A legitimate case for ending support for console(and not making console port of KSP2)(Contraversial)

[Single stage to ocean]

Maybe rendering is done on console, but physics are done on the computer. All it transfers are all the physics stuff. You could get by with just needing a few megabytes each minute, which is tiny.(Use JSON and zipping)

[Lisias]

On 5/18/2021 at 8:37 PM, kspnerd122 said:

Everyone on PC has LONG since realized this, the console version is trash, and you know it, I dont understand why resources that could go into better things for the supermajority of KSPs community are currently spent on AT MOST 20% of KSP's players.

Because the Console is where the money (still) really is.

Consoles are a locked down eco-systems, where piracy are almost non existent and you have a lot of support services handled by the console manufacturer. It's expensive as hell to publish something there, but also (usually) very lucrative.

 

16 hours ago, FruitGoose said:

Tbh I never understood why a game in the style of KSP that begs for mods to be used due to missing elements would be released on console. It’s like releasing a console version of Excel.

I'm plain guessing here, so take what I say with a grain of salt: KSP and the Add'On Scene are a marvellous laboratory to test ideas, and the best ones can so be later implemented indo DLCs to be sold on Console.

Even KSP2 is, now, drinking on years of Add'Ons development experience. This whole thing gives them a good hint about what works and what doesn't, and this maximize their chances of profit on Consoles (where publishing things is way more expensive than on PC, so experimentation is unfeasible).

 

21 minutes ago, Single stage to ocean said:

Maybe rendering is done on console, but physics are done on the computer. All it transfers are all the physics stuff. You could get by with just needing a few megabytes each minute, which is tiny.(Use JSON and zipping)

You know, that's not a bad idea...  [Except about the JSON/Zipping thing. String processing is expensive, Remote Process Communications are better handled with binary protocols like Google's Protobuffer or the old and faithful RFC 5531]

I see some problems with the cost of the stunt, however: Private Division would need to maintain a respectful farm of "manycore" servers in order to provide Processing Services for the players, and this costs money. Lots of money.

So they would need probably to switch to a subscription model of revenue...

Edited May 20, 2021 by Lisias
Hit "Save" too soon.

[Single stage to ocean]

You pay a subscription for servers. or you can use your personal computer connected to the console for the physics(surely there will be a pc mod to cut out Squad). no zipping then. the advatage of console is u can connect to tv, so it is worth it to make ksp 2 on console but dependent on squad servers.

Edited May 20, 2021 by Single stage to ocean

[Guest]

5 hours ago, Vanamonde said:

This suggestion for the game's development has been moved to Suggestions & Development. And by the way, the console ports do not take much work away from the PC versions because the conversion is not done by Squad. 

Which is why I really don't have much of a problem of KSP 1 still continued on Console. But to our knowledge so far, We know that Intercept is spending resources working on the console.

 

[Jack Mcslay]

10 hours ago, kspnerd122 said:

in KSP1, it isnt(a seperate company does that) but think about it, having the market of console vs having more features to get more PC users to buy, well, im not sure, but think about it, for a time, KSP2 was 15th most wanted game on steam, so remember, we could easily get about half of the number of people on console or more buying it on PC, remember, KSP2 will likely have more PC users than ALL of KSP1s playerbase, so they arent losing any revenue, especially with DLC down the line and the more expensive price, I could easily see KSP2 doing JUST AS WELL as KSP1 without consoles

Also, again, if console got released(next gen and current gen) and then current gen slowly got phased out in favor of next gen, we remove technical limitations, also, resources also can relate to technical limitations, with current gen consoles having similar RAM and CPU to what most PC users would call a potato here

Don't you realize you've just pointed out the problem with a lack of console ports? Even if half of console owners buy the PC version in the absence of console versions (which to me sounds extremely optimistic, I doubt it would even be 10%) that means they've lost the revenue for the other half that would have bought the console version but aren't interested in playing it on PC, which means less revenue to fund the developing of further updates to the PC version.

Besides PC has about the same technical limitations if not more. They need to support old PCs much the same as they do the current userbase of older consoles.

[Souptime]

ooh i sense a warzone coming on

Console should still be maintained IMO, since consoles are getting better every year maybe we could one day have equal PC and console version

[Guest]

4 hours ago, Souptime said:

Console should still be maintained IMO, since consoles are getting better every year maybe we could one day have equal PC and console version

Fair point, but then it should also be KSP 2 on just PS5 and Xbox Series X then.

[kspnerd122]

1 minute ago, The Doodling Astronaut said:

Fair point, but then it should also be KSP 2 on just PS5 and Xbox Series X then.

Yeah, since doing it on consoles with hardware more on par with modern PCs means that features arent as limited as if we are trying to support hardware that at the time of release, will be almost a decade old, PS4 and Xbox 1 will be dead WELL before KSP2 releases(most likely) so its honestly best just to not limit the games features due to old hardware putting hard restrictions on what the game can run, KSP2 can have a console port, but it should NOT be on the extremely old Xbox1 and PS4, since guess what, most computers that we call "old" are like half their age, and because of how computers work, well, theres usually some change made each time, meaning better preformance, with consoles, the "upgraded" versions are the same machine just they charge you more for a different shape case.

10 hours ago, The Doodling Astronaut said:

Which is why I really don't have much of a problem of KSP 1 still continued on Console. But to our knowledge so far, We know that Intercept is spending resources working on the console.

 

Honestly, KSP2 is the real issue, since intercept IS spending resources to make a console version, those resources could be better spent to improve the experience heavily for the PC players, and again, a console port could come later down the line, when there are a bunch of features in it, enough that the PC users wont care that much if a update doesnt add more than just a star, 1-3 planets, and a few parts, since by the standards of KSP1, thats a HUGE update, even just adding 1-2 planets or moons to a existing system would keep a lot of us busy for a bit, long enough that as long as they still did that type of update.

Also, regarding supporting old PCs, you get that supporting a old PC is a LOT easier than supporting a old console, since with a old PC, you could very easily just run parts of the game on different cores, also, you arent designing for a different operating system with a older PC, since with older PCs, its still windows(most of the time) 

10 hours ago, The Doodling Astronaut said:

Which is why I really don't have much of a problem of KSP 1 still continued on Console. But to our knowledge so far, We know that Intercept is spending resources working on the console.

 

Honestly, KSP2 is the real issue, since intercept IS spending resources to make a console version, those resources could be better spent to improve the experience heavily for the PC players, and again, a console port could come later down the line, when there are a bunch of features in it, enough that the PC users wont care that much if a update doesnt add more than just a star, 1-3 planets, and a few parts, since by the standards of KSP1, thats a HUGE update, even just adding 1-2 planets or moons to a existing system would keep a lot of us busy for a bit, long enough that as long as they still did that type of update.

Also, regarding supporting old PCs, you get that supporting a old PC is a LOT easier than supporting a old console, since with a old PC, you could very easily just run parts of the game on different cores, also, you arent designing for a different operating system with a older PC, since with older PCs, its still windows(most of the time) 

[Jack Mcslay]

1 hour ago, kspnerd122 said:

Also, regarding supporting old PCs, you get that supporting a old PC is a LOT easier than supporting a old console, since with a old PC, you could very easily just run parts of the game on different cores, also, you arent designing for a different operating system with a older PC, since with older PCs, its still windows(most of the time) 

I think you're far overblowing the resources needed to port the game to consoles. It doesn't take a whole lot of effort to port a game from one platform to the other in Unity - mostly you're setting the graphics to what runs best and adapting the user interfaces and control scheme to the goal platform. If anything having a console version would help because they'll have decent implementation for game controllers opposed to what we have in KSP1 that seems right out of a 90's first person shooter.

Even if they're doing multithreading optimization, doing so is far more effective in consoles where you know exactly what is the core layout of the CPU and what processes run in the background, as opposed to a PC that can have a wide array of core count and an unpredictable amount of processes running in the background, specially in windows which loves to run a ton of unnecessary stuff in the background that hog the CPU.

[Incarnation of Chaos]

On 5/20/2021 at 11:12 AM, Jack Mcslay said:

I think you're far overblowing the resources needed to port the game to consoles. It doesn't take a whole lot of effort to port a game from one platform to the other in Unity - mostly you're setting the graphics to what runs best and adapting the user interfaces and control scheme to the goal platform. If anything having a console version would help because they'll have decent implementation for game controllers opposed to what we have in KSP1 that seems right out of a 90's first person shooter.

Even if they're doing multithreading optimization, doing so is far more effective in consoles where you know exactly what is the core layout of the CPU and what processes run in the background, as opposed to a PC that can have a wide array of core count and an unpredictable amount of processes running in the background, specially in windows which loves to run a ton of unnecessary stuff in the background that hog the CPU.

What...core layout.... what?

It's a single call to grab the system's core count, and then you can build up from there. Having a static const variable that says " int xboxCC= 7" and using it instead is not going to be a massive speed difference.

Why? We're not using assembly here, so all the functions that handle threads, cores, locks, etc. Are generic anyway, because of how C# is built.

It's also an interpreted language, so there's overhead from that. 

Background processes? Alright I'll give you there's probably going to be some difference on a machine that literally has nothing else...

But that's not the current consoles either, they run a full OS under the hood. And it's not just doing games either, it's handling updates, media, network traffic and so on. And they have less RAM than most to do it also (Xbox one has 6GB for games, 2 for OS. And they share the 6GB with the GPU....so even less.)

And mind you as core counts increase, so does the impact of the background processes decrease since they have more places to spread out.

And they don't tell the cores what to run, the OS and it's scheduler actually handles it. All they do is write code, and then setup the functions for being sent out to multiple threads. 

If you wanted to do that, you're looking at some C++ or C. Something basically intended for OS development. But just using a compiled language would blow the doors off C# lel

So I'm incredibly skeptical about any real performance gains from console from the hardware and "minimal OS" alone. 

Whatever performance disparity between the PC and Console versions of a game is, often comes down to a bare minimum port job. 

 

[Dr. Kerbal]

On 5/18/2021 at 4:37 PM, kspnerd122 said:

Everyone on PC has LONG since realized this, the console version is trash, and you know it, I dont understand why resources that could go into better things for the supermajority of KSPs community are currently spent on AT MOST 20% of KSP's players.

Since I'm a both PC and Console player I can understand that some player just play on consoles only and getting a PC for one game can be, unreasonable from their point of view. 

On 5/18/2021 at 4:50 PM, The Doodling Astronaut said:

I see no problem in continuing KSP 1 console. Because some people enjoy it and it's mostly another company that handles those updates, so squad isn't most of the time spending resources on it.

This is very true. Blitworks mostly handles the updates and not @SQUAD . I dont understand why everyone keeps yelling at @SQUADabout this though. Tt isn't their fault!

On 5/18/2021 at 4:50 PM, The Doodling Astronaut said:

I would love to hear some Console peeps out there give some thoughts

Already did. 

On 5/19/2021 at 4:54 AM, wpetula said:

I share the same concerns as you guys. I don't want KSP 2 on console to be left behind in support and updates

Me either.  I can understand the rage of seeing Matt Lonwe playing 1.11 while I'm paying on the Console at 1.8

On 5/19/2021 at 5:35 AM, Parv Kerman said:

They could roll out updates less frequently, and focus on the PC version more.  

I think the best way is to roll out a very big update for the consoles every so often. 

On 5/20/2021 at 2:59 AM, Souptime said:

Console should still be maintained IMO, since consoles are getting better every year maybe we could one day have equal PC and console version

I hope so. This would be an awesome ending when KSP2 comes.