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Why do Bohemia Interactive continue to snub consoles?

P

PackAPunchedMick

Member
I've been a huge fan of their games for pc for many years and bar the odd spin off title on Xbox 360 they have snubbed consoles for decades.

Their latest attempt is Argo, 5v5, graphically mediocre and could potentially run superbly on consoles, but nope!

Why?
 
D

dippa

Neo Member
Doesn't Bohemia spend more time on their VBS simulators, anyway? That'd be where the real money is. (And you wouldn't have to worry so much about catering to low-spec consoles or PCs.)
 
T

The Dear Leader

Banned
There aren't enough radial menus in the world to fit Arma on a controller, plus what gave you the impression it would "run superbly" on consoles?
 
L

LewieP

Member
I think it might be about their cpu requirements and lack of experience in optimizing games for consoles (in terms of design and in getting it running well).

They are a studio that has found a successful business model, and they focus their energy towards that.

Edit: Did any of the Operation Flashpoint games on consoles do particularly well? I don't recall Bohemia being involved with any of those, but maybe they were.
 
N

nynt9

Member
Well, with Arma, the control scheme of the game is way too complex for consoles and the audience probably isn't there. And their games are generally demanding, especially for CPU, even when their graphics aren't high end.

Argo is an Arma 3 mod, and I can't see a reasonable Arma port on consoles that doesn't make so many sacrifices that it becomes pointless. If you want this type of game, PC is probably where you wanna be.

SG-17 said:
I've never heard of them.
Click to expand...

20120712.gif
 
P

PackAPunchedMick

Member
The Dear Leader said:
There aren't enough radial menus in the world to fit Arma on a controller, plus what gave you the impression it would "run superbly" on consoles?
Click to expand...

All footage ive seen of Argo shows zero indication of it being a demanding game.

And if I use battlefield 1 as a comparison of what the current consoles can do.

1680p/60fps with 64 players.

Cutbacks could certainly be made.
 
J

JaseC

gave away the keys to the kingdom.
LewieP said:
Edit: Did any of the Operation Flashpoint games on consoles do particularly well? I don't recall Bohemia being involved with any of those, but maybe they were.
Click to expand...

Bohemia hasn't been involved with OpFlash since the original game. Codemasters opted to do the sequels internally, which is what compelled Bohemia to create a spiritual successor in the form of Arma.
 
V

Visualante2

Member
This studio has to balance providing training software and simulations to corporate, military clients in addition to serving their audience on PC. This has a greater overlap compared to console.
To be frank, they probably would love to. They just have enough on their plate as is.
 
N

napata

Member
PackAPunchedMick said:
All footage ive seen of Argo shows zero indication of it being a demanding game.

And if I use battlefield 1 as a comparison of what the current consoles can do.

1680p/60fps with 64 players.

Cutbacks could certainly be made.
Click to expand...

Yeah BF1 isn't really comparable. Bohemia doesn't have an entire extra studio just for engine support. Also BF1 really isn't 60 fps on PS4/XB1. More like around 40 with it sometimes hitting 60fps. I think it even had drops below 30.
 
T

The Dear Leader

Banned
PackAPunchedMick said:
All footage ive seen of Argo shows zero indication of it being a demanding game.

And if I use battlefield 1 as a comparison of what the current consoles can do.

1680p/60fps with 64 players.

Cutbacks could certainly be made.
Click to expand...

Then you clearly know nothing of Arma games, they are incredibly demanding not just in the graphics department the underlying simulation stuff is insane, also BF1 isn't open world, doesn't rely on dozens if not hundreds of AI enemies or squad members, so many dynamic systems that constantly at work that just hammer even the best PC CPUs. I have a overclocked i5/1070 and was getting 35-40fps on Argo just yesterday with barely anything going on, with fps fluctuations all over the place and not even at maxed settings.
 
P

PackAPunchedMick

Member
The Dear Leader said:
Then you clearly know nothing of Arma games, they are incredibly demanding not just in the graphics department the underlying simulation stuff is insane, also BF1 isn't open world, doesn't rely on dozens if not hundreds of AI enemies or squad members, so many dynamic systems that constantly at work that just hammer even the best PC CPUs. I have a overclocked i5/1070 and was getting 35-40fps on Argo just yesterday with barely anything going on, with fps fluctuations all over the place and not even at maxed settings.
Click to expand...

Poorly optimised engine is the word your looking for.
 
R

R1CHO

Member
Their games are full of jank and pc performance is ass even after all these years.

That's the main reason imo.
 
Z

Zeknurn

Member
Have you tried playing Arma 3 on a computer with a low end AMD CPU?There would have to be some serious concessions and engine rework for something resembling Arma to be on a console.
 
T

The Dear Leader

Banned
PackAPunchedMick said:
Poorly optimised engine is the word your looking for.
Click to expand...

No it isn't, it's a engine doing more complex things than the one you tried to compare it, complexity comes at a computational cost, dumbing it down to unoptimised is ignorant of the actual capabilities of what they are doing with that engine. To dumb it down to the level that it would need to be to run acceptably on consoles would be a disservice to what Arma is.
 
C

Crossing Eden

Hello, my name is Yves Guillemot, Vivendi S.A.'s Employee of the Month!
Their engine is incredibly intensive on CPUs. Performance isn't solely about raw graphical input.
 
J

Jackpot

Banned
It would cost money to set up console teams and the stricter certification, closed nature of the systems, expensive patch deployment, and an audience less tolerant of jank means any game would probably see 2-3 points docked from their scores on PC.

They did make Carrier Command for consoles and PC. It was shit on both.
 
Miasma

Miasma

Member
The engine they use is heavily CPU dependant, even with an overclocked i7 frame rate jumps all over the place, additionally ARMA 3 uses pretty much the entire keyboard.
 
P

PnCIa

Member
Their games rely on a very complex simulation thats demanding on the CPU, the biggest weakspot of the PS4, XBone, Pro and OneX.
 
S

Skinpop

Member
The Dear Leader said:
No it isn't, it's a engine doing more complex things than the one you tried to compare it, complexity comes at a computational cost, dumbing it down to unoptimised is ignorant of the actual capabilities of what they are doing with that engine. To dumb it down to the level that it would need to be to run acceptably on consoles would be a disservice to what Arma is.
Click to expand...

both are true. the engine clearly has some technical issues, but it's also a crazy complex game.
 
X

xealo

Member
Assuming Sony and Microsoft puts a CPU worth a damn in their next generation of consoles, Arma 3s control scheme cannot be ported onto a gamepad without considerable sacrifices to it.

The closest you'll ever get is likely games like ubisofts new Ghost Recon, and even that is pretty far from what arma does as a mil-sim.
 
G

Grief.exe

Member
Even if you get past the CPU and control limitations, would their products even appeal to that audience?

Maybe DayZ, but even that game is targeted at a niche, hardcore audience.
 
J

Jackpot

Banned
Mass_Pincup said:
Just hold the L.

There's no shame in admitting that you didn't know what you were talking about.

Also DayZ was announced for PS4, they've showed interest already.
Click to expand...

The engine is both complex and unpolished. Every single Arma launch has been hamstrung with technical issues.
 
T

Tommy DJ

Member
Isn't Arma III one of those few games where you actually get substantial frame rate increases when you improve storage speed out of all things?

I remember it being is a completely bonkers game from a PC hardware perspective, where upgrading anything in your desktop is going to result in frame rate increases.
 
G

grandwizard

Member
Because it's an incredibly demanding PC game already, especially in the CPU department, and consoles would not handle it with their weak CPUs.

Secondly the market for a really intense military simluation game just isn't there to justify the investment needed to make it work either.
 
B

BetterThanNothing

Member
Their engines barely run on top of the line rigs.

Also, controller based controls would limit their vision for the arma games. I don't say this to be demeaning to consoles, but it is a military simulation that's full experience was made in mind with a range of buttons and commands unavailable on a ~12 button(counting d-pad), 2 analog stick control scheme. They are a PC centered developer and their games reflect that entirely.
 
G

GruntosUK

Member
Visualante2 said:
This studio has to balance providing training software and simulations to corporate, military clients in addition to serving their audience on PC. This has a greater overlap compared to console.
To be frank, they probably would love to. They just have enough on their plate as is.
Click to expand...

They sold the simulations side in 2013.
 
Patrick S.

Patrick S.

Banned
Tommy DJ said:
Isn't Arma III one of those few games where you actually get substantial frame rate increases when you improve storage speed out of all things?

I remember it being is a completely bonkers game from a PC hardware perspective, where upgrading anything in your desktop is going to result in frame rate increases.
Click to expand...

Arma is crazy, if you have it installed on a slow hard drive, every time you ADS you get stutter because the hard drive is trashing. I installed it on my SSD and gained a lot of performance. Also, the game doesn't utilize the CPU well. You get drops to 30 fps while the CPU may be at 50% usage. There are some graphics options in this game where you gain performance by setting them on higher and more demanding settings, because doing that stresses the GPU more, thus unloading work off the CPU. For example, setting AA to ultra might actually gain you 5-10 fps over the low preset.

With that being said, Arma 3 is the best game ever.
 
S

SeppOCE

Member
PackAPunchedMick said:
I've been a huge fan of their games for pc for many years and bar the odd spin off title on Xbox 360 they have snubbed consoles for decades.

Their latest attempt is Argo, 5v5, graphically mediocre and could potentially run superbly on consoles, but nope!

Why?
Click to expand...

They're engine is pure trash and getting it to run on console hardware would be a nightmare for them. Their games barely perform well on pc.
 
Lister

Lister

Banned
Not every game can be or should be on console OP.

Some games just don't work well on that platform for various reasons.
 
Segaswirl

Segaswirl

Member
I'm not a PC gamer and I know the genres are totally different... but I was always told that Cities: Skylines was quite a demanding game for PC. If you look at the recommended requirements on Steam for that and Arma 3 they're pretty similar.

If Cities runs on an Xbox with all it's demanding CPU calculations then why couldn't something like Arma work?
 
J

JaseC

gave away the keys to the kingdom.
petran79 said:
Counterstrike has more chances releasing on consoles than Arma...
Click to expand...

CS:GO is on the PS360, and on the X1 by way of backwards compatibility, but whatever roadblock that prevented its release on PSU EU was never resolved and neither version has ever been patched, so they've practically been disowned.

Edit: And an Xbox sort-of-port of Condition Zero was released back in 2003.
 
Lister

Lister

Banned
Segaswirl said:
I'm not a PC gamer and I know the genres are totally different... but I was always told that Cities: Skylines was quite a demanding game for PC. If you look at the recommended requirements on Steam for that and Arma 3 they're pretty similar.

If Cities runs on an Xbox with all it's demanding CPU calculations then why couldn't something like Arma work?
Click to expand...

They significantly scaled down the number of active actors in the console version, and even so performance isn't great in large cities.

I haven't played the console versions but my guess is this probably has an effect on the main difficulty of the game, traffic management. Its probably a much easier game on consoles.
 
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