Porting games to the new consoles

    There's nothing new about that. Sony did it with God of War collection for the PS3. Microsoft did it with Halo Anniversary and Nintendo has made porting old games an art form.


    However, lately I've seen a lot of announcements or games coming out for the new consoles that are remakes, ports, remastered, definitive editions, etc. Almost as if it's a trend. Games like: The Last of Us Remastered, Metro Redux, Master Chief Collection, Sleeping Dogs and Tomb Raider Definitive Editions, Resident Evil HD Remastered, Oddworld New 'n' Tasty, etc.


    Not that I'm against it. I've picked up The Last of Us Remastered and I'll be buying Metro Redux since it fixes the first game. Resident Evil and Oddworld are a given too. It's just that with all the sequels and franchises combined with the above it really starts to feel like the movie industry. With the indie scene I'm not crying for a lack of originality but I'm just wondering what the Core feels about, for the lack of a better word, this so called trend?

    I'm just surprised by how many studios started doing it, because it's a huge technical challenge. Especially looking at Last of Us, I was wondering how much effort it was to switch the entire game from a PS3 optimized engine to a PS4 optimized engine (completely different HW architecture).


    Now if you have a game on CryEngine, Unity or Unreal it's probably way easier, because they support different platforms "natively" and often have deployment tools in place already that make it easier. Even though, if the technical side is up and running you will still need to check if your assets still look good or if they need re-touching as well (lower resolutions often allowed for way more "cheated" content).

    One reason I suspect companies are doing this is because of the requirements and technical specs related to the new consoles. This is a great way to test the waters and see what issues might arise when developing for these new consoles.

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