Why is console still being ignored

That's the point. Depending on what you desire from a "space game", none of the contenders out there will cut it in comparison, or maybe all of them do. If your most important metric is "space", any of them will itch your scratch. My personal opinion of the alternatives usually brought up: Starfield isn't really a space game but a "space themed RPG", Star Citizen is still a mess and primarily after your money, NMS goes out of its way to keep space out of the space game, and EVE doesn't even let you sit in your cockpit.
If your priority is, as is in my case, flying a spaceship (bonus points: in VR) with a very satisfying 6dof flight model and somewhat realistic galaxy with somewhat accurate physics, none of the other "space games" out there comes even close. Maybe SC comes close as far as the cockpit experience goes, but it's still an unfinished mess with a questionable business model.
Starfield is only single-player, isn't it? Of limited lasting gameplay (I've got 21,000 hours in Elite Dangerous). The other game that is coming nearest for me "blazing my own trail" is currently Red Dead Online...
 
Starfield is only single-player, isn't it? Of limited lasting gameplay (I've got 21,000 hours in Elite Dangerous).
I don't care too much about multiplayer, so Starfield being single player isn't a real concern for me. But the gameplay is indeed limiting; although it is marketed as a game with a world to "live in" and new game+ offering some replayability, and even though there is tons of content (I missed quite a lot it my first playthrough), especially the procedural content gets old very quickly. It has some replayability (as all BGS game do) because there are multiple ways to handle most quests, but I've had enough after I spent... (looks at Steam) 213 hours in one and a bit more than half a playthrough. In my first playthrough the last 20 hours or so were a drag and I just wanted to finish it. I started a half-arsed second playthrough to see what I missed, but I didn't finish it, I had enough. That was in January, and I haven't had any interest to touch it again yet. In contrast, in the last five years spent around around 3000 hours playing Elite Dangerous (I know, childsplay compared to 21k hours; wow), and I'm itching to get back into the game (I haven't been able to play for a few months now).
The other game that is coming nearest for me "blazing my own trail" is currently Red Dead Online...
I never tried the online variant, but I love RDR2 and its world. It's brilliant. I did a few full playthroughs with 100 to 120 hours each, and I could easily start another and not get bored (even though I know the story like the back of my hand by now). Even the single player game offers a kind of "blazing your own trail" as the world is so detailed you can easily get lost in it.
 
Starfield and NMS ( spacey sort of games) are very samey after 1400+ hours in each and my play time has dropped to logging on and a quick mission every day.
Elite has gone the same ( console) but have at least 5 times the hours in game.
I think Elite spoiled it for space games, as it was the first and the others can only copy and add little bits .
The missions move stuff to this and sell or find and kill this and all these games use those, some manage with better dialogue others well ....just do.
But at the end of the day there isn't a game on console that does it better ( which is unfortunate) even after 10 years .
 
I never tried the online variant, but I love RDR2 and its world. It's brilliant. I did a few full playthroughs with 100 to 120 hours each, and I could easily start another and not get bored (even though I know the story like the back of my hand by now). Even the single player game offers a kind of "blazing your own trail" as the world is so detailed you can easily get lost in it.
Yes, there is so much to do. I haven't even tried fishing or gambling yet. In the RDR2 story version, I'm only about 12% through the story but doing loads of side-stuff. It's quite nice not being killed by other players :)
 
The major kicker here is ED isn't the only space game now and the others have console versions, yes we can play by adding more and more tech and subscriptions to the mix but why should we when we can just go to other games because fdev changed the engine (mid game) and then just said sod it and canned development?
That's fine, EVE isn't on console, is it? X4 Foundations isn't on console, is it? Star Citizen isn't on console, is it? Mind you, SC's not a great example and there has been murmurs of it being ported to console, which I could only assume would be a great excuse to delay the release for another seven years.

Ultimately, only Frontier know the underlying reasons as to why they decided to 'can' console development. My guess is that it was a cost/benefit decision at the end of the day based on multiple factors. Other space games on console are not that relevant to that decision. But there's that horse again and you've picked up the stick to beat it once again.

Tbh given that strategy it's only a matter of time before it's entirely canned 🤔
Fallacious logic on display. You must stop it with this will to power posting doom for Elite.
 
I remember when I said Starfield would be an RPG in set in space because, well, it's a Bethesda game. And people said I was completely wrong and it would totally replace ED in every way. Good times. 😄

Yeah, personally I have nothing against Starfield as a game, but the moment I saw you couldn't actually fly down to the surface and cruise across the ground that put it in the "nope" basket for me.
 
Which space games are comparable?
Several of the older Elites are comparable, I will agree no multiplayer and not in the graphics department but in a lot of cases are more complete than ED (more ships, lots to explore, no cut off sections of the galaxy etc). Unfortunately not on consoles but will run on loads of systems thanks to dosbox.

Yeah ED is a feat of exploration but the issue comes when they cut off 75% of the platforms (Mac, Xbox and PlayStation) just because they can't write for the hardware. I think that they are still selling it does the platforms an injustice as the expectations and end results may be very different.

I'm not being a doomsayer but to be honest the platforms supported has shrunk from (Mac (32 bit/64 bit), Windows (32 bit/64 bit), Xbox, Playstation to Windows (64 bit). I'm glad the game is still going but I do believe they need to do something to make interesting and appealing to more players
 
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Maybe it's me that needs to apologize, the snark you got was the snark I saw, maybe I was wrong. It was early in the morning and I hadn't drunk my coffee yet. I can assure you, I am plenty wrong plenty of times. But honestly, I wasn't being sarcastic, though I don't know where that leaves us in this conversation at this point, so I'll leave it there. o7

You're overthinking this, and how much snark was actually in my post. You may relax. :D
Lol at the multiple choice, I guess once I have relaxed (thanks for the permission!) I can pick which mood I like? I preferred the first one, but have read both so, well, sigh...
 
Yeah ED is a feat of exploration but the issue comes when they cut off 75% of the platforms (Mac, Xbox and PlayStation)

Well, that's quite wrong actually.
When ED was running on PC, XB and PS, the consoles combined were accounting for 15-25% of the player base and macs numbers were so low they got dropped really early during ED's shelf life.

So 75% of the platforms is meaningless since those platforms combined had less than 25% of the players, while maintaining the game on the said platforms apparently wasn't profitable, at least not to a level that would support future investments 🤷‍♂️

Simple as that.
If the platform cannot support the game development, the game will not be further developed on that platform.
Wait! Isn't that exactly what happened with ED on Mac, XB and PS?
 
Well, that's quite wrong actually.
When ED was running on PC, XB and PS, the consoles combined were accounting for 15-25% of the player base and macs numbers were so low they got dropped really early during ED's shelf life.

So 75% of the platforms is meaningless since those platforms combined had less than 25% of the players, while maintaining the game on the said platforms apparently wasn't profitable, at least not to a level that would support future investments 🤷‍♂️

Simple as that.
If the platform cannot support the game development, the game will not be further developed on that platform.
Wait! Isn't that exactly what happened with ED on Mac, XB and PS?
I was not stating player count but platform count we went from four platforms to one hence the 75%
 
I was not stating player count but platform count we went from four platforms to one hence the 75%

And that has relevance because? Well it doesn't does it, it's the number of players that matter, and most players play ED using PC's. So the income from developing versions of Elite for these other platforms is much less, and if that income developing for, say Xbox drops below a certain threshold of the cost of the development for said platform it becomes no longer viable to develop for said platform, so it gets dropped. So yes it's the numbers of players that matter, not the number of platforms. They dropped 75% of the platforms and only lost a maximum of 25% of the players, so a good business decision because they can now concentrate on developing for the platform that most players actually use.
 
I was not stating player count but platform count we went from four platforms to one hence the 75%
but that statement falsely implies, or at least insinuates, that this is paralleled in the player numbers. Whch it is not, as per Northpin's statement.

But the caveat is console players are nicer people .
Are you sure? At least here, and more so in the Frontier Twitch chat, a large portion the console players are very loud and often very toxic. I get that it's not exactly fun for them that their platform isn't developed anymore, but the amount of hostility and toxicity towards the developers over a game is... mindboggling.

I know a lot of gamers like to see the devs of their favorite game as their chummy buddies, but they are not. They are running a business. If a product is deemed as no longer profitable for any business, it gets shelved. I thought it was actually a decent move to not only keep the Legacy galaxy running, but giving every console player who wanted to migrate a free copy of the game. I'm no expert, maybe there are some legal obligations involved, but based on what you read on the internet how game companies shut down games pretty much nilly willy (even games way younger than ED), I'd say be glad that Frontier kept things going the way they did.
 
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Are you sure? At least here, and more so in the Frontier Twitch chat, a large portion the console players are very loud and often very toxic. I get that it's not exactly fun for them that their platform isn't developed anymore, but the amount of hostility and toxicity towards the developers over a game is... mindboggling.

I know a lot of gamers like to see the devs of their favorite game as their chummy buddies, but they are not. They are running a business. If a product is deemed as no longer profitable for any business, it gets shelved. I thought it was actually a decent move to not only keep the Legacy galaxy running, but giving every console player who wanted to migrate a free copy of the game. I'm no expert, maybe there are some legal obligations involved, but based on what you read on the internet how game companies shut down games pretty much nilly willy (even games way younger than ED), I'd say be glad that Frontier kept things going the way they did.
I believe the free game and transfer was only an afterthought after consoles were eventually told that there is no further development for consoles because of last gen.
I believe the backlash not only from consoles commanders made Fdev take another look ?
The free copy cost the company nothing and was available to PC at some stage.
I do understand that even more so now Fdev don't have the resources to update for next gen in man power , money, knowhow or even the incentive .
Business is business after all.
As to the toxicity I think all platforms are guilty at one stage or other.
But like myself it's a loud minority who won't give up just in case Fdev may have a change of heart ( i have a better chance of winning the lottery but it's still a chance ) and I rarely watch the FU nowadays as even the drops are EDO specific and I will watch a 2-3 minute you-tube to get any info of the EDO stuff ( yes I like to see the new stuff )
You've got to admit though that even after 4 years ? Consoles still want EDO that says a lot for Elite as a game.
I will say that the transfer was excellent and easy to do.
But again there was issues when it was closed down temporarily with no time to fully decommissioning the FC .( Yes some people didn't have a PC and wanted to play to the last minute so as not to lose progress) and we weren't sure if it was going to be reopened as the trust was completely lost.

I'm not sure of the legal technicalities so won't even speculate.

Legacy is still alive and some folk are just beginning their journey and I'm glad I can still play a game whose journey started with my spectrum, Amiga and Xbox albeit with a break in the middle .

And yes we still have the option to play EDO via GeoForce now if you want to pay for it.
 
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but that statement falsely implies, or at least insinuates, that this is paralleled in the player numbers. Whch it is not, as per Northpin's statement.


Are you sure? At least here, and more so in the Frontier Twitch chat, a large portion the console players are very loud and often very toxic. I get that it's not exactly fun for them that their platform isn't developed anymore, but the amount of hostility and toxicity towards the developers over a game is... mindboggling.

I know a lot of gamers like to see the devs of their favorite game as their chummy buddies, but they are not. They are running a business. If a product is deemed as no longer profitable for any business, it gets shelved. I thought it was actually a decent move to not only keep the Legacy galaxy running, but giving every console player who wanted to migrate a free copy of the game. I'm no expert, maybe there are some legal obligations involved, but based on what you read on the internet how game companies shut down games pretty much nilly willy (even games way younger than ED), I'd say be glad that Frontier kept things going the way they did.
Where do I insinuate that platform count and player count are equal, whilst I do agree that player count is more business centric surely fdev should have done the groundwork before releasing the console editions to see if they were viable. For me the main issue is when ED went to EDO and we got feet it wasn't technically viable for the Xbox1 and ps4 to run the game due to some technical issues which is why there was a outcry to continue support for the more powerful series version of Xbox and probably the ps5, we all know the outcome of this discussion though.

I still have yet to work out why adding legs stops ED running on consoles as it's not much more technical than visiting some of the ground bases in legacy, all I can summise is that the engine change caused issues in the background some of which were pointed out on YouTube years ago (not properly culling etc)..
 
The free copy cost the company nothing and was available to PC at some stage.

Well, it costs them revenues (even if it's only 5 euros for a base game copy that was given for free to each consoler that wants to transfer)

Regarding the copy profile, no - it was never available in the past. So they had to develop a new transfer method.
In the past they did offer a commander transfer, but not a copy, and that transfer only transferred the asset value of the source account. That is only credits, no unlocks, no materials, no engineers, nothing but raw credits value.
And also important, the transfer was concluded with the deletion of the source account.
Compare that with the full copy account we consolers got. It transferred basically anything game related and at the end you could still play your console account along the new transferred PC account.

IMO they really went out of their way with the profile copy.
 
Well, it costs them revenues (even if it's only 5 euros for a base game copy that was given for free to each consoler that wants to transfer)

Regarding the copy profile, no - it was never available in the past. So they had to develop a new transfer method.
In the past they did offer a commander transfer, but not a copy, and that transfer only transferred the asset value of the source account. That is only credits, no unlocks, no materials, no engineers, nothing but raw credits value.
And also important, the transfer was concluded with the deletion of the source account.
Compare that with the full copy account we consolers got. It transferred basically anything game related and at the end you could still play your console account along the new transferred PC account.

IMO they really went out of their way with the profile copy.
Don't get me wrong they went above and beyond in the transfer portal and as I have said it is ( not sure if it's still a thing ?) a smooth and easy transition . But it wasn't something they themselves initially thought of ?
Fdev were initially happy just to say "our bad" we made a mistake and can't get it to work on last gen and leave it at that, but whether it was due to online pressure ? Or legal issues? or they had just forgotten to mention it when the announcement was made? Eventually they came up with the full profile ( apart from FC) transfer ( which even I did it on the very first week ). But for me it was an afterthought or maybe a little firefighting as their rep took a big hit around that time?
 
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