I’m drooling already but I must admit I’m getting a little fed up with all the space themed games.But hey, it’s bioware, it’s RPG and it’s next gen!
It has sort of a '60’s paperback Sci-Fi art style, which I can totally dig… man!
And Bioware has once again turned to the dark side with their console exclusive titles… Sigh… Hopefully this only the case for the first few months after its release…
If its for the Xbox 360 I don’t mind!! 
But either way I agree that there are currently too many sci-fi themed games out or in development right now, I really like the direction they went with Jade Empire and would have liked a game more along those lines.
How is a pc version any better?
These days that’s just a false matter.Is the keyboard the difference?Nowadays most consoles have keyboards too…
How many games are actually set up to work with a keyboard and mouse combo though? On top of that, a console is usually found under a TV, in the living room or wherever, not at a place where you can rest a keyboard and mouse nice and comfortably to play with. The controls are also created with the standard pad in mind so may exclude functions that are suitable and comfortable for a keyboard user.
Anyway, I didn’t mean a PC version would be better per se, just that Bioware is who they are today because of their success on PCs and yet now they keep screwing over their fans by doing console exclusive titles (or not doing the best job they could have done for the PC versions of multiplatform games) while never forgetting to mention that they still fully support the PC and are primarily a PC developer and so on and so forth…
I do look forward to Dragon Age for the PC, but after a few recent FPS/RPG failures such as Deus Ex 2 and Vampire the Masquerade: Bloodlines (always IMO), I was really looking forward to trying this out as Bioware is bound to do it right…
Sure all this is fine and dandy for 360 lovers but don’t tell me that none of you ever felt “betrayed” when a certain company which used to create games for a system you owned and loved, ended up developing an exclusive title for another system…
For me that’s only an issue when it comes to series (KOTOR for example…).A company must go multiplatform if they want to reach broader audiences.
Btw is Mass Effect suposed to be a RPG/FPS or did I get you wrong?
I read it wa ssupsoed to play like ashooter but no specifically a FPS.
It’s only natural that BioWare would develop more games for the home console front (to deliver them to a wider audience), especially now that they can develop for one or two extremely powerful hardware setups (as opposed to the thousands of possible PC hardware combinations with all their unforseeable problems).
I remember being pissed off with BioWare because I had to buy a new sound card to run Neverwinter Nights when my older card could run Morrowind without a hitch.
What’s really interesting to note is that BioWare seem to be branching off with their own intellectual properties now instead of making games under established brands all the time. Ever wondered why?
Sure. Multiplatform. And yet this game is a 360 exclusive…
Geoffrey, the problem with hardware configurations has existed since the dawn of PCs (Well almost) and yet developers, big or small, still create games for them.
Even the engine used for this game (Unreal Engine 3 I believe) was created for PCs with next gen console versions of it existing (similar to the UT2004 engine which got an engine version for X-Box development).
Wider audience is nice and all but why completely block off your previous audience (or force them to buy a 360, as you were forced to buy a sound card - btw, my crappy SB PCI 128 played NWN fine, what did you have)?
They are also still creating PC Games, such as Dragon Age so obviously they don’t think configuring games for all the different set ups is a waste of time. I don’t see a reason for this to be a 360 exclusive. Other than Microsoft’s big rights buying pockets that is…
And a lot of developers hate doing PC because…
-
Over-crowded market. Everyone and their grandma tries to release a PC game and it makes it difficult for users to sort through all the crap.
-
Hardware configurations. Just because developers have been doing it up until now, doesn’t mean they’ve liked it.
-
Marketing support. If you’re a company like Bioware, and you’ve had 3 (well, 2, really) huge hits on a console, you can almost be guaranteed huge amounts of marketing support from the 1st party.
They’re not “screwing their fans over.” They’re simply going to a space where more people are likely to buy their games.
When it comes to situations such as this, I tend to perceive the matter through the prism of simple economics.
A sophisticated and advanced PC, dedicated to gaming, which won’t be rendered obsolete and be surpassed by technology advances that games will employ within ten months (if that), can cost more than a thousand pounds.
By contrast, a console, with a generational lifespan of typically three to five years and which will still remain functional long after that (unlike computers where your old games can’t operate on the latest iteration of Windows and so forth), will only demand the sacrifice of, at the very most, four hundred pounds.
Given that, it’s quite understandable why consoles are steadily advancing in popularity.
Whoops, I suppose that doctrine means that we can never have a future Panzer Dragoon game, then, as “established brands” are obviously t3h 3v1l. 
I can understand why some people may be upset if they want to play Bioware games, but prefer PC. However in this case I think the only Bioware “trend” is not of console exclusivity, but Microsoft funding.
MS wants killer apps for XBOX and 360, so if they’re funding and publishing a game for that market it doesn’t make much sense to compromise the potential of the game as a console experience by worrying about a PC version at the same time.
The problem is, BioWare may be trying to appeal to different markets with specific games catered for them as well as branch out into the larger (and easier to develop for) console market. Games like Baldur’s Gate and its spirtual (forthcoming) successor, Dragon Age, with their party-based combat, text, top down views etc are better suited for the mature PC market. That’s a fact. Neverwinter Nights, like BG and DA, was a point and click RPG too, which presents all sorts of interface problems for console gamers (clumsy, unintuitive controls without a mouse etc like in PC-to-console RTS conversions). So, as Abadd would say, it boils down to apples and oranges (with tastes differing).
Personally, I don’t think BioWare will abandon their PC roots, nor will Obsidian; they simply don’t believe in that.
And Robert, BioWare making new games set in worlds of their own creation is merely a matter of BioWare not wanting to be told how to make a game. That is why we are seeing more original RPGs from BioWare. Both the D&D (especially D&D now that Atari bought the liscencing rights) and Stars Wars liscenses have strict publishing rules (there are limits to what BioWare etc can do). It’s a pity really because I haven’t played a really great D&D game since Interplay went under.
Al3xand3r, without exclusives different consoles would mean nothing.Multiplatforming in a global, company sense.Not doing PC games all the time.
For that matter, is it not interesting that Bioware’s transition to original material comes hand-in-hand with their growing relationship with XBOX/MS?
Do you believe the 2 are completely unrelated?
(edit: and yeah it just became more clear to me that I may be literally saying the same thing as Geoffrey meant in the first place.)
joystiq.com/entry/1234000250061784/
The game looks set to be the first in trilogy of games for the Xbox 360.
I’d have to agree with the comments above about Bioware’s games simply being designed for different markets. Games like Neverwinter Nights and Dragon Age work much better when you have a mouse to select menu options, etc, but after playing some of Jade Empire I’d have to say that that game is completely suited to a console. Although playing Jade Empire on the PC could work if the controls were adapted for the PC, or you plugged in a game controller, the game was designed from the ground up for the Xbox.
I guess one of the main problems here is for PC gamers who like to use a keyboard/mouse combination for FPSs. In which case, all I can say is, try to learn. The Xbox controller works fine for games that are designed for the ground up with a controller in mind (like Halo 2), but it will take some time to adapt to this kind of setup if you’re used to keyboard and mouse.
The Xbox 360 is certainly powerful enough to run a beautiful, smooth-running game, so the only other problem I see here is mods. But Knights of the Old Republic wasn?t modable as far as know, and that came out on the PC, so even if Mass Effect was released for the PC market there?s no guarantee that it would have that option anyway. I?m sure Bioware will support this side of gaming when it eventually releases Dragon Age on the PC, anyway.
I once said in another topic that Microsoft needs some exclusive, killer apps, to make the Xbox 360 worth owning for gamers who already have a good gaming PC. The original Xbox didn’t have many must have exclusives in the end compared to the PS2 and Gamecube, but at least with games like Mass Effect it looks like 360 owners will have something to proudly call their own besides Halo 3.
And? Geoffrey said similar with how he said that NWN was definitely for the more mature PC market… But how does all this apply to Mass Effect? It’s simply a shooter/RPG (no Gehn, I somehow I assumed it was FPS/RPG, I’m not certain either now that you mention it), how would this NOT appeal to the PC Market and therefor make a perfect 360 exclusive?
Al3xand3er, you are still choosing to ignore a simple truth in how you seem to view the situation. Bioware are a working developer first and foremost. They are devolping a game for 360 because that is what they were contracted to do.
Whether it’s a better game for consoles or not is irrelevant, it’s what their publisher is paying them to do.
[quote=“Heretic Agnostic”]It has sort of a '60’s paperback Sci-Fi art style, which I can totally dig… man!
[/quote]
Totally. That’s exactly how I felt when I saw this.
Knowing Bioware, this is going to be good, and it’s a trilogy exclusive on the X360, too!
[quote=“Geoffrey Duke”]
What’s really interesting to note is that BioWare seem to be branching off with their own intellectual properties now instead of making games under established brands all the time. Ever wondered why?[/quote]
Well, other than the noted above, it is also because well, if you do your own thing you’re not bound to the D20 and your D&D Sourcebook. You get more freedom to make a game to your liking.