KoToR Remake Discussion Thread

Oh wow had no idea about this bribing thing. It doesn’t surprise me in the least though.

I wouldn’t be surprised if the whole Persona exclusivity is tied to “relationships” between some Atlus execs with Sony, Yakuza landed on Xbox the instant after the historic lead of the series was placed in another position (and now he’s exiting the company), also the lead of Street Fighter Ono was demoted after SFV failure and he was the nice person to say “if you want it, buy a PS4” (and then media say fans are toxic), so we’ll see with 6. Also the whole Square Enix exclusivity situation is related to personal ties between Sony and SE execs, I remember Ed Fries saying that during OG Xbox days Square didn’t even answer their phone calls, lol. So yes, PS remaining exclusives from Japan are directly tied to personal relationships and/or Sony usual thug tactics, there isn’t much Xbox can do outside paying an absurd sum of money or acquiring companies, if even Capcom relents RE8 marketing and no GP for who knows for how long for cheap.

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This is exactly right. I don’t remember the name of it but I watched a documentary once about how the NES went to a small European country because the owner of a toy store flew to Japan and met with people at Nintendo. Learned their custom of bringing a gift and taking them out to restaurants. When it came time to release the NES in his country they chose his toy store over much larger stores because of their relationships.

A few things have changed that will disrupt long-standing Sony relationships 1) Gamepass provides extra revenue for games 2) PC games have become mainstream and 3) Microsoft bought Bethesda for 7.5 billion. No longer will it be easy to justify games skipping Xbox or PC when such large sums of money are being paid to publishers. Sega giving Persona free exclusivity is borderline criminal when PC and Gamepass provide huge guaranteed money that far exceeds some paltry PlayStation marketing deal. Japan is aware of it’s corruption problems and CEOs and presidents are not exempt from being jailed over there. The times are changing.

Uh, do you have a source on this? Not that I think that Nagoshi is an angel, but I’d like to read more. Thanks!

https://www.reddit.com/r/GamingLeaksAndRumours/comments/lorgi7/yakuza_creator_toshihiro_nagoshi_was_removed_from/

This just shows how beyond slimy and scummy Sony is and has been since it entered the industry. From the FF and Tomb Raider deals during PSX era to now with KOTOR.

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5ch as a source? lol

Tbh KOTOR deal doesn’t seem comparable to some of the more shady shit they’ve done over the years. For one, they’re publishing the remake themselves on console, so it isn’t just a standard moneyhat like FF7R or Street Fighter 5. If the game fails, Sony will directly face the consequences of that failure financially compared to something like SF5 which did kinda bomb at launch but don’t think Sony was as affected by that. As such they’ve willingly gotten themselves into this situation and are investing money and resources outside just “ok don’t release this on Xbox for a while” although I’m sure that’s certainly a factor and definitely a middle finger to xbox owners lol.

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The thing I’d be most interested to learn is how the hell did such a massively monumental task of fully remaking a historic and loved game as freakin Knights of the Old Republic fall to… Aspyr???

Would love to know how this came about

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That nobody else wanted to do it surely.

I don’t want to sound like a dick, but this is not a reputable source at all. It actively detracts from your point when you make bold claims and back them up like this. I don’t like Sony’s methods either because they affect me negatively, but we don’t need to invent scenarios to justify our distaste.

On topic: I had a quick look at Aspyr since their name didn’t ring a bell, and it seems like they mostly did Mac ports of PC games? Does anybody know what kind of quality standard to expect here?

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I’m thinking the same way Double Helix got a chance on Killer Instinct despite their middling history. Maybe Aspyr put together a pitch so enticing and actually demonstrated a great prototype and understanding of the game’s world and how they can modernize it that Lucasfilm simply couldn’t ignore, I wouldn’t be surprised if that was enough. It was enough in Killer Instinct’s case where Ken Lobb immediately fell in love with what DH showed and that game came together in a year if not less.

It did help that Aspyr is very much knowledgeable on Star Wars given all the ports they’ve been making, they must have surely grown fond of the franchise and wanna try their hands at something more ambitious.

Use your intuition on this one. The guy was fired and Yakuza is now on Xbox. Sony is constantly getting outed on Twitter as platform X or in court cases by accidental redactions being given to the public. You’re very dismissive of this thread for some reason and keep trying to shut down people’s justifiable anger about KOTOR being a PlayStation exclusive.

Sony have been doing this since the ps2 days. The ps1 made them into this cocky arrogant company. Kutaragi was a fucking slimeball back in the day. Thr amount of shit he got away its was Unreal. Just look at the e3 ps3 conferences of 2005 and 2006. The arrogance of that guy was insane. Remember the quote about people working 2 jobs to get a ps3? Lol

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My intuition? This isn’t a murder mystery, dude. Fact is, you’re reaching really hard with that example and I called you out on it. You sound like you’ve got a massive console wars axe to grind and you’re trying to fit a square peg in a round hole.

What I said in the thread earlier is how I feel, and I’m not ashamed of it: if you’re upset because the game is important to you, then that sucks and I feel for you. I can’t stand Sony’s moneyhat nonsense, and I’ll call it out when I think it’s appropriate. In this instance, it’s lame but it’s not the end of the world as far as I’m concerned; I’m guessing that the price tag was deemed too expensive by MS and I’m glad that they decided to spend that money elsewhere because I think improving their services or giving one of their own games an extra bit of budget is a better idea.

If you disagree with that, then I’m happy to hear you out and try to put myself in your shoes, and have a rational discussion about it. I love talking about games and am totally open to having my mind changed about why this game was super important to keep from being moneyhatted above all.

But all I’ve seen are arguments about how historically significant it is, and that just isn’t substantial enough from my perspective. I think a lot of the backlash is steeped in “Sony won this round and I don’t like losing.” If you’re upset because of that then you’re too deep in the console war mindset and need a break.

I don’t like flying off the handle like this, but it pisses me off when people don’t accept responsibility for spreading misinformation or passing off unsubstantiated rumors as fact. There’s plenty of bullshit Sony’s pulled in the past without making crap up wholesale. You made a mistake and you should own it, not try to brush it aside by asking me to “use my intuition”.

Edit: Also you clearly didn’t even read that reddit thread. Nagoshi wasn’t “fired”, and if this happened December 10th 2020, that’s way after Yakuza games started being put on Xbox.

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It’s fine to want facts but in video games there are NDA contracts and high levels of secrecy. I should’ve used the word “allegedly” I suppose but for things to be fact you need Epic to spend 10s of millions of dollars suing Apple and then have the happy accident of a judge accidentally disclosing information. It’s unrealistic to expect to have proof of all of Sony’s misdeeds. Read the tea leaves. Sony is a company that gains exclusives through deceit. I’m sure of it. Also I own a PS5 by the way, I don’t hate Sony, just prefer Xbox. Every time people criticize Sony it doesn’t need to be for some Console War reason, sometimes Sony just needs to be called out on their BS. Accusing people of console waring is incredibly dismissive.

Cool, no accountability whatsoever. I don’t want to derail this thread any further so I’m going to put you on ignore, I encourage you to do the same to me.

It’s a shitty situation but I’d rather wait a year, knowing these kind of games launch unfinished anyways, let PlayStation users beta test it and get the definitive edition a year later. Compared to the other end of the coin where PlayStation users will never play a new Doom game ever again on their console, or be immersed in the world of Starfield or play the next entry from Tango Gameworks.

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I really wonder if this will be a Demon Souls style remake (huge graphic overhaul, little - if any- gameplay changes)? Or a RE2 style remake (huge graphic and gameplay changes)?

Senior Game Designer on KOTOR

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Might just be Switch… :wink: