Electronic Arts has confirmed that Pandemic Studios’ Mercenaries 2: World in Flames is to go to Xbox 360, PS2 and PC. The received wisdom had been that the game was to be PS3 exclusive.
According to Pandemic Studios CEO, Andrew Goldman, “Mercenaries 2: World in Flames delivers the next evolution in explosive open world gameplay – regardless of the system you play it on.
“All four platforms are incredible gaming machines, and from the beginning we designed an experience that accentuates their individual strengths and delivers the interactive freedom and explosive action Mercenaries fans demand.”
And the detail underlying how Pandemic is going to do this comes in a recent interview† given by senior producer, Jonathan Zamkoff, who explained: "So here's the scoop. We are shooting for true feature parity on the PS3, 360, and PC. There will be small visual differences on those consoles due to platform specific texture compression algorithms and other platform-specific graphics implementation, but to the end-user the game experience will be nearly identical. For the PS2 we are taking a different tack. We're working extremely closely with Pi studios ... They are using the Mercs 1 core engine and toolchain, coupled with modified Mercs 2 assets to create the Mercs 2 PS2 version.
”The big addition to Mercs 2 is online co-op, which will be nixed from the PS2 version, but intact on PS3. We have no intention to provide one feature for one system that the other one doesn't have. So, yes, both [Xbox 360 & PS3] will have cooperative multiplayer -- online cooperative multiplayer.
“We started from scratch to program for the multiprocessors on both machines. They were both in mind when we were writing the text, so we didn't want to create a PS3 engine, which was and has been, and is, our lead SKU, but we didn't want to ignore the Xbox 360. Even though we're just now announcing the 360 version, we have been working on it for quite some time ... In terms of timing, both games are within a week of each other in development."
The third-party exclusive is a rare beast as there is a built-in problem in that – as you can read in our ‘slightly tipsy God of War creator’ story from December 2006 – platform holders would love to retain really good titles and franchises as, well, just for their platform, the publishers and developers are going to make far more money if they can sell games across platforms.
In fact, nowhere else in the big old business that we call ‘entertainment’ is this kind of problem so obvious.
Anyway, politics aside, the fact that Mercs 2 has gone to more than one console (and PC) is good news all round we reckon.
† Source: Joystiq
According to Pandemic Studios CEO, Andrew Goldman, “Mercenaries 2: World in Flames delivers the next evolution in explosive open world gameplay – regardless of the system you play it on.
“All four platforms are incredible gaming machines, and from the beginning we designed an experience that accentuates their individual strengths and delivers the interactive freedom and explosive action Mercenaries fans demand.”
And the detail underlying how Pandemic is going to do this comes in a recent interview† given by senior producer, Jonathan Zamkoff, who explained: "So here's the scoop. We are shooting for true feature parity on the PS3, 360, and PC. There will be small visual differences on those consoles due to platform specific texture compression algorithms and other platform-specific graphics implementation, but to the end-user the game experience will be nearly identical. For the PS2 we are taking a different tack. We're working extremely closely with Pi studios ... They are using the Mercs 1 core engine and toolchain, coupled with modified Mercs 2 assets to create the Mercs 2 PS2 version.
”The big addition to Mercs 2 is online co-op, which will be nixed from the PS2 version, but intact on PS3. We have no intention to provide one feature for one system that the other one doesn't have. So, yes, both [Xbox 360 & PS3] will have cooperative multiplayer -- online cooperative multiplayer.
“We started from scratch to program for the multiprocessors on both machines. They were both in mind when we were writing the text, so we didn't want to create a PS3 engine, which was and has been, and is, our lead SKU, but we didn't want to ignore the Xbox 360. Even though we're just now announcing the 360 version, we have been working on it for quite some time ... In terms of timing, both games are within a week of each other in development."
The third-party exclusive is a rare beast as there is a built-in problem in that – as you can read in our ‘slightly tipsy God of War creator’ story from December 2006 – platform holders would love to retain really good titles and franchises as, well, just for their platform, the publishers and developers are going to make far more money if they can sell games across platforms.
In fact, nowhere else in the big old business that we call ‘entertainment’ is this kind of problem so obvious.
Anyway, politics aside, the fact that Mercs 2 has gone to more than one console (and PC) is good news all round we reckon.
† Source: Joystiq
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