ARMA 3 on consoles

[Pulverizer 1]

@OP, have you played Dragon Rising and Red River? They're closer to Arma than any other console shooters, not counting Operation Flashpoint: Elite on Xbox 1 of course.

[frostwyrm333 1]

It wouldn't run on today's consoles in its current form, and future consoles are still in the future.

[james2464 176]

Perhaps in 10-20 years we'll see games like Arma on "consoles" but not now.

[katipo66 94]

I think in 10 - 20 yrs time gaming will be out of this world, can't wait!

[[frl]myke 14]

Another Game developer tried to bring the "OFP/ArmA/ArmA2"-feeling to consoles, they failed miserably. They had to cut away so many features to make it run on consoles, the outcome was nowhere near the original experience so it was inavoidable to fail.

Now looking that A3 probably needs more resources (CPU, GPU, Ram) than A2, how could this be ported to consoles without selling the soul of BIS's games?

It's just technically impossible.

[metalcraze 290]

Perhaps in 10-20 years we'll see games like Arma on "consoles" but not now.

OFP: Elite is on consoles.

The real question is - why would you need it when original, much superior, OFP runs fine on any PC today? And plays better. And costs 3 bucks atm.

If graphics and animations are a problem - well there are a many animations, texture and model mods to make it look no worse than at least 2004 games. That's the beauty of PC gaming.

[pvt_ryan 10]

The real question is why this thread hasn't been locked yet.

[maturin 12]

I think Codemasters should have cut parts off of ArmA and ported it to consoles instead of developing their own shitty games. Once you drastically reduce the scope and capabilities of the game to fit on the 360, you could probably remove all the buggy and confusing parts as well.

[BobcatBob 10]

Myke;2093968']Another Game developer tried to bring the "OFP/ArmA/ArmA2"-feeling to consoles' date=' they failed miserably. They had to cut away so many features to make it run on consoles, the outcome was nowhere near the original experience so it was inavoidable to fail.

Now looking that A3 probably needs more resources (CPU, GPU, Ram) than A2, how could this be ported to consoles without selling the soul of BIS's games?

It's just technically impossible.[/quote']

Not really...they just made shitty design choices by limiting weapons effective ranges, putting in too much PP an handicapping their (actually quite good) AI and not bothering with intellegent spawning scripts for massive Island-wide missions. Look at everything community member TemplarGFX did for DR, on the PC appareantly he made the game quite good! (No reason those changes couldn't exist on consoles, technically speaking, just no modding allowed on them:()

Edit:We'll never know how far the Arma 2 on Consoles project got, but I heard (if that counts for anything) that it was due to liscencing issues w/ MS.

[jblackrupert 14]

Close are your gonna get.

rz4EKv9HmsM

[Cripsis 10]

The real question is why this thread hasn't been locked yet.

I'm thinking it's been kept open for the PC communities entertainment, kinda like when a cat teases and tosses it's prey around.

[katipo66 94]

The real question is why this thread hasn't been locked yet.

Probably because for the most part it's been a reasonably mature affair, I guess it gets locked when enough 'fanboys' hijack it.

It shouldn't bother anyone (except the sad and lonely) if they provided some sort of 'light version' minus editor or a version focused just on MP? I'm not saying they should just saying if they were somehow able to achieve that then great, more power to them.

[Cripsis 10]

If you want ARMA 3 on consoles things need to be scaled back - degraded.

But then it wouldn't be ARMA3! it may have the same title but other than that it's not the same game...

[katipo66 94]

But would you care?

[Tonci87 163]

Hell yes!

[katipo66 94]

Lol.. why? i dont get it? you would still have Arma on PC..

its all just hear say anyway..

[Cripsis 10]

its all just hear say anyway..

It's not even hear say, it's just some random guy who want's BIS to develop a dog-poo version of what we all know is going to be a killer game, a game that will be incredibly fun to play on high end PC's.

[EDcase 87]

To be honest I think a cut-down version for consoles may be a good thing for the PC ARMA community and BIS.

- Many more console players so BIS gets more money

- More noobs on consoles so fewer on PC servers while they learn.

- Acts as testing gound so those who like gameplay style and are serious would invest in PC to play 'full' game.

Essentially the console versions would be like recruitment for the PC version so we would have fewer noobs/griefers and give BiS more money at the same time.

-Everyone wins...

Of course the main development would still be on PC so its not dumbed down and it would act like a demo for the many console users.

Edited January 23, 2012 by EDcase

[metalcraze 290]

Lol.. why? i dont get it? you would still have Arma on PC..

its all just hear say anyway..

The problem is that ArmA on PC will probably be no different...

To be honest I think a cut-down version for consoles may be a good thing for the PC ARMA community and BIS.

- Many more console players so BIS gets more money

- More noobs on consoles so fewer on PC servers while they learn.

- Acts as testing gound so those who like gameplay style and are serious invest in PC to play 'full' game.

Of course the main development would still be on PC so its not dumbed down and it would act like a demo for the many console users.

It doesn't work that way.

Cutting stuff out will take as much time as developing the game in the first place. And butchering ArmA for consoles isn't as simple as removing an editor or a few models. BIS would need to butcher everything - from movement to ballistics. F.e. movement wasn't a problem in OFP:Elite since OFP had a floating camera in the first place.

So why develop a game you need to butcher later if you can just develop it for the lowest common denominator in the first place? <- here you have your cold reality of multiplatform game development.

Edited January 23, 2012 by metalcraze

[EDcase 87]

I don't know anything about the process but since they did it for OFP I thought it might be possible for ARMA3. More work of course but far bigger audience and cutting down a game is easier than developing I would think.

[[frl]myke 14]

Well, tried to (virtually) set up a PC that is comparable to a PS3. If you're really interested if ArmA 2 (or later 3 for that matter) runs on this and how, you might try to get these components and see for yourself:

Intel P4 560, 3.6GHz (Prescott, S.775)
Nvidia GeForce 7800GTX/256MB
256MB Ram

[metalcraze 290]

OFP: Elite was released like 4 years after the original and yet they didn't have to cut much from it since original OFP was quite arcade-ish in comparison with what we have now while ArmA2 already is much more feature-rich and realistic.

BIS should focus on pushing series forward, making it as close to being authentic when it comes to simulating real war as possible.

Cutting down is not easier. You remove some stuff and you have a hole which you need to fill with something. Because otherwise it gets filled with bugs.

It isn't like you can simply remove advanced recoil or movement f.e. without any consequences for a game code.

If it was so easy and cheap and fast - devs would be releasing a superior version for PC and an inferior one for consoles all the time. Instead it's always the lowest common denominator and PC superiority starts and ends with better textures (see BF3).

Edited January 23, 2012 by metalcraze

[igneous01 19]

dont see it happening - the ability to move your head independent from your body would not be feasible on a controller (at least not as easy as holding down alt), there would have to be some drastic cuts on controls for it to work on a controller. It just would not work.

[Shelestov 263]

I will pray for devs not to change their minds about PC exlusivity forever and ever.

[dragon01 902]

I think Codemasters should have cut parts off of ArmA and ported it to consoles instead of developing their own shitty games. Once you drastically reduce the scope and capabilities of the game to fit on the 360, you could probably remove all the buggy and confusing parts as well.

Actually, they couldn't do that, for legal reasons. BIS couldn't call ArmA "Operation Flashpoint", but Codemasters couldn't use the old engine.

It seems to be a quirk in copyright law, the publisher gets rights to the franchise, but the devs keep the rights to the engine. OFP had an "idea" (a realistic military simulator) that could be continued regardless of name changes, hence why ArmA is closer to the original OFP than it's actual sequels.