How easy would it be for ST...(Hypothetical)

[Siertes]

I'm not exactly well informed about the technical side of games and their development, but I've been wondering how hard it would be for ST to transfer a character from say the PS2/PC side to the XBOX360.

I think it would be kind of cool if, for a small fee, ST could convert your character data to a different platform. Of course, some material things would have to be left out of the conversion. For example, if transferring from PC to Xbox360, perhaps you would only be able to keep a max of 500K meseta and a set number of weapons, armor, units, etc...

Now I know there is a 0.0001% chance of this happening, seeing as business wise this wouldn't make much sense, so you can leave that little tidbit out of replies (Or not). Key word here is "hypothetical" so try not to take this too seriously. I just want to hear some thoughts on the subject.

[omegapirate2k]

On 2007-04-25 12:11, Siertes wrote:
Now I know there is a 0% chance of this happening


Fix'd

It would be nice and all, but don't count on it http://www.pso-world.com/images/phpbb/icons/smiles/icon_razz.gif

[adycarter]

Technically its INCREDIBLY easy.

Never going to happen though.

[Siertes]

On 2007-04-25 12:13, omegapirate2k wrote:

On 2007-04-25 12:11, Siertes wrote:
Now I know there is a 0% chance of this happening


Fix'd

It would be nice and all, but don't count on it http://www.pso-world.com/images/phpbb/icons/smiles/icon_razz.gif



How did I know this EXACT post was going to show up? I hate it when PSOW is so predictable.

[Golto]

If they have the same data format for character data on 360 and pc/ps2 then pretty easy.

[XDeviousX]

On 2007-04-25 12:27, adycarter wrote:
Technically its INCREDIBLY easy.

Never going to happen though.



Two different programing languages, they'd have to REMAKE your character, time, weapons, PA's, weapon and PA levels, PM, Board synths, store, decoration, etc. etc. etc. That is a lot of work for just 1 character, much less hundreds... If the games were compatible we'd all be on the same server. (Which is odd because you'd figure the xBox and pc versions would be on the same server...) I doubt they want to pay people to rebuild your character/s and time signitures, esp if you have 4 charaters with full equipment....

[omegapirate2k]

On 2007-04-25 12:36, Siertes wrote:

On 2007-04-25 12:13, omegapirate2k wrote:

On 2007-04-25 12:11, Siertes wrote:
Now I know there is a 0% chance of this happening


Fix'd

It would be nice and all, but don't count on it http://www.pso-world.com/images/phpbb/icons/smiles/icon_razz.gif



How did I know this EXACT post was going to show up? I hate it when PSOW is so predictable.



I predicted you'd say psow was predictable.

Only because I have special powers, like nicholas cage.

[pineapple]

On 2007-04-25 12:38, XDeviousX wrote:

On 2007-04-25 12:27, adycarter wrote:
Technically its INCREDIBLY easy.

Never going to happen though.



Two different programing languages, they'd have to REMAKE your character, time, weapons, PA's, weapon and PA levels, PM, Board synths, store, decoration, etc. etc. etc. That is a lot of work for just 1 character, much less hundreds... If the games were compatible we'd all be on the same server. (Which is odd because you'd figure the xBox and pc versions would be on the same server...) I doubt they want to pay people to rebuild your character/s and time signitures, esp if you have 4 charaters with full equipment....



Uh... no. Remember when japanese players got stuck on the 360 demo servers? The servers are the same. We're probably separated because of xbox live/microsoft. The data would be easily transferable, but I'd rather they didn't allow it unless they stripped the character of everything (in which case you might as well just start over).

[XDeviousX]

On 2007-04-25 12:56, pineapple wrote:

On 2007-04-25 12:38, XDeviousX wrote:

On 2007-04-25 12:27, adycarter wrote:
Technically its INCREDIBLY easy.

Never going to happen though.



Two different programing languages, they'd have to REMAKE your character, time, weapons, PA's, weapon and PA levels, PM, Board synths, store, decoration, etc. etc. etc. That is a lot of work for just 1 character, much less hundreds... If the games were compatible we'd all be on the same server. (Which is odd because you'd figure the xBox and pc versions would be on the same server...) I doubt they want to pay people to rebuild your character/s and time signitures, esp if you have 4 charaters with full equipment....



Uh... no. Remember when japanese players got stuck on the 360 demo servers? The servers are the same. We're probably separated because of xbox live/microsoft. The data would be easily transferable, but I'd rather they didn't allow it unless they stripped the character of everything (in which case you might as well just start over).



I shouldn't so much say two TOTALLY different languages, but there is enough of a difference that it wouldn't/couldn't be a direct transfer, plus I'm not convinced they could easily copy all of your game info over to the 360 format or not. I really don't think a transfer onto the 360 would be as easy as people think. It's a lot easier to update a character with an expansion/global patch then to isolate specific accounts, and do every conversion needed, then transfer the info. there are differences in PSU on Xbox and ps2/pc, voice chat, and other small factors. Then there is the hacked money factor...

[PMB960]

There would be no reason to write this game in two different languages since 360s are using a Windows based OS. This was done to make code easily portable between PC/360 so with no effort you can release games on both and make more money although most games need to be down/upgraded so they can run on the other platform at an acceptable framerate. MS probably forced Sega to keep them separate since Windows is far to easy to hack and MS didn't want people using it to hijack XBL accounts among other things.

[XDeviousX]

On 2007-04-25 13:31, PMB960 wrote:
There would be no reason to write this game in two different languages since 360s are using a Windows based OS. This was done to make code easily portable between PC/360 so with no effort you can release games on both and make more money although most games need to be down/upgraded so they can run on the other platform at an acceptable framerate. MS probably forced Sega to keep them separate since Windows is far to easy to hack and MS didn't want people using it to hijack XBL accounts among other things.



Probably a better way to explain my post. I'm tired as I work late and don't sleep until my girlfiend works (At 4) but the basics of the game are the same, but I do believe they are modified for the 360 for security and performance reasons...

[A2K]

The client software is coded differently/ported various ways, yes.

But what matters here, the server software, appears to be mostly identical, at least from my standpoint as an end user. The main difference, essentially, is that the Xbox 360 version uses Xbox Live data as your "sign-in", while the PS2 and PC versions require you to use your Playsega.com info. There are also a few more differences in the way it handles player data (hooks for Xbox Live stuff, voice chat, etc.) but it's definitely something that they could make happen, if they chose to. (But they won't ever choose to.)

[adycarter]

Besides, just because the client end is different (or slightly different as the APIs etc are different) doesn't mean the DB is.

[Rashiid]

if they were possible, theyd just merge the servers....

[HUnewearl_Meira]

On 2007-04-25 13:27, XDeviousX wrote:
I shouldn't so much say two TOTALLY different languages, but there is enough of a difference that it wouldn't/couldn't be a direct transfer, plus I'm not convinced they could easily copy all of your game info over to the 360 format or not. I really don't think a transfer onto the 360 would be as easy as people think. It's a lot easier to update a character with an expansion/global patch then to isolate specific accounts, and do every conversion needed, then transfer the info. there are differences in PSU on Xbox and ps2/pc, voice chat, and other small factors. Then there is the hacked money factor...



All three versions of the game (PC, PS2 and Xbox 360) are probably written in C#, actually. The difference between the code for the PS2 and for the PC is probably more drastic than the difference between the code for the PC and Xbox 360. The Xbox 360 uses the same DirectX calls that Windows does, and the differences between the main code of a PC game and Xbox 360 game may be as small as a few preprocessor commands. Overall, I'd suggest that the biggest differences come in the game's wrapper, as a PC game is placed over the top of a desktop, and a game on a console takes over the user interface almost entirely.

All things considered, a character on the Xbox 360 and a character on PC/PS2 have all the same data. The only technical difficulty I see in it, is that you'd have to supply the account info for the account you're trying to transfer the character to. Regardless of how the character data is stored, it would be a straight conversion algorithm translating from one form of delimitation to another; this isn't a complicated data structure developed by two different companies with very different design groups with varying goals in mind. Translating data from say, one CAD program to another can be tricky because one program may treat a line as a complex mathematical object and another as simply a vector drawn between two points. Character data is not like this.

So technically, it's quite possible. Fiscally, there's probably no incentive one way or another. What complicates the matter, is that the Xbox 360 servers are maintained by Microsoft, not Sonic Team. Sonic Team supplies the content, but Microsoft is the party responsible for the servers and the data on them. Sonic Team may very well not have access to the Xbox 360 character data at all.

[A2K]

On 2007-04-25 14:28, HUnewearl_Meira wrote:
So technically, it's quite possible. Fiscally, there's probably no incentive one way or another. What complicates the matter, is that the Xbox 360 servers are maintained by Microsoft, not Sonic Team. Sonic Team supplies the content, but Microsoft is the party responsible for the servers and the data on them. Sonic Team may very well not have access to the Xbox 360 character data at all.

I actually don't think this is the case for Phantasy Star Universe at all. The Xbox 360 servers go down for maintenance the exact same time as the PC/PS2 ones, and when they do eventually go up it's the official site that tells us this is the case. It's Sega keeping us apprised of all this, not Microsoft.

The only difference is that it's Xbox Live data that's being used as a "sign-in" to Sega's servers rather than PlaySega.com things.

That said, that might have been the case for PSO Episode I & II on Xbox. Or not. Sega and Microsoft always seemed to avoid giving us a straight answer on the matter then...

[Parn]

The 360 version is almost a direct port of the PC version, all the way up to the same exact bug that causes lens flares to stop working if you switch planets. Heh...

For the record though, do we truly know that the servers for PSU are maintained by Microsoft? From what I understood, the 360 demo is hosted on an apparent "World 3" of the Japanese PSU network. There was an incident where some server error occured and some JP players got their character stuck on what was basically the 360 demo when they selected My Room.

[physic]

its highly likely its totally possible an easy. Language has little to do with anything when i saved over my old psu jp client with my NA psu client, it didnt delete my jp data, and i was able to use my old saves for offline

[Sinue_v2]

Personally, I wouldn't really care if they allowed the transfer of characters betwween PS2/PC and X360. What I would like though, is to be able to access the PS2/PC servers from my 360 and 360 version of the game. Like if it gave you the choice of which servers you wanted to access when you started up. Character data would still be seperate - as well as the non-implimentation of Xbox Live featuers. (Although since you'd still technically be logged into Live - you could chat with people through the dashboard and make your own soundtracks)

The only catch would be, they'd have to find a way to tie your PlaySega account to your Xbox Live GamerTag or else you'd be paying $20 a month to access both servers.

[Golto]

Remember a byte is a byte and a bit is a bit. Since it only stores data the only change would be account info. If they programmed it well they would leave enough space for the account data for either side, thus having the same exact player character data size wise.

[PMB960]

[b]On 2007-04-25 14:28, HUnewearl_Meira

All three versions of the game (PC, PS2 and Xbox 360) are probably written in C#, actually. The difference between the code for the PS2 and for the PC is probably more drastic than the difference between the code for the PC and Xbox 360. The Xbox 360 uses the same DirectX calls that Windows does, and the differences between the main code of a PC game and Xbox 360 game may be as small as a few preprocessor commands. Overall, I'd suggest that the biggest differences come in the game's wrapper, as a PC game is placed over the top of a desktop, and a game on a console takes over the user interface almost entirely.



Actually those differences probably aren't even there between the 360 and PC versions. Computer programmer are very lazy its easier to just comment out your code. If there are any small differences they are probably in the code on both versions. Many games acually leave in code for stuff that they couldn't finish in the time frame or whatever. In PSU there are a couple options in the config file for stuff such as turing off wordwrap that don't work, they probably left the code in there in case they wanted to actually enable any of it with an update later. Of course leaving in extra code that still actually works is a bad idea ... *cough* Vice City *cough*

[lostinseganet]

well they made FF11 pc gamers work with xbox360 so it is not impossible. live for 360 is not closed off like the orginal xbox was.

[PMB960]

FF11 probably had to use strict security measures as dictated by MS though. Console games have to pass through a sort of inspection by the company that creates the console before they are released. Instead of making sure the game meets all the requirements to link the servers Sega probably cheaped out and just kept them unlinked so they wouldn't have to put in extra time and effort.

[Reipard]

It would be incredibly easy. Heck, the servers might even pull from the same database...or even the same table for that matter.

Not that they'd do it; or maybe they would? Eh, who knows? It'd be a nice service to have if they were to offer it, I agree.

[McLaughlin]

I'm pretty sure the Xbox 360 servers are maintained by Sega, not Microsoft. We go down, and come up, from maintenance at the same time. We get patches later because they need to be approved by Microsoft.

I think one of the main reasons we aren't linked is because Microsoft, being familiar with its own OS, figured PC players would hack the game and potentially our Gamertags, where all our billing info is. This would be bad.

Also, the way we sign in is different. I think in part, Sega was just too lazy to figure out a way to link our Gamertags to their Playsega accounts. They'd also have to handle all our Live features on their servers.

[amtalx]

The people that are basing this off of the coding and architecture of the PS2/PC or 360 platform are looking at it the wrong way. Transferring saves has nothing to do with code OR architecture. Here's a different view:

Your character that loads in game is just a file that you're accessing on STs server. Nothing more. Its just like a JPEG that you see on a website. Now, if you look at that JPEG on a Mac, Linux, or Windows based PC will it look different? Nope. Can you edit that JPEG with all of those platforms and have it appear the same on all as well? Yep. Look at it that way. A JPEG is a JPEG on any system. Similarly, a PSU save is a PSU save regardless of the platform. Granted, this is all assuming that the PSU save format is standard across PS2/PC and 360. If that is true, all they would have to do is move your save to another server, or just give you access to your save from whatever your alternate server would be.

[Sekani]

If Microsoft ran our servers, we wouldn't be paying $10 a month for our Guardians License; the blanket Xbox Live Gold charge covers all the servers the Microsoft controls. Just my theory though, you know how companies love to charge you for everything and then some. I think the difference is that Microsoft has some kind of crazy approval process for most console-specific patches, which is why our version gets most bug fixes later than the PC and PS2.

And as others have said, even though the clients are slightly different, the character data should be nearly identical across all versions, and thus easily transferrable. From a technical standpoint. No chance in hell it'll actually happen though.

[PMB960]

On 2007-04-26 06:10, Sekani wrote:
If Microsoft ran our servers, we wouldn't be paying $10 a month for our Guardians License; the blanket Xbox Live Gold charge covers all the servers the Microsoft controls. Just my theory though, you know how companies love to charge you for everything and then some. I think the difference is that Microsoft has some kind of crazy approval process for most console-specific patches, which is why our version gets most bug fixes later than the PC and PS2.



All consoles have crazy approval processes to just get the game on the conesole. Anything you want to put on a console from a full blown game to a small XBL download game has to go through it. All games have to meet company requirements like allowing for specific features, size restrictions and who knows what else.

[Zarbolord]

If ever this did happen it would be for JP servers only. They have practically no interest in US, even less in EU and Australia so I doubt it would ever happen.

[amtalx]

MS is particularly strict about certifications and whatnot though. Getting drivers or anything really MS certified is pain (which is why you always get that warning that new drivers aren't MS approved.)

[Reipard]

The people that are basing this off of the coding and architecture of the PS2/PC or 360 platform are looking at it the wrong way. Transferring saves has nothing to do with code OR architecture. Here's a different view:

Your character that loads in game is just a file that you're accessing on STs server. Nothing more. Its just like a JPEG that you see on a website. Now, if you look at that JPEG on a Mac, Linux, or Windows based PC will it look different? Nope. Can you edit that JPEG with all of those platforms and have it appear the same on all as well? Yep. Look at it that way. A JPEG is a JPEG on any system. Similarly, a PSU save is a PSU save regardless of the platform. Granted, this is all assuming that the PSU save format is standard across PS2/PC and 360. If that is true, all they would have to do is move your save to another server, or just give you access to your save from whatever your alternate server would be.

I doubt they do anything even THAT grandiose. After all, unlike the PSOs of old, they don't save character data client side. Your character is most likely a random record in a database table.



<font size=-1>[ This Message was edited by: Reipard on 2007-04-26 10:20 ]</font>

[Zantra]

On 2007-04-25 12:11, Siertes wrote:
I'm not exactly well informed about the technical side of games and their development, but I've been wondering how hard it would be for ST to transfer a character from say the PS2/PC side to the XBOX360.

I think it would be kind of cool if, for a small fee, ST could convert your character data to a different platform. Of course, some material things would have to be left out of the conversion. For example, if transferring from PC to Xbox360, perhaps you would only be able to keep a max of 500K meseta and a set number of weapons, armor, units, etc...

Now I know there is a 0.0001% chance of this happening, seeing as business wise this wouldn't make much sense, so you can leave that little tidbit out of replies (Or not). Key word here is "hypothetical" so try not to take this too seriously. I just want to hear some thoughts on the subject.



This is about as likely as...

Microsoft, Sony, Nintendo, and Sega joining together to make the "Xstation Wiicast 360".

PSO Episode #5.

Flying pigs.

"True Fantasy Live Online" coming out on a new system, Xbox 360, or Playstation 3.