Request to Resume Console Support for Elite Dangerous

[Cmdr Rockhem]

Greetings Frontier team,

I wanted to write to share my experience and feelings as a player of Elite Dangerous. I started playing not long ago on console, and despite the discontinuation of support for this platform, I managed to reach the highest levels in exploration, trading, and combat. However, this achievement is tinged with bitterness because I no longer have access to new content, and even the galactic news is missing.

I feel abandoned. At first, I was frustrated and, like many of my friends, I left the game to move on to something else. But recently, I rediscovered Elite Dangerous and realized how extraordinary this game is. I don't know what happened between the managers at Frontier and those of the various consoles, but I hope it's not over.

There must be a term in psychology to describe what I feel: nostalgia or denial? In any case, the enthusiasm and bitterness are present. It's a bit like being dumped by your girlfriend and seeing her succeed in life with someone else. Except… that I was not in love and I'm not sure things are really better for her.

I am here as a fan of Elite Dangerous to express, on behalf of all enthusiasts, how much we would like the negotiations to support consoles to resume. Your game has brought us a lot of pleasure and adventure, and we hope to continue enjoying it fully.

Elite Dangerous has created a passionate and dedicated community, and it would be a shame to lose this part of your player base. We understand that technical and commercial challenges may exist, but we firmly believe that finding a solution to restore console support would be beneficial for everyone. We hope you can reconsider this decision and work towards a solution that will allow all players to continue exploring the wonders of the universe you have created.

With all my gratitude,

Sylvain Rochette (Cmdr Rockhem)

 

[CMDR Daiyus]

Kudos for the well written post. Unfortunately, that ship has sailed, sunk, been recovered, refitted and sailed again.

It's frustrating, I get it, I used to be console player too. Having moved to PC's I can also understand why many console players would rather not, although if you're really enjoying Elite I'd say it's worth the jump.

Alas, I feel you may be screaming into the void at this point. I'm not trying to be harsh with this response, merely trying to temper expectations.

 

[Webbwulf]

Ps5 can definitely handle it but it would be different coding. Don't listen to the superior PC players that don't understand that gaming started need tons of updates once they became a more popular choice over console. Console gamer for 30 years go ahead agree with ya no talent PC players

 

[Helmut Grokenberger]

Console gamer for 30 years go ahead agree with ya no talent PC players

Very cute. You do realize that, at this point, consoles are glorified subsidized PCs just with a very restricted ecosystem and the license to milk its customers dry, right? I mean, the Xbox in essence runs on Windows, and the other one on FreeBSD.

 

[Webbwulf]

Didn't know about freebsd my post was more about random PC players saying switch to pc, consoles can't this or that. It's not as bad as it was but I'm pretty fed up with the supposed master PC race

 

[PilotB]

Didn't know about freebsd my post was more about random PC players saying switch to pc, consoles can't this or that. It's not as bad as it was but I'm pretty fed up with the supposed master PC race

You're just salty that it's true. You can game on a restricted system but Odyssey performs badly on PCs and the devs are slow at dealing with issues with 1 platform. You don't want this game on console as much as we don't want the console UI in this game.

 

[Helmut Grokenberger]

Well some PC players on the internet are very arrogant, but it's true. Consoles can only do a fraction of what PCs can do. The tradeoff is that the variety of PCs makes anything, and more so gaming, much more unpredictable and more difficult to fix when something doesn't work.

From a game developers perspective Consoles also bring the added baggage of having to deal and comply with Microsoft and Sony. There is no public information on this, but I wouldn't be surprised that, between legal and contractual arrangements on what they can and cannot do and the issue of obviously being either determined or obligated to get Odyssey to run on the last generation and failing at that, it was just too much of a headache and not profitable to keep that development branch alive.

 

[Helmut Grokenberger]

Odyssey performs badly on PC

That too. It's kind of fine now, but at release, it ran like ass even on high end systems WAY ahead of what consoles can deliver in terms of performance.

 

[PilotB]

That too. It's kind of fine now,

Performance took a hit recently so it's not all smooth sailing. I had to make some rather significant graphics settings reductions to get the game back to smooth with trailblazers. They can make things work eventually but progress is usually slow and more platforms isn't just twice the work.

 

[Helmut Grokenberger]

Performance took a hit recently so it's not all smooth sailing. I had to make some rather significant graphics settings reductions to get the game back to smooth with trailblazers. They can make things work eventually but progress is usually slow and more platforms isn't just twice the work.

I didn't really notice a decline recently. I did notice that, as a VR player, Odyssey was completely unplayable at release. I think it started to become playable in VR with update 8 or so, which was when I started playing Odyssey, it's made some steady progress after that, and has been sort of stable for me for quite a while now.

 

[Webbwulf]

You're just salty that it's true. You can game on a restricted system but Odyssey performs badly on PCs and the devs are slow at dealing with issues with 1 platform. You don't want this game on console as much as we don't want the console UI in this game.

Thanks for proving my point are you are shark in the water or just lunch cold cut.

 

[DjVortex]

What makes this extra frustrating is that all the other Frontier games currently being supported and developed have active up-to-date console ports. Elite Dangerous is the only exception. So it's not like Frontier as a company has dropped console support and is developing for PC only. They have only one game that's still being supported and developed that nevertheless has no console port.

Perhaps the reasons are financial: Perhaps ED doesn't sell well enough on the consoles to justify the enormous cut that Sony and Microsoft take from each sale and each ARX purchase, plus all the other restrictions that they put on games.

 

[Webbwulf]

Well some PC players on the internet are very arrogant, but it's true. Consoles can only do a fraction of what PCs can do. The tradeoff is that the variety of PCs makes anything, and more so gaming, much more unpredictable and more difficult to fix when something doesn't work.

From a game developers perspective Consoles also bring the added baggage of having to deal and comply with Microsoft and Sony. There is no public information on this, but I wouldn't be surprised that, between legal and contractual arrangements on what they can and cannot do and the issue of obviously being either determined or obligated to get Odyssey to run on the last generation and failing at that, it was just too much of a headache and not profitable to keep that development branch alive.

I understand what your saying that consoles can't have added programs its a fixed in place PC so to speak. The condor cluster proved that consoles can have more efficient computing power than a standard pc. I do understand the loops to jump through for each console make it take more time and cost more. I guess at least some get to enjoy the game

 

[amigacooke]

They have only one game that's still being supported and developed that nevertheless has no console port..

It has a console version, just a moribund one.

 

[Webbwulf]

What makes this extra frustrating is that all the other Frontier games currently being supported and developed have active up-to-date console ports. Elite Dangerous is the only exception. So it's not like Frontier as a company has dropped console support and is developing for PC only. They have only one game that's still being supported and developed that nevertheless has no console port.

Perhaps the reasons are financial: Perhaps ED doesn't sell well enough on the consoles to justify the enormous cut that Sony and Microsoft take from each sale and each ARX purchase, plus all the other restrictions that they put on games.

Yeah your probably right kinda wish they monetized the game better if the was the case. More cosmetics more shipp components or something to help with the cost. I don't like microtransactions but if it keeps the game afloat I don't mind is adding pockets