Possibility of HBS BT Coming To Consoles?

[GRUD]

I noticed a few weeks back that the HBS "Shadowrun Trilogy" is coming to Consoles on 21 June.

"on Nintendo Switch, Xbox One, Xbox Series X|S, PlayStation 4, and PlayStation 5"!! 

For those unaware, the "Shadowrun Trilogy" were also made by HBS, the same company that made the BT game. So now I'M wondering, will they be porting their BT game to Consoles as well?     While I backed the KS for it, and I've been playing it (via GOG) since shortly after it was released, I know I'd buy it AGAIN, for the Series X, IF they were to port it over.   


Still pondering getting the SR Trilogy for the Series X (despite having the 3 from GOG on the PC), but I REALLY want a Physical Copy, and I've yet to see any evidence of it being offered.     Yes, I can get the Digital version, but again I Prefer Physical Copy.

[Rebel Yell]

HBS stopped development and hasn't looked back, unfortunately, so the chance of them doing anything else with the game is a big fat zero.

[MarauderD]

HBS stopped development and hasn't looked back, unfortunately, so the chance of them doing anything else with the game is a big fat zero.

Agreed, nearly 0.  After turning out one of the best BattleTech games ever, in my mind, they were bought up by Paradox and now are running radio silence, developing some game for the last two years that hasn't ever been formally announced.   

[rjhancock]

HBS stopped development and hasn't looked back, unfortunately, so the chance of them doing anything else with the game is a big fat zero.

Which is a shame given how it does run on M1 Mac's but modding is almost impossible on it it seems (was not able to get any mods to load).

[pheonixstorm]

Usually game ports are NOT handled by the same company that developed the product.

Look at the Civ 6 store page on Steam. Both the Mac and Linux version were released by Aspyr. So any ports for the various Paradox games are probably done by an in-house team or farmed out to a company like Aspyr.

[rjhancock]

Based on my history with Aspyr, they'll drop support just before they release the game then a few years later disavow all knowledge of it.

[GRUD]

HBS stopped development and hasn't looked back, unfortunately, so the chance of them doing anything else with the game is a big fat zero.

Then Who ported over the SR trilogy to Consoles?     They'd stopped messing with SR before they started work on the BT game, and haven't done anything "New" for any of the SR games since they started on the BT game.

[PyreLight]

The Shadowrun console ports were handled by an external company, not HBS. Maybe there's hope? Not sure how it would be possible given the control system, but since X-Com did it, maybe there's hope.

The engine/coding in Battletech is not very optimized however and I'm afraid even though the next gen consoles are great, Battletech is a poorly optimized game, so not sure how it would actually run on Xbox/PS.

[GRUD]

The Shadowrun console ports were handled by an external company, not HBS. Maybe there's hope? Not sure how it would be possible given the control system, but since X-Com did it, maybe there's hope.

The engine/coding in Battletech is not very optimized however and I'm afraid even though the next gen consoles are great, Battletech is a poorly optimized game, so not sure how it would actually run on Xbox/PS.

Since BT is a turn-based game, I don't see any problem with playing it on an Xbox/PS.  I admit, I know JACK about Programming, but if you can play Diablo III on Xbox/PS (which is NOT a turn-based game), which is significantly MORE "Complicated" to play, as far as the controls go, then BT should be NO problem at all.  Right?   

Again, I don't know anything about programming, so Yes, I'm GUESSING.    They/Someone converted MW5 to Consoles, and it's also MUCH more Complicated than BT.  We "Might" lose access to Mods, though console versions of games like Fallout 4 and Skyrim have access to Mods.  I haven't used any Nexus Mods, but I've played with some of the .JSON files on my own, so yeah, I'll miss being able to do that. 

Seems like I read (Somewhere) that HBS was asked early on in the KS if it would be ported to consoles, and they didn't want to take the time to do it, because they didn't want to delay the game's release.  But now?  They'd be bringing in more money with it being accessible via consoles.     And while I'm only 1 person, I'm guessing other people like me that already own it on the PC would buy it for their "Console of Choice" also.

[pheonixstorm]

If any modern console had issues running BattleTech then there is something seriously wrong with the console. You also have to remember that Diablo III is really old by now. My old computer I built in 2008 could run it fine.

With modern hardware it doesn't matter if it is optimized or not, especially being turn based. A resource heavy FPS or Driving sim might not run as well if it wasn't optimized but not a game from 2018 (which started development in 15/16?).

[rjhancock]

It's one thing for it to be optimized, it's an entirely different beast when it has memory leaks galore in it so yes, even a modern console would eventually have issues as it would run out of RAM and crash hard.

They COULD make it console ready and fix the issues by updating Unity to the latest version which does allow export to X Box, PS, and Switch. But this would still be easily a 6-12 month project.

[GRUD]

You also have to remember that Diablo III is really old by now.

My initial thought was, "It's not that . . .", but then I had to check it.     Then I saw it came out May 2012, and was still "That's not that old...", but then realized, Yeah, for a video game, it actually is.   

(Found this actually. "It was released for Microsoft Windows and OS X in May 2012, PlayStation 3 and Xbox 360 in September 2013, PlayStation 4 and Xbox One in August 2014, and Nintendo Switch in November 2018."  Still, 7 years for XBone/P4 to 10 years for PC.)

But then I remembered, I can play Diablo II on my Series X now (as Diablo II: Resurrected), and it was released only for the PC (and Mac) back in 2000.  Then 21 years later they released it for Consoles.  But that was also from Blizzard, and comparing HBS/Paradox to Blizzard is like comparing CGL to GDW.     The amount of Money available, let alone Personnel, is a whole HIGHER order of magnitude!   

[PyreLight]

If any modern console had issues running BattleTech then there is something seriously wrong with the console. You also have to remember that Diablo III is really old by now. My old computer I built in 2008 could run it fine.

With modern hardware it doesn't matter if it is optimized or not, especially being turn based. A resource heavy FPS or Driving sim might not run as well if it wasn't optimized but not a game from 2018 (which started development in 15/16?).

With modern hardware it still matters if it's optimized or not. Even a PC that's better than modern consoles have trouble stuttering with the unoptimized code in HBS Battletech. Also, Diablo 3 is not running on the Unity engine and has the army of Blizzard devs and Activision money behind it, so the comparison to the small HBS team also falls flat.

It's one thing for it to be optimized, it's an entirely different beast when it has memory leaks galore in it so yes, even a modern console would eventually have issues as it would run out of RAM and crash hard.

They COULD make it console ready and fix the issues by updating Unity to the latest version which does allow export to X Box, PS, and Switch. But this would still be easily a 6-12 month project.

Yeah exactly. Updating the Unity version would break so many systems in Battletech that you might as well start all over and it would take a long time to fix.

[rjhancock]

Yeah exactly. Updating the Unity version would break so many systems in Battletech that you might as well start all over and it would take a long time to fix.

Now if we could decompile the game, we could potentially update it to take advantage of newer hardware, integrate the ModTek engine directly into the game, and fix lots of outstanding bugs in addition to adding in more platforms. Just couldn't release it to the public.