Elder Scrolls IV Oblivion: the balancing act across all platforms (except for the Wii)

No, the balancing act isn’t an expansion. Read on…

 

Bethesda‘s Peter Hines talks to GameIndustry.biz about the balancing act that is The Elder Scrolls IV: Oblivion – from the PC ,the Xbox 360, the PS3, and even Elder Scrolls Travels for the PSP.

The PC and PS3 posed their own challenges. Peter describes the PC as a powerful platform, but “totally undefined” in terms of the hardware that goes inside. For the PS3, it’s an entirely new ballgame, very powerful but obviously works in a different way from the Xbox 360 (and the PC, for that matter). While the PC programmers took advantage of the Xbox 360 experience to optimize the game there, the PS3 team had the help of experienced Sony platform programmers to optimize Oblivion for the PS3.

Speaking of Sony platforms, says Hines: release date for PSP Oblivion is still TBC (or TBA, if you’re more familiar with that acronym). Since it’s a game on a different kind of platform, “It basically uses nothing from Oblivion, it’s a completely new game.”

In response to GI’s curiosity – why did Ubisoft publish the PS3 Oblivion and not Take-Two Interactive, Peter Hines “really can’t say. Too much backroom stuff” (Hmm… very intriguing. Very intriguing indeed).

Oh, and if anyone’s still asking about a Wii Oblivion, Hines must sadly decline.

It’s something we’d like to do, but unfortunately it’s not a very good fit with Oblivion. Oblivion is a very demanding game hardware-wise and in terms of graphics processing and raw horsepower. It’s not something the Wii was designed to do. They decided not to make the focus on raw horsepower but on interface and so forth.

It’s a great console and many of us at Bethesda have one but I know that bringing Oblivion over is not possible – we’d have to do a whole new game.

Guess we can’t count on a similar DS Oblivion either.

No, the balancing act isn’t an expansion. Read on…

 

Bethesda‘s Peter Hines talks to GameIndustry.biz about the balancing act that is The Elder Scrolls IV: Oblivion – from the PC ,the Xbox 360, the PS3, and even Elder Scrolls Travels for the PSP.

The PC and PS3 posed their own challenges. Peter describes the PC as a powerful platform, but “totally undefined” in terms of the hardware that goes inside. For the PS3, it’s an entirely new ballgame, very powerful but obviously works in a different way from the Xbox 360 (and the PC, for that matter). While the PC programmers took advantage of the Xbox 360 experience to optimize the game there, the PS3 team had the help of experienced Sony platform programmers to optimize Oblivion for the PS3.

Speaking of Sony platforms, says Hines: release date for PSP Oblivion is still TBC (or TBA, if you’re more familiar with that acronym). Since it’s a game on a different kind of platform, “It basically uses nothing from Oblivion, it’s a completely new game.”

In response to GI’s curiosity – why did Ubisoft publish the PS3 Oblivion and not Take-Two Interactive, Peter Hines “really can’t say. Too much backroom stuff” (Hmm… very intriguing. Very intriguing indeed).

Oh, and if anyone’s still asking about a Wii Oblivion, Hines must sadly decline.

It’s something we’d like to do, but unfortunately it’s not a very good fit with Oblivion. Oblivion is a very demanding game hardware-wise and in terms of graphics processing and raw horsepower. It’s not something the Wii was designed to do. They decided not to make the focus on raw horsepower but on interface and so forth.

It’s a great console and many of us at Bethesda have one but I know that bringing Oblivion over is not possible – we’d have to do a whole new game.

Guess we can’t count on a similar DS Oblivion either.