arm-1632651696

Big or not, it's not a very bright idea.

Why would anybody wear such an expensive watch while arm wrestling? It's all wrong! Most people wear their watches on the left hand, because it's the non-dominant one, meaning it's less exposed to potential damage. Wearing one while arm wrestling puts it exactly in the harms way when you lose.

Also, who needs a gadget to decide who won such a match?

[Dizzle]

Since everyone is already playing on PC just fine, it seems like any outrage over this decision just boils down to PC elitism. Of course, like everyone, I'm skeptical of the editor controls, and this will certainly be a test of whether it can stand on its own without mods. Skepticism of how well it will work is fine, but since it won't affect the PC version, it's the outrage that just seems silly to me.

[Shpaget]

Skepticism of how well it will work is fine, but since it won't affect the PC version, it's the outrage that just seems silly to me.

There is no outrage. Nobody is up in arms about it. We are having a critical, but polite, discussion.

Anyway, apparently it does affect PC version through delays to much needed bugfixes and continued non-implementation of core features that should have been implemented a year ago.

[LostOblivion]

So long as it doesn't change how the PC game works, and console gameplay changes stay where they should be.

[Dizzle]

There is no outrage. Nobody is up in arms about it. We are having a critical, but polite, discussion.

Granted I only read the first two pages, so the discussion may have changed, but back there it didn't look like it.

Anyway, apparently it does affect PC version through delays to much needed bugfixes and continued non-implementation of core features that should have been implemented a year ago.

But will it? If I understand correctly, Squad aren't doing the port, so I'm not sure the level of involvement they'll have with it.

[General Rarity]

I find it very odd that a certain group are... maddened by the fact that these console-people are getting KSP for themselves. This group also tended to be mad when 1.0 came out... and .90, etc. etc. A little pattern is arising. It seems that they're also mad about the 'kiddos' from the PS4 community to plague the forum community... a bit hypocritical, don't ya think? Not to put labels on anyone. Just a little trend I've noticed over the months.

Frankly, I don't care if PS4 players get KSP or not, due to the fact that I own no consoles. And if SQUAD loses some dev time (which they will probably not), we have mods, do we not? Hopefully the port is decent enough to not be considered a failure. Good luck to SQUAD and the crew!

[Charzy]

I don't think anybody has a problem with more people getting to play KSP. The issue is that nobody can see how the PS4 can handle a game like KSP what with all of its controls and the fact that it stutters even on fairly high-end desktops with enough parts, and they're worried about whether or not the development of the PS4 version is going to hinder the development of the PC version.

[1greywind]

This is very, very bad news. Consoles = bad interfaces, bad controls, simplified gameplay, limited resources.

[basic.syntax]

There is no outrage. Nobody is up in arms about it. We are having a critical, but polite, discussion.

Anyway, apparently it does affect PC version through delays to much needed bugfixes and continued non-implementation of core features that should have been implemented a year ago.

Without some quotes or links to back this up, It's just speculation to suggest bugfixes are delayed for any reason other than different bugs taking different amounts of developer time to understand and fix. The expected v1.0.3 patch has been undergoing extended testing, due to a modification of the heating system, affecting just about every part in the game. Squad was embarrassed by the need for v1.0.2, a mere 6 hours after v1.0.1 and doesn't wish to repeat that scenario.

What "core features" do you think should have been implemented? I ask because sometimes what one player thinks is important, is more of a wish-list item, or some small feature Squad mentioned in the past and hoped to get to, "some day."

[Xannari Ferrows]

There should be no influence of the marketing by the audience. The audience gets what they get; The many, many hard hours of work put into development. Bugs are a part of every game and simulator, especially one as expansive as this.

On the bright side, potential controller adaptability! Even if something like this, by the faint chance, doesn't make it onto the release, I'll probably still make something out of it anyway... So, I guess that made no sense.

[The Destroyer]

Well, as long as PC development dosen't slow, I'm okay with this. Though, KSP is a bit hard for the uh, typical "console user", still could work. Controls, hmm, maybe. I'm worried about the CPU power, if it has enough single core performance to do KSP okay. Also kinda sad that since it's console, they won't experience mods...

KSP still has bugs, those I'm hoping will be fixed by the time it comes

[Screeno]

Oh god why is everyone so damn salty... Jesus Christ people... I'm actually primarily a "console peasant" and guess what. I have a ps4. I've had Sony consoles for years ever since I was a kid. From ps1 to ps4. And some of my favorite games of all time are on playstations. I don't understand the superiority complex that a lot of people who play strictly pc games have. They seem to belive that console gamers are all whiney kids that just play cod. Jeeez. I'm a console gamer... Gues what. I have never played a single call of duty game and it doesn't interest me in the slightest. You know what, like 99% of the players I encounter online on ps4 are perfectly civil adults just playing games on console because its relaking to sit on your sofa and use a controller to play games. And guess what. My favorite game on ps4 is destiny, I absolutely love it, and can't wait for the taken king to be released for it. Yes, the devnotes were not even devnotes, but for gods sake, cut squad some slack, they have worked their asses off these past months, and they are only just getting back into regular work again. But I have to say, flying tiger looks so bad its cringey.

[Linear]

OK, if a few-hundred-part ship lags on an i3, and a 500+ ship lags an i5, how are you going to limit players on the PS4 from playing at 5fps (something console players are NOT used to and IS unavoidable)?

After looking at the secondary developer, they have made some....interesting....titles. What persuaded Squad to go with them?

If I remember correctly (could be far out), the PS4 doesn't use U5 - how are you going to deal with developing updates when the PC version is using U5?

Just looked at flying tiger again. Seriously, what on Earth have you done?!

E: This is just a critical set of questions, under proper circumstances the PS4 release could go very well, I'm just not sure now is the time.