Oh, I've made precisely the right purchasing decision considering my tastes, needs, and even my ideas about where this industry should be heading - sans Microsoft's initial stance on indies, which would by now be almost completely rectified were it not for the utterly pointless parity clause.
Again, there are other considerations as well, such as finite development resources and return on investment,
as mentioned earlier in the thread by kasavin. Are you better off porting your game to a weaker, unpopular, harder to code, developer- and gamer-hostile platform, or are you better off putting those resources in to developing DLC or a sequel on the powerful, popular, easy to code, friendly platform? (Remember, launch parity is not the only parity clause MS maintain. Devs are expected to deliver feature parity as well.)
You said that all indies should just continue ignoring Microsoft even if they drop the parity clause. How exactly would indies publishing their games on Xbox, in addition to all the other platforms, be punishing "the rest of you"? Even ignoring the gamers, who are completely innocent in all this (people choose their platforms for a myriad of reasons, and for most of them buying a console is not a political act), how would leaving money on the table help developers?
You're conflating two issues here. My question to devs was, why would you want to associate with someone who has made it quite clear that they have no qualms about mistreating you if it helps them get ahead, even if they're not actively mistreating you at the time? I guess my question applies equally to gamers as well.
WRT hurting "the rest of us," I was referring to the parity clauses' goal of
actively stifling development and innovation on rival platforms.
Even if indies stop supporting a platform, big publishers may keep it going.
Every blizzard begins with a single snowflake. I was talking about all developers collectively, not just indies. And it's not just indies who are starting to stray. Ono made it fairly clear he was glad to finally be free of Microsoft's arbitrary restrictions. I suspect he's not the only one who feels that way.
Back when PlayStation's reign was only beginning, Sony was notorious for being unfriendly toward developers of 2D games, since they were trying to put their console's 3D superiority front and center.
To me, that sounds like, "Sorry, but that's not the type of content we're looking for at this time," rather than, "Fuck you; you'll make what we say."
It all culminated in Kaz Hirai
making a bizarre statement that PS3 was made difficult to work with on purpose.
Once again, that is a
complete mischaracterization of what was actually said, as Kaz said nothing of the sort. What he actually said was they designed the PS3 to give maximum potential to developers, and as a result of that decision, there were some extra hoops to jump through before you could
reach said potential. Being the absolute best you can be typically requires extraordinary effort; that's why so few people actually achieve it.
"Get a second job"? Also never said by Sony. Sony lied about Killzone? Once again, never happened. It seems you would be well served by paying more attention to the details.
I hope I don't have to remind you of how consumer-unfriendly Kutaragi's PS3 was in its infancy
I remember Ken kicking in over $300 towards my launch-day, $499 PS3, which was an even bigger loss than he took on the $599 model. Sorry, but that doesn't strike me as particularly unfriendly.
Nintendo was just as bad toward developers in the 80s and early 90s when they ruled supreme, and they still haven't completely adjusted, which cost their recent consoles (and their owners) dearly when it came to third party software support.
As I've said, I don't follow Nintendo closely, so you'd need to be more specific than that. Was their mistreatment of developers similar to Sony's; gently nudging them towards the future of game development and providing them with powerful-if-inscrutable hardware?
Frankly, I wouldn't be surprised if Sony's handling of developers is better than most in the industry. Originally, PlayStation development was handled by a department at Sony Music, who were already accustomed to treating artists like artists rather than assembly line workers. That same attitude seems to have carried over nicely to WWS.
The fact is all big companies are responsible for some good things and some bad things. Bad things should be punished, but wishing for their complete demise is wrong, and it would probably lead to more bad than good in the long run. All of them need potent competitors to keep them in check, because power corrupts, and it corrupts everyone.
Sorry, I know MS supporters like to say that all companies are equally evil by definition, but that simply isn't true of companies any more than it's true of the people who work there.
