S.T.A.L.K.E.R. coming to 360?

Tonious

I've been searching on the net and I can't find any up to date info on it. I skimmed over that S.T.A.L.K.E.R. T.A.L.K. thread but I didn't see anything about it. Does anyone know if it's being ported? I've read a lot about it and saw some videos and it looks really good. But I don't really want to get it for the PC... Anyone info on it would be greatly appreciated. ^_^

JJ

get out of here, stalker!

Brolo

There's no word of it at all... I don't think it's coming out for anything but PC, not for a while anyway.

Maybe you'll get a couple years from now? Dunno.

Tonious

I found this on the 4th page of my google search.

http://www.gamepro.com/news.cfm?article_id=88908

But it's over a year old. ;_;


GP: Are there any future plans for porting S.T.A.L.K.E.R. to the PlayStation 3 or Xbox 360?

We have such plans to port the game to next-gen consoles, but everything depends on our publisher.

JWFokker

I don't see it as being very likely. Porting games to the 360 is much easier than doing it for the Xbox 1, but Stalker is an extremely resource intensive game and it's memory management is quite poor. It wouldn't do well at all on the 360. While dynamic lighting and HDR might be no problem, texture usage would be. There are simply a ton of textures and the Xray engine handles them very poorly. That's why 2GB of memory is required (combined RAM and virtual memory). The 360 simply doesn't have that. If they scaled down the textures enough to make it memory not an issue, it would look like absolute ass. Or like Oblivion with a super short view distance and it probalby wouldn't even run that well. Also, GSC has no experience working on consoles whereas Bethesda did and still had a game that ran like shit on the 360.

Then you have the issues of the control scheme, inventory system, etc. Engine issues aside, it just doesn't lend itself to being a console game.

Pancake

JWFokker wrote: »

I don't see it as being very likely. Porting games to the 360 is much easier than doing it for the Xbox 1, but Stalker is an extremely resource intensive game and it's memory management is quite poor. It wouldn't do well at all on the 360. While dynamic lighting and HDR might be no problem, texture usage would be. There are simply a ton of textures and the Xray engine handles them very poorly. That's why 2GB of memory is required (combined RAM and virtual memory). The 360 simply doesn't have that. If they scaled down the textures enough to make it memory not an issue, it would look like absolute ass. Or like Oblivion with a super short view distance and it probalby wouldn't even run that well. Also, GSC has no experience working on consoles whereas Bethesda did and still had a game that ran like shit on the 360.

Then you have the issues of the control scheme, inventory system, etc. Engine issues aside, it just doesn't lend itself to being a console game.

You forgot that it would take at least four years for them to finish porting it.

JWFokker

Another good point. It's been a month since the second patch was supposed to come out too. The latest report is that it will arrive "any day now".

They should shoot for the Xbox 720 launch if they're going to port Stalker.

Hewn

Half-Life 2 worked really well on the original Xbox. I'm sure it could be pulled off in a very playable form.

Not that it matters since there's no plans.

JWFokker

Half-Life 2 used far fewer textures in much smaller levels. And the textures still looked a bit like ass. Half-Life 2 also didn't require 2GB of memory and was being rendered at 640x480, not 1280x720p as 360 games are required to be. And on top of all that, Valve has a lot more money, better developers and programmers and creates much more polished games than GSC. If Valve or Epic wanted to put Stalker on the 360, I'd have more faith, but I still think it would turn out like Oblivion (shitty textures compared to the PC, super short view distance and mediocre framerate) simply because console hardware is not well suited to the demands of wide open super huge level type games. I don't consider Oblivion to be that playable on the 360 and there's no way GSC could pull off even that level of quality.

Hewn

JWFokker wrote: »

I don't consider Oblivion to be that playable on the 360...

Really? I don't know, I think it worked well. I'm sure it's not up to par with a high end PC, but I don't remember anything that hindered the game.

Seemed to get universally good reviews for a game that's not very playable. Maybe I'm just missing something, though.

Zxerol

Oh wow. Not more than five posts and we the humble beginnings of a wonderful PC vs. console war. Whoopee.

At any rate, I don't think it's a matter of the 360 being able to do the visuals of STALKER, but rather that the engine for it blows more chunks than my friend at a Mexican buffet. Have you looked at the minimum and recommended system requirements for the thing? It's absolutely insane, and the game doesn't even look that great. Of course, it does has a faster DX8 renderer, which also makes the gameworld look like something straight out of 2001. Horrible, absolutely atrocious system scaling.

That's all moot though if they do intend to port it regardless of any technical considerations. At this point, there's no word if it'll get out from the PC world, so there's really nothing else to discuss.

Hewn

Zxerol wrote: »

Oh wow. Not more than five posts and we the humble beginnings of a wonderful PC vs. console war. Whoopee.

Nah, not really. At least I never wanted to go there. I just always thought Oblivion was quite playable via 360 and found it curious I, and lots of reviewers apparently, could be so wrong.

Raslin

JWFokker wrote: »

I don't see it as being very likely. Porting games to the 360 is much easier than doing it for the Xbox 1, but Stalker is an extremely resource intensive game and it's memory management is quite poor. It wouldn't do well at all on the 360. While dynamic lighting and HDR might be no problem, texture usage would be. There are simply a ton of textures and the Xray engine handles them very poorly. That's why 2GB of memory is required (combined RAM and virtual memory). The 360 simply doesn't have that. If they scaled down the textures enough to make it memory not an issue, it would look like absolute ass. Or like Oblivion with a super short view distance and it probalby wouldn't even run that well. Also, GSC has no experience working on consoles whereas Bethesda did and still had a game that ran like shit on the 360.

Then you have the issues of the control scheme, inventory system, etc. Engine issues aside, it just doesn't lend itself to being a console game.

Stalker doesn't require two gigs of ram, I don't know where you got that from. I'm running on one gig, at highest settings. Also, the texture's don't look that bad when set low, if its on top DX9 settings.

Edit: Tonious, I see you on the stalker forums... asking your dirty questions. You could say I'm... stalking you.

You see what I did there, right?

JWFokker

I never said 2GB of RAM. In fact, I made a point of explicitly stating that it requires combined RAM and virtual memory (page file). Upon closer inspection, it requires 1.5GB of memory, but the fact remains it has steep system requirements that are only compounded by the limited resources of the 360 and the terrible memory management of the Xray engine. Even 8800GTX users have stuttering as the game loads files when using max texture settings, not because the textures are particularly high resolution files, but because the engine handles them very inefficiently.

And as for Oblivion being a great console game, Gamespot gave it a 9.6. Why do I find Gamespot's review, among others, completely uncredible? How about shit like this?

Gamespot wrote:

Every line of dialogue in the game is delivered in full speech, and the quality of the voice acting and the writing is generally excellent.

Aside from Patrick Stewart, Oblivion had the most utterly terrible dialogue and voice acting I can remember in the last several years. And don't get me started on how utterly bland the game was, the retarded leveling system and the hideously inhuman looking NPCs. Or the muddy textures, short view distance and lots of pop-in? Or how about the monsters that will follow you to the end of the Earth when you ride past them on horseback? I'd hesitantly give Morrowind a 9.0, but Oblivion would be scraping to get a 7.0. Arguably decent graphics and Captain Picard don't equal an automatic 9.0+ in my book. And I'm not blaming the 360 for Oblivion being a shitty game. It was pretty shitty at best on the PC too, but on the 360 it was worse due to the technical limitations of the platform. Stalker has the same sort of technical requirements as Oblivion, and while it's a much better game, it's very unlikely the development team could make it run acceptably on the 360 considering that it doesn't even run very well on more powerful PCs.

Tonious

Raslin wrote: »

Edit: Tonious, I see you on the stalker forums... asking your dirty questions. You could say I'm... stalking you.

You see what I did there, right?

o_o *Sits in his recliner clutching a shotgun, staring out his window*

But yeah, I went to their offical forum and asked my "dirty" questions. I got mainly a lot of "Give me PC or give me death" rants about how consoles are for "kiddies" and it'd never work. @_@ But the did bring up some valid points like in this forum post. I still think it'd be doable, from what I've read it does seem like a really good game but I just don't want to play it on PC. Guess I'm just lazy and outta luck.

JWFokker

You might want to fix your quote. I didn't type that.

Der Waffle Mous

I like your overuse of hyperbole.

JWFokker

It's only overuse if you disagree with it.

Der Waffle Mous

There you go again.


Very good, very good.

Rook

"I don't mean to oversimplify this, but in the past a lot of publishers—including us—would say, 'Okay, let's make a game and get it across every system.' That's not our strategy going forward; there are going to be different gamers for the different systems," THQ CEO Brian Ferrell told GamesIndustry.biz

Port looks unlikely.

Sci-Fi Wasabi

Wouldn't a more focused development environment and the fact that you can optimize for a system that is built identical no matter which 360 you have clear up a good chunk of these issues? Look at Spider-Man 3. It runs awful on high end PC's because its optimized poorly, but great on 360. I know its backwards since technically the PC version is a port, but I'm sure there is a way they could put it on 360 with great results. If their heads weren't up their asses, anyway.

12gauge

JWFokker wrote: »

Aside from Patrick Stewart, Oblivion had the most utterly terrible dialogue and voice acting I can remember in the last several years.

You haven't played Baten Kaitos then, I must assume.

JWFokker

Sci-Fi Wasabi wrote: »

Wouldn't a more focused development environment and the fact that you can optimize for a system that is built identical no matter which 360 you have clear up a good chunk of these issues? Look at Spider-Man 3. It runs awful on high end PC's because its optimized poorly, but great on 360. I know its backwards since technically the PC version is a port, but I'm sure there is a way they could put it on 360 with great results. If their heads weren't up their asses, anyway.

Stalker's virtual memory requirements would mean you could only play it on a Premium or Elite. Core systems would be screwed.

Tonious

JWFokker wrote: »

Stalker's virtual memory requirements would mean you could only play it on a Premium or Elite. Core systems would be screwed.

From what I just read about GTAIV, they're having similiar issues with the 360 version since not everyone owns a harddrive. So assuming the game isn't delayed and they make the release date of October, why couldn't the developement team of S.T.A.L.K.E.R. do the same?

http://www.1up.com/do/newsStory?cId=3159145 Source

Couscous

12gauge wrote: »

JWFokker wrote: »

Aside from Patrick Stewart, Oblivion had the most utterly terrible dialogue and voice acting I can remember in the last several years.

You haven't played Baten Kaitos then, I must assume.

Or Samurai Warriors and Over G Fighters.

http://www.audioatrocities.com/games/overgfighters/index.html
http://www.audioatrocities.com/games/samuraiwarriors/index.html
http://www.audioatrocities.com/games/dice/index.html
http://www.audioatrocities.com/games/gotcha/index.html
http://www.audioatrocities.com/games/rumbleroses/index.html
http://www.audioatrocities.com/games/tenchu-fatal/index.html
http://www.audioatrocities.com/games/zoneoftheenders2/index.html

DanHibiki

Tonious wrote: »

I found this on the 4th page of my google search.

http://www.gamepro.com/news.cfm?article_id=88908

But it's over a year old. ;_;


GP: Are there any future plans for porting S.T.A.L.K.E.R. to the PlayStation 3 or Xbox 360?

We have such plans to port the game to next-gen consoles, but everything depends on our publisher.

from the same article:

GP: Can you talk about the mutants that players will encounter?

The mutants in the game are not fictional, but based on mutated versions of real life animals. An example of one of the mutants is a dog that can cast a phantom version of itself. At times you won't know what you are shooting at. Sometimes it will be the actual dog, sometimes not. Sea monsters are also in the game.

what the hell does that mean? based on real mutant dogs that can cast phantom versions of themselves?

Raslin

Thanks, Tonious. Now I'm debating over this issue, in your thread, on the forums.

Look what you made me do.

JWFokker

Tonious wrote: »

JWFokker wrote: »

Stalker's virtual memory requirements would mean you could only play it on a Premium or Elite. Core systems would be screwed.

From what I just read about GTAIV, they're having similiar issues with the 360 version since not everyone owns a harddrive. So assuming the game isn't delayed and they make the release date of October, why couldn't the developement team of S.T.A.L.K.E.R. do the same?

http://www.1up.com/do/newsStory?cId=3159145 Source

GTAIV can afford to ignore a portion of the userbase because they will sell a fuckton of copies anyway. They might even get people to buy hard drives. Stalker won't sell that many units, so selling a game that part of the userbase can't even play wouldn't be a recipe for financial success. And again, GSC likely doesn't have the technical capabilities to get a console port done and working properly anytime in the next few years.

Tonious

lol, I see your posts on that Stalker forums Raslin. And I whole heartedly agree with you. I think it'd be quiet easy to port over, considering the game was suppose to be released years ago. It wouldn't have to be maxed out graphically so I don't see it being a problem. I think it'd be good on the 360, we need more scary suspense games like Condemed, Gears, Viva Pinata, etc etc. Not to mention it'd be able to offer a lot of downloadable content like Oblivion.

JWFokker: But that doesn't change the fact that it could be done. Whether it has a large fanbase or not I don't think it would affect sales that much. Especially if it was released as a budget title for 40-50 bucks. (Even though I'd still buy it if it was 60.)