Why aren't console makers more strict in their vetting process?

There's probably a joke about extreme vetting to be made here, but I'll steer clear for the time being. Seriously though, why aren't console makers, and by that I mean Sony and Microsoft, more strict about what they approve on their consoles?

Specifically what I am talking about is the performance of the games. For instance, I am now getting around to playing the Fallout 4 DLC, and the Far Harbor DLC is just plain bad. Not in terms of story or gameplay, but in terms of how it is running. I get that the console makers want to have the biggest and best games on their consoles, but at what point does the experience of the consumer come into play? It's just not right that I have bought a console, a game, and now DLC, and it runs at, I don't know, maybe a steady 15 frames per second in the fog areas? It's a joke.

On the flip side you have games like The Witcher 3, that mostly runs like a dream at a steady 30 frames per second, showing that it actually can be done. Even though that one of the things I expected from this cycle of consoles were games finally running at 60 frames per second on console, I have learned to live with yet another console cycle at 30 frames. But honestly, I think this cycle of consoles more than any other has been a joke when it comes to the performance of the games. I remember feeling like the jump from PS2 and Xbox to PS3 and 360 was fucking huge, but the jump from those consoles to PS4 and Xbox One feels so small thanks the many underperforming games.

The fact that we now have a mid-cycle upgrade like the PS4 Pro, and whatever the Scorpio turns out to be, tells me that Sony and Microsoft just were short sighted and had dollar signs in their eyes, trying to capitalize on what then was seen as a dying market. After the PS4 sold like gangbusters however, the console market is thriving again. I wish they would just stop this nonsense of mid cycle upgrades to already very poor consoles, and just launch new, powerful machines and not be afraid to launch them at a slightly higher price. I'd easily pay 500 and even 600 dollars for a machine that has the power to actually run the games I want to play. To Microsofts credit, that does seem to be what they are doing with their new console.

Just to underline how much of a joke this is, I ended up buying the Bioshock Collection, because I want to actually play some good games that run at a steady frame rate. I feel like the main draw of my PS4 at this point is to play old games at higher resolutions and better frame rates. And that sucks!

I don't know if the fault lies with the console makers and their poor specs and the fact that they will green light anything, or developers for overreaching and making games that simply don't belong on this hardware, or somewhere in between. I mean, one would think that the poor performance of most so-called AAA titles on these consoles would reflect poorly on the console manufacturers? One thing is clear however, and that is the fact that the only people who are hurt by this are the consumers.

Wow. That became a bit more ranty and long than expected. Anyway, do you think that I'm mistaken and just a little Boaty McBoatface, or do you agree that the consoles are too weak, that developers need to step up their game, and that console manufacturers need to better curate what appears on their consoles?

Because they don't really care. Unlike other industries, retailers and distributors of video games aren't generally held responsible for bad products that they didn't produce.

If Target is selling a bad product, people will associate that negativity with Target, regardless of who actually manufactured the goods. In the case of Microsoft and Sony, bad DLC for Fallout is a reflection of Bethesda, not of the platform. As long as they are getting their cash, and their name isn't on it, they have no reason to care. That is why Steam just lets basically anyone put up whatever trash they feel like, they get a cut, even if only 4 people play the game and hate it. I'm not saying this is right, it just seems to be how it is. Maybe I'm wrong.

$$$

Alternatively,

You'd be surprised how many people call Xbox Support with third party issues and are then frustrated when they're referred to the developers.

Maybe I've been lucky but in my experience, vast majority of the games come out fine. The bigger games seem to get more leeway with the expectation being they'll address issues via patches. The Witcher 3 certainly got better over time. Bethesda titles have always left a lot to be desired technically and I don't think represents the entire landscape.

Also, I think if one company became stricter, it virtually becomes a timed exclusive for the other side so once again, the consumer suffers for it.

Of course I really don't like the constant patches, especially the day one patches but I think I manage to avoid the worst of it by not buying early and taking a wait and see approach to all my purchases. The problem is, people complain but keep buying them so why would publishers change their ways.

While I'm sure that is completely true, I doubt those complaints turn into a loss of revenue.

Because most people don't really care about performance, or if they do they are willing to put up with poorly performing games so they can play the newest hottest releases.

Microsoft would suffer much more from saying "We didn't allow Fallout 4 onto our console because it wasn't performing adequately" than it does from letting the game onto the platform with poor performance.

The Xbox One and PS4 are, in fact, underpowered, mostly because they were released too late. They should have come out in 2010-2011 to be on a 5 year cycle, and were probably planned for that kind of release, but after the global recession nobody was going to buy new hardware so Microsoft and Sony waited, but they didn't do enough to improve the specs before putting them out. So a lot of games don't run particularly well on them, which I agree is frustrating. Hopefully PS Pro and Scorpio will help the situation, but I don't think it will be fully resolved until the next true cycle, which probably won't happen until 2019-2020.

The thing that I find frustrating is that game makers seem to be pushing stuff that looks good in screenshots or on the back of the box (like super high fidelity graphics or 4K) over what actually matters, which is reasonable performance. Some developers have figured out how to deal with it (like Halo 5 with its variable resolution to improve performance) but too many are happy to push out stuff that runs like crap rather than compromise things like environmental detail that, frankly, just don't matter nearly as much.

And then you have games like Fallout 4 and The Last Guardian that don't look great or run well, where the developers just don't have the talent or desire to optimize. That will probably always be an issue though, developers like to try to use raw power to reduce time spent optimizing, and different developers have different levels of what's "acceptable" when it comes to performance.

If Microsoft is letting a game go through cert, while Sony doesn't, Fallout fans now have a reason to buy a Xbox instead of a PS4. Console manufacturers are not going to lose out on sales and send those people to the competition by blocking a big franchise for not running at least 30 fps.

That's most of the reason I jumped ship and built a PC.

And I'm not saying that to be a condescending ass, like "you should build a PC, it's vastly superior and you'll be a better person for it!" I'm saying that because if performance is important to your enjoyment of a game, then it seems like PC is where you pretty much have to go these days. A lot of console games, especially multiplatform games, still can't even keep a solid thirty frames per second.

This has kinda been the case since the mid-90's, though, except that at some point in the mid-PS2 era we started getting a fair number of console games that ran at 60FPS that weren't fighting games. Metroid Prime, Jak and Daxter, Devil May Cry, and God of War were all 60FPS games, so for a while there it seemed like console developers actually cared about how well a game runs and then halfway through last generation they seemed to stop caring again. Only now, pretty much everything is also available on PC and there's plenty of video footage of most games actually running well.

Sony and Microsoft really should hold developers accountable for how well games run. If a game runs at a framerate lower than 30 and a resolution lower than 900p for significant portions of the game, developers should have to take it back and fix it because it's broken. Unfortunately, that just isn't going to happen, we're just going to continue to see performance problems in console games.

EDIT: Developers and/or publishers. I'd be willing to bet that some games perform poorly because the publishers were trying to push the game out and the developers were more concerned with actually finishing the game.

Until enough customers start caring enough for it to translate into a noticeable loss, they don't have any incentive to do so. In the short term, more content on the store translates into more sales.

Perhaps more importantly, if one console manufacturer were to start enforcing strict performance standards, they run the risk that, instead of fixing the problem, the games just end up being platform-exclusive (on console). Some percentage of people will probably be thrilled that higher standards are being enforced, but I'd guess most people would just go to the platform that has the games.

Imagine if, say, Fallout 4 (rejected due to performance issues), Doom (studio didn't even submit due to prior game rejection), and Hitman (delayed due to how rough the betas were) didn't appear on one of the consoles - they'd basically be handing market share over to the other console manufacturer.

Pretty sure cert processes at the console manufacturers are known to be very strict. It's just that 15fps in areas or drops to 5 frames under certain worst-case circumstances aren't anywhere near as bad as the shit they're trying to prevent from happening, like game save corruption if someone trips over an ethernet cable and shit like that.

I seem to recall some Iron Galaxy people talking about cert processes, either Lang or the KI guys on a stream or something. Maybe write in to the Bombcast with a question about cert processes and request that the letter only be read the next time Dave Lang is on as a guest, or send it in to Team GFB Radio.

The average attach rate being what it is on consoles even if you said that you were leaving Xbox for PS or PC they'd likely assume they'd miss out on 1-3 games a year from you anyway. That comes down to less than $80 a year for them.

That just isn't worth holding back these games. Not even larger publishers like EA get much negative impact. How many people are still sooo angry about Sim City or ME3 to not play Battlefield 1 or ME:A?

With how much games cost to make and how much they sell for plus how many units they're likely to sell it's just not realistic in most cases.

Not saying it doesn't suck, just that something has to change. Not enough money to be had and consumers that don't care enough leads to the status quo.

On ps4 there definitely shouldn't be fps drops bellow 30. You can't upgrade it. Fallout 4 is terribly performed? Yeah its Bethesda...

We are gonna have extreme console vetting, it is THE best console vetting i think i have ever seen, its great it really is.

@bertmasta said:

We are gonna have extreme console vetting, it is THE best console vetting i think i have ever seen, its great it really is.

We have the best console vetting don't we folks?

@bojackhorseman: Just my quick take, but it's always been like this for multi-plats with a PC version.

I went back and played some of the Star Wars Episode I Racer after the recent episode of Game Tapes had the trailer for it, because I remembered having a blast with that game as a kid. It runs like complete crap on the N64! Like, my brother has the expansion pak, and the game still runs like a slideshow on some tracks. It even has a "low res" setting in the options that cuts the resolution in half; the default performance is that bad. My dad had the game on PC back in the day (and a gameport joystick, yeah) and I remember being able to turn on smoke effects and having the game run like a dream.

It was much the same story for the original Mass Effect. That game ran like hot garbage on the 360, especially those launch ones with no hard drives (no caching). The later games in the series were better in that regard, but there's a reason the long elevators rides are such a meme in that franchise. Oh, and grain filters for days, yeesh.

On PC it's just easier to throw horsepower at the problem and still get a playable experience. There's also the culture of tweaking on PC, so people expect to have to finagle with settings to get optimal performance.

You could have saved yourself the trouble by researching the game. If you have the time to post here, you have the time to save yourself money. I don't know why the industry is the way it is right now. Not sure. But, I will take steps to protect myself.

My feeling is the general game playing public doesn't care about performance whatesoever unless it is a box melt.

Most people don't even know what framerate is. My sister once told me HD gives her a headache. Turns out her TV brightness was jacked all the way up. Assume 99% of the population is like this, which means most potential consumers.

Since I mentioned the Bioshock collection in the OP I just have to throw in here that I'm having a blast with the first game right now. Runs like a dream, looks pretty darn good, and still plays like it was made today. Man, there just aren't enough games like Bioshock. I remember feeling like games were finally growing up when that game came around, with it's deep world building and political message, but it kinda stopped there, didn't it? Even Infinite is way less focused on that stuff, although still more than 90% of games. Seems most stories still are the "all-story" about saving the world and all that stuff. Even The Witcher 3 ended up being about stopping the literal apocalypse in the end. So disappointing.

Ken Levine sure is something else.

Most people don't care. I have plenty of friends on Xbox that don't mind playing fallout or just cause 3 on Xbox or PS4.

Most media is fluff. How many movies have a deep "meaning" vs just being another action flick or goofy comedy? Books are a little better, but plenty of those are just frothy fun. The fact that games can have deep things to say doesn't mean that all of them will. I think Firewatch, last year, did a good job of telling a mature story with a specific point of view. I would also compare Inside to an arthouse flick full of fascinating images even if no narrative fully coheres. In the indie space there are lots of games with things to say. Ever played Papers Please? What a spectacular game about life under authoritarianism, complex moral choices, and the costs of trying to do the right thing.

It's true that big budget games will rarely have the kind of clear perspective that Bioshock did, but that's because most publishers don't want to take the risk of alienating part of its audience, and the same is true of movies and TV.

@bigsocrates: I think that's too easy to say. In my mind, there's no doubt that films and tv shows generally have far better and more diverse stories than the big video games, both in concept and execution. Even superhero films seem to try to have a deeper meaning than just setting up action sequences these days. Either video games are rapidly proving themselves to be a medium unsuited for good storytelling, or developers just aren't good enough at using the medium to create good stories. I don't know. The fact that you bring up Firewatch as a game that tells a mature story bolsters my argument more than it does yours.

Console makers have never strictly prevented games appearing on their platform they just use to have arbitrary rules in place like needing a publisher or charging for updates. Once these restrictions were removed the flood gates opened, at that point the manpower needed to curate the amount of games being submitted becomes unrealistic. With the amount of goods games releasing preventing games appearing on your platform is not the answer better discoverability is, its also worth Steam revenue has risen in correlation with the amount of titles available on the platform more games more money.

I've posted this same comment maybe 3-4 times by now over the past year/two years. I'm more than okay with a steady 30FPS and can forgive occasional dips below it, but it definitely irks me when a "remastered" game from several years ago can't even hold a steady 30, when something with the visuals of Uncharted 4 or Ratchet & Clank does so. Obviously both of those games were made specifically for the PS4, but man, just don't release the thing at all then or try to patch it somehow. I know you can't perform miracles with patches, but still.

@bojackhorseman: Did you just threadjack yourself? Is that allowed?

I'll allow it.

It boils down to money, but lets not act like PC/Steam is a bed of roses either.......

I'd argue many issues are completely overblown. Example, The Witcher 3. I ended my main story time at about 50 hours or so. If you listened to Brad Shoemaker talk about Witcher 3 he would, and still does, use descriptors like "unplayable" which means "so bad that you cannot play the game". This is, specifically, hyperbole, but many people parrot this even when they haven't played the game. I played the game on PS4 so if it was unplayable or unenjoyable I wouldn't have kept playing the game. No part of The Witcher 3, on any platform, was unplayable. Did it perform at 60 FPS on max settings with god rays, motion blur, etc like on PC? No, but I didn't care and didn't need most of those things as the game was gorgeous and played good enough for me. Now, when it comes to things like allowing shitty ports or remasters? Guess what, that stuff existed back when console makers "gave a damn". How many people have fond memories of the Nintendo 64? Guess what, many games on that system were nearly unplayable. Remember the "Nintendo seal of quality"? I remember tons of crap, and unfair, NES games that had that seal on them.

I've had a great time with my PS4. I've had a lame time with my Xbone (for issues unrelated to this thread), and I've had a limited amount of enjoyment with the WiiU. Most issues are a case of buyer beware opposed to gross negligence.

From what I understand, making games isn't exactly easy..