Elite on Console is dead - so why are FDev delaying Odyssey improvements for it?

[CMDR Karrde Sun]

Going through the motions? That's about right for everything they do?

I had a long ago ps4 account.. would have been so good if they implemented psvr on ps5 like no mans sky did on ps4.. but just a thought.

 

[Hooplah]

After decades of waiting Elite IV, er Elite Dangerous, was finally released.
Maybe they are secretly working on Elite V and start it all over again.

 

[Banana's_Are_Good_For_You]

Doom till it happens...
Sigh.

 

[StuartGT]

There may be some functionality issues right now, but as I believe, the PC release is currently live to give FDev time to work these things out for consoles. There is no possible way senior leadership did not know Odyssey was not in a full release state when they released it. Investor pressure or not, can anyone conclusively declare that there was no possible way for FDev to delay the release because of investor declarations?

FDev certainly had a way.

Any change to a product that can affect stock price must be announced to investors asap, e.g. via London Stock Exchange RNS, which FDev can do practically whenever they want.

FDev could have sensibly decided to label Odyssey as Early Access, announced it to us in the community, distributed press releases, and inform LSE. Job done.

If this was done prior to Odyssey's release, e.g. at the end of Alpha, I'm reasonably confident that the community's reception to Odyssey's (Early Access) launch would have been vastly more positive for obvious Early Access reasons. Steam reviews wouldn't be massively negative.

Some refunds for pre-orders would have been justified - "I didn't pre-order an Early Access, I'll refund and wait for full launch later in the year" - but that doesn't matter in the bigger picture. Simply give the refunds prior to Early Access launch happening.

The stock price would have dropped a bit (down 5%?) due to reduced FY2021 earnings, but nothing like what's actually happened now (tanked 30%) as projected earnings for FY2022 would be subsequently raised.

 

[[Cancelled Consoleer] boppa_]

There may be some functionality issues right now, but as I believe, the PC release is currently live to give FDev time to work these things out for consoles. There is no possible way senior leadership did not know Odyssey was not in a full release state when they released it. Investor pressure or not, can anyone conclusively declare that there was no possible way for FDev to delay the release because of investor declarations? And yes, I strongly believe console is their future platform of choice. I believe FDev see the console market as a massive source of revenue,

(Images of ED scraped from BlackMaze UI comparison video)

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XBox Seriese whatever

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Tile based design hasn't been a Windows feature since 2015, but is still currently a console design feature... every console out right now uses this as their primary UI design... so, how is this not tailored for the current design trend in consoles?

Please re-read the OP

 

[[Cancelled Consoleer] boppa_]

No, they did not confirmed that.

They only said that Odyssey is aimed/confirmed at/for XB1/PS4... that does not exclude PS5/XB Series

And there was no speculation except in your mind.
Their stance was and still is Currently there are no plans to...

To be more specific, that was what was actually posted...

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So... Please explain your interpretation of what no plans means?

 

[[Cancelled Consoleer] boppa_]

To add my tuppence worth.

Grand Tourismo 7 and God of War sequel are coming out on last gen consoles, rather than being PS5 exclusives, much to the disappointment of many

So Frontier not focussing on the new consoles at this time is nothing to worry about.

If there is to be a graphics upgrade patch say for PS5, i would not expect it till the PS5 and new xbox are well established in two years 2.
There are after all only about 8 million PS5s in the publics hands compared to a quoted 114 million PS4s

Both of the games you mention will run natively on PS5, with all of the advantages that brings. Elite on PS5 is a blurry, unstable low Res affair. It will not survive 2 years in that state.

 

[stormyuk]

So... Please explain your interpretation of what no plans means?

Source: https://giphy.com/gifs/cute-cooking-make-FCzMUL20U7LkA

It's pretty clear in my opinion much like VR it isn't happening.

 

[vanFace]

My take on the current situation is that the following happened: Odyssey was initially planned just as what it was announced to be - the next step for ED.

Of course the supported consoles where always in this plan, just as it should be. The porting to next-gen was certainly a risk even back then, so there was no promise at first (we all know how FDev's communication policy worked back then).

Then, Odyssey development and release reality hit them hard. What we have now is actually 2 games, and to my surprise it was even hinted at that there are 2 "servers" continuously syncing the 2 galaxies. Which probably costs them double in maintenance. And splits the player base even more.

So now they are between a rock and a hard place. They absolutely must bring it to console, because otherwise they can't do the merger, and would have to run the 2 "servers" with all the problems going forward. All this knowing that whatever they bring to console, they will receive a ton of a backlash for the unavoidable bad performance it will have. And here I'm not talking about people buying the expansion (because I think there won't be much on console, anyway), but about the already established players that are happy with EDH and want to stick with it. I'm pretty sure that FDev knows very well that with the merger those people will be extremely unhappy, because it will - rightly so - be viewed as a forced downgrade.

I believe the best way for FDev to solve this problem is to bite the bullet and polish Odyssey as much as possible, improve the ship performance of the merger client as much as possible, then give Odyssey away for free at merger launch (which is also console launch), perhaps giving some goodies to Odyssey buyers on PC. This will keep people somewhat calmed down, not destroy the company's PR image, and enable them to gracefully shut down the project "Elite: Dangerous" without sinking costs into double maintenance and/or lawsuits.

Whatever it is, I think in the end Odyssey is not the next step, but the last chapter of ED.

 

[Northpin]

So... Please explain your interpretation of what no plans means?

That's the No comment version. It's a safeguard.
It's obvious that given the current status of EDO their priority is to sort out the Autumn release on Consoles.
IF they manage to do that in time (hehe, joking of course) we might get a native version in autumn. If not, next year.

But they simply cannot announce and commit to a specific date. Hence... currently no plans.

However, Zac didn't even said that... He only said Confirmed platforms are still PS4 and Xbox One

Which actually gives me hope that confirmation for PS5/SeriesX might happen at a later date...

 

[Rebel Yell]

I'd say: enjoy the [old] game until Odyssey is being released...

 

[Konan]

Indeed it's a very strange state of affairs.

If it really isn't worth the financial investment why are they even continuing to invest even in the old generation of consoles? Might as well invest the time in making the PC version the best it can be.

I thought FDev wanted to grow the player base with the introduction of Odyssey? That's what was put over in the developer diaries.

With the new consoles selling like hot cakes and both PS5 and XSX unable to meet the demand it would to me be a perfect time to reinvigorate the console platform.

Clearly this isn't really what FDev appear to want to do.

I doubt I'll personally be buying EDO for PlayStation because the current 1080p backwards compatible version running on PS5 doesn't look great and unfortunately is less stable than it was on my PS4 Pro.

A real shame to be honest.

I don't know what you're talking about. ED looks great on my PS5 and runs smooth as butter. No, it's not photo realistic maybe as the new tech seems to be for PC.....but it still looks as great as it was when I first cranked this game up.

 

[Northpin]

I don't know what you're talking about. ED looks great on my PS5 and runs smooth as butter. No, it's not photo realistic maybe as the new tech seems to be for PC.....but it still looks as great as it was when I first cranked this game up.

Most complains from PS5 crowd were related to lack of 4k
And obviously the ignorant claims like: XB Series runs ED in 4k, why they dont enable 4k for PS5 too? It should be trivial, but they chose to ignore PS (*)

*(which has deeper roots that we should not get into, tbh)

 

[[Cancelled Consoleer] boppa_]

I don't know what you're talking about. ED looks great on my PS5 and runs smooth as butter. No, it's not photo realistic maybe as the new tech seems to be for PC.....but it still looks as great as it was when I first cranked this game up.

The view out of a dirty window is fine, until it's cleaned and you realise how bad it was. The fidelity of 4K Vs the 1080p version of the game is a night and day difference. Add to the the "Quality" Display settings being broken (missing/flickering shadows as an example) and what you have is a blurry, stuttering mess that doesn't live up to current standards.

 

[[Cancelled Consoleer] boppa_]

That's the No comment version. It's a safeguard.
It's obvious that given the current status of EDO their priority is to sort out the Autumn release on Consoles.
IF they manage to do that in time (hehe, joking of course) we might get a native version in autumn. If not, next year.

But they simply cannot announce and commit to a specific date. Hence... currently no plans.

However, Zac didn't even said that... He only said Confirmed platforms are still PS4 and Xbox One

Which actually gives me hope that confirmation for PS5/SeriesX might happen at a later date...

Don't Stop Believin'

 

[Viajero]

... and to my surprise it was even hinted at that there are 2 "servers" continuously syncing the 2 galaxies. Which probably costs them double in maintenance.

If memory serves Dav Stott stated in his latest recent appearance in stream this not to be the case.

 

[Northpin]

Don't Stop Believin'

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Well, i'm not.
But i'd rather have a lack of confirmation now, than a confirmation for 2023...

You seem to prefer the later.

 

[maboleth]

Incompetence, lack of any vision, wasted funds and time are all common for Fdev regarding ED.

Like, what did you expect? This company's logo should say "Frontier: Overpromise Underdeliver"

 

[Amy Pendergast]

If memory serves Dav Stot stated in his latest recent appearance in stream this not to be the case.

I just know the info from DBs second post. There he stated explicits that it's two servers now as the reason for the problem with the fleet carriers.
Add to that that there is still no ingame coms between Horizon and Odyssey (please correct if wrong) i would bet it's still the case.

 

[Urbanski101]

Wow...FD have really boxed themselves into a corner.

Horrendous Odyssey launch on PC, no VR support for Odyssey, no next gen console plans for Odyssey. I know some of this has been announced a while ago but the confirmation of these facts does not paint a rosy picture.

I'm not suggesting DOOOOM, but right now it wouldn't surprise me if FD decide to pull the plug on ED. Optimise Odyssey, fix the bugs, release on last gen consoles and release whatever additional content they had planned and then leave it on 'end of life' maintenance mode until the community stop playing. Probably adds up to 1 more year of active dev support for ED.

They have more valuable franchises that are far less complex to develop, JWE and JWE2, Planet Zoo and in 2023, F1 and a Warhammer game. Purely from a finance and resource point of view, I'd seriously question the long term position of ED.

Just conjecture and I hope I'm wrong...