News Announcement: Elite: Dangerous coming to Xbox One

[Javert]

The 4 player limit to wings was because :
1. The 4 player wing system has been used in air combat for the past 75 years and this game's flight model is based on dogfighting.
2. Any more than 4 players and it becomes easy to tank an instance. Imagine a 16 player wing rolling up to your fav station and there's no chance another wing could out man them.

and 3. They wanted to get all the relevant wing information on the HUD in a well designed way.

Also, there is nothing to stop 2 wings from working together via teamspeak or whatever to travel around. They might not get the full wings functionality, but they would still be able to get instanced together.

 

[locust2k]

Possibly not a hardware limitation, but certainly there will be a limitation with regards to the design of the user interface.

We could very easily end up playing a console designed game on a PC platform.

We already are, the signs were there from the beginning to be fair. Despite the desperate protestations here..

 

[devastat]

Come on guys, why don't you blame it on Obama already?

Next-gen consoles are not that weak. They can run games like Advanced Warfare with solid 60fps with no problem. Besides, one major advantage consoles have over PC is that games can be 100% optimized on one hardware.

 

[UniMag]

Not sure if this has been mentioned yet, but wouldn't this be the ideal game to effectively utilise 'the cloud' which could free up considerable resources which could be put into maximising the graphics output?

 

[Javert]

Nope. He didnt say that. All platforms influencing the same galaxy though!

The original statement said that the overarching story and galaxy state would be the same, and it specifically stated that all players will contribute to community goals, so that pretty much means we are all in the same galaxy.

Edward Lewis then clarified later that whether you will actually be able to fly around and be instanced with Xbox and PC players together is not yet known for sure. "It's a desirable feature and we are assessing the viability" was the quote.

We do not know whether "viability" refers to technical viability or viability in terms of what Microsoft will allow, so we have to wait until FD are ready to announce the final capability here.

 

[Kiblams]

It's certainly an interesting one, the XBone has a GPU equivalent to a radeon HD7750 in raw performance terms, I was using this GPU a month back to play ED on low/medium settings @1080. Of course console hardware is optimised so you should see better performance than equivalent PC setups.

It doesn't really matter what CPU the XBone has as this game is GPU bound, and only uses 35% even with my new faster GPU.

 

[devastat]

There is a MMO coming called The Division with PS4 being their lead platform that supports PVP in an arena with up to 100 players simultaneously.

Also, all the background simulation in Elite is still going to be on PCs.

 

[Javert]

Sadly it's now plain to see that the game has been designed around console limitations from day one, so many things that seemed a little odd now are clear why it was designed that way. As an alpha user and kickstarter of ED I don't mind saying this leaves a very bad taste in my mouth and my opinion of Frontier has taken a nosedive.

I'm not totally against a console version but it should have come in a couple of years when most/all of the PC content is in place, and possibly on both next gen machines or the most powerful one, the PS4.

It's been designed to work with consoles from day 1, rather than designed to their limitations. I'm not really clear why this is a surprise because it's been stated from day 1 that there would eventually be console versions.

Also, in a real spaceship (or aircraft) designers will work to make all possible controls at the fingertips. Whoever would use a QWERTY keyboard in 2033 to control a spaceship?

 

[Rugby39]

Aaaaaaaa......for crying out load.....There will always be a war between Xbox, PC and Ps owners.

However, at the end of the day we al got screwed by money mongering people using marketing strategies for there own selfish deeds.

Just think how much frontier will make now, when ED for Xbox comes after they already sold such a large amount of ED for PC?.......

I , for one am beyond angry but this won`t matter as Frontier is already laughing at people for a brilliant mind manipulation in Marketing strategy unless they getting organized and do what was promised from the beginning......

But hey, that just me....

 

[devastat]

How can this be such a surprise to some people? Even in the early Kickstarter videos you could see David Braber playing the tech demo with a Xbox controller.

 

[Cosmos]

I don't like the direction Frontier is going with this.

Explains why Wings are limited to 4 players only.
Explains why everything is instanced with a low player limit.
Explains the entire interface.
Explains the lack of content and missed basic features thus far, they care more about multiple platforms.

Development for PC definetly will slow down (Mac and now XBOX One...)


The Console limitaions... what question even is that?
PC has more ram, much better GPU and an much better CPU...
Sorry, but my i7 overkills the AMD CPU of XBox one by far...
Let's not even go into details when it comes to GPUs...


We are now officially limited to content/systems/gameplay etc. to whatever XBOX One can run with it's weak hardware...

This does kinda nail it. I think if Frontier had been serious about the PC games success they would have released it on steam. I read somewhere it now has over 100 million registered users.

I thought one of the reasons for the kickstarter was to avoid having to deliver a game for a publisher and I dont see how MS won't be having an influence given its releasing on the xbox. I could be being cynical here but is this just more duplicity from Braben?

 

[locust2k]

Aaaaaaaa......for crying out load.....There will always be a war between Xbox, PC and Ps owners.

However, at the end of the day we al got screwed by money mongering people using marketing strategies for there own selfish deeds.

Just think how much frontier will make now, when ED for Xbox comes after they already sold such a large amount of ED for PC?.......

I , for one am beyond angry but this won`t matter as Frontier is already laughing at people for a brilliant mind manipulation in Marketing strategy unless they getting organized and do what was promised from the beginning......

But hey, that just me....

Pretty much this. X box player's get the finished game that kickstarters paid for. Nice, very nice.

 

[devastat]

X box player's get the finished game that kickstarters paid for. Nice, very nice.

As if the Xbox players are getting it for free? I think that they will have to pay for it too, you know.

 

[Tenshi]

This does kinda nail it. I think if Frontier had been serious about the PC games success they would have released it on steam. I read somewhere it now has over 100 million registered users.

I thought one of the reasons for the kickstarter was to avoid having to deliver a game for a publisher and I dont see how MS won't be having an influence given its releasing on the xbox. I could be being cynical here but is this just more duplicity from Braben?

Also with the advent of this being released on the console we can kiss goodbye to being able to land on planets that are procedurally generated on the terrain as the console can not cope with that to begin with. So all those unexplored planets we wont be able to land on to scan the surfaces.

Timed exclusives are always a thing with the Xbox as well and I can see this creeping into Elite Dangerous as well. So all new major updates you can expect a month or two delay for all other platforms except the Xbox.

Frontier Development please give me offline solo mode now as I don't like the direction the game is going in, pvp battle arenas, console release. Nope don't like this.

 

[Robert Maynard]

And if you paid for a Lifetime Expansion Pass does it apply to the Xbox version too (and all subsequent platform versions ?)

From the Kickstarter FAQ:

Can I get a free copy if I pledged for a copy and the game is released on my preferred platform?


Yes. As long as we control the distribution channel and are able to provide a free copy. This should be fine for Linux or Mac versions of the game.

Note that we cannot guarantee at this stage that other platforms will be supported, but we intend to see what we can once the WIndows PC version is released.

Last updated: Sun, Dec 23 2012 6:57 PM +00:00

The key phrase, for me, here is "As long as we control the distribution channel and are able to provide a free copy." - if Microsoft publish the XBox One version then Frontier are probably not in control of the distribution channel. Therefore, while we may get a free Mac version, I would not expect to get a free console version. I would expect that the same principle would apply to paid for major expansions.

 

[devastat]

Also with the advent of this being released on the console we can kiss goodbye to being able to land on planets that are procedurally generated on the terrain as the console can not cope with that to begin with. So all those unexplored planets we wont be able to land on to scan the surfaces.

Have you heard of the PS4 exclusive, No Man's Sky?

 

[Michael Brookes]

You realise they're not going to change the gfx on pc. We already have support for 4k. They're not suddenly going to drop a patch and force 720 30fps on everyone.

Some of the gfx have changed from beta but that's because it was a beta. We don't know the reasons but I doubt it was "dumbing down for consoles" coz I'm pretty sure that if this is "dumbed down" my rig running the game on ultra would net 5fps on an xbox.

The dumbed down gfx is the worst, most badly thought out argument against FD releasing on xbox.

It will also help players with lower end PC's as we'll identify optimisations for the Xbox and Mac that can be brought into the PC version.

Michael

 

[CMDR Commander]

Hey, we might get a unique "Thanks for beta testing this console game, suckers!" decal. Totally worth it.

 

[Patrick_68000]

Great news ! This was expected since that Frontier is a Microsoft partner. Hundreds of thousands of new players coming into the galaxy. It was obvious, but I did not think it would be so fast. Really congratulations to David and Frontier. The longevity and the evolution of the game are assured for years to come.

 

[Robert Maynard]

Also with the advent of this being released on the console we can kiss goodbye to being able to land on planets that are procedurally generated on the terrain as the console can not cope with that to begin with. So all those unexplored planets we wont be able to land on to scan the surfaces.

Is the XBox One really below the published minimum PC hardware specification for E: D? If not then the procedural generation of terrain should be able to be handled by the console.