- Dirk_Gently
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- Noble Member
Ok, shall we think about this?
Microsoft takes possession of Bungie Studios and take their new shooter title from the Mac/Windows platform to Microsoft's new console platform. Later, Microsoft/Bungie have Gearbox make a PC port of the game, and then a few years after that Microsoft has Macsoft/Westlake make a port for the Mac platform. Then, we have Halo 2. Halo 2 was also originally developed for the xbox, Microsoft's gaming platform, and then later on Microsoft decides to make a port of it themselves. They produce Halo 2 for Windows Vista, and their sales do not develop as well as the original Halo 1 port. Bungie Studios/Microsoft produce and put out Halo 3. Now Microsoft makes the move of letting Bungie Studios be a separate company. Now any sort of port of ANY of their games would rely solely on a third party company coming to them and saying "Lets do a port". Right now that is not a plausible thing. Making ports of games is fluff, why would a game development studio want to risk pouring money and resources into making a port of a game that is already selling? What if the port fails, what if the port is more cost than it is worth? These are all aspects that you have to consider when doing this. There is no magical build button that will compile a game for another platform just because you press it. Moving a game from a console to a non-console is a very hard process. There are aspects you have to consider such as what hardware specs will it support? A quick google search lead me to some information that the Xbox 360 cannot run DirectX 10. This is some very interesting information, that means what you see on your TV while playing Halo 3 is DirectX 9, not 10, not 11. So why would you want to spend the time trying to upgrade the version of DirectX it uses? Honestly if I were to make a port of a game, that would be one of the last things I would do. Why? because that is a LOT of work.
Another point to make, Halo 3 is optimized to be read off the disc. It performs slower while installed onto the HD of the xbox. To do that on a non-console platform makes no sense at all. All games rely on being read off the HD to be played. This would require a reworking of how the game works. It would have to compensate differently in order to allow for the data to be read off the HD instead of the DVD.
A console such as the Xbox was made to play games on. That is the sole purpose of the console. A desktop computer is for computing. That might be rendering models, compiling code, writing your english homework, or checking your email. Granted desktop computers can play games as well, but that is because the developers know they are marketing to a larger audience of people if you put out a game on that platform. Everyone and their grandparents have a computers these days, so who wants to go buy a system to play the game you want on? Unless I already have the system I am not going to buy that game. It does not make sense for me to spend any additional money to get the game AND they system to play the game. But if it is released for a desktop platform I know I can play it, so I will just go get it.
Inclosing, porting games takes a long time and a lot of effort and work. A lot more than you might think it does. You might want to keep this in mind when you make these threads -blam!-ing about something that you obviously know nothing about.