QUOTE(BenJeremy @ Sep 8 2009, 01:48 PM)
Yeah, I caught that, it just took me a couple of reads to figure out what you were saying and threw out a little harmless snark your way, heh.
As for the duplication costs, I'm not entirely sure the master with security features is duplicated on the same equipment as a regular DVD-9, but even if that were the case, the plant that stamps game discs is going to have a lot more expense in quality measures and materials. Everything is going to be certified and at every step, costs rise. It's a sure thing the master cannot be replicated by non-Microsoft duplicator (same goes for Sony's and Nintendo's protection schemes - though Sony's PSX scheme was eventually replicated by the Gameshark/Datel people). I would guess the duplication equipment is somewhat differently spec'd from the standard stuff.
I used to work for a local disc manufacturer (Cinram) and when I stopped, we were making DVDs and UMDs (PSP games), mostly. IIRC, the UMDs were made in a different section, but I was told it was just for "efficiency"... which I suppose could also mean a "specialty process", though that's kinda reaching (not like I was someone important there, so I wasn't required to know, anyway).
The QA process at our plant was supposedly "better" than a lot of others, but it surprised me how it's done. I don't recall the order off the top of my head, but in the room outside of the "moulding room" there's a station with several monitors and a couple DVD players with something always playing. I'm assuming they're only checking for hard errors and not minor glitches, but the attendent is watching several movies already, so it's not as though they need to tremendously focus on any particular one. Once the discs leave the moulding room they goto the "WIP Room" to be put in spindles of 100 and boxed. Random discs will be "spot checked" under a light to look for "visible disc errors". The rest of the QA checks are packaging related. Since I wasn't a QA or a member of mangement, there's possibly another step I'm unaware of, but to me it always seemed like a way to check that's not really checking (I'm a fan of measuring disc quality and readability with digital tools).
Another thing I did learn from working there was that
duplication refers to burning the data onto recordable media, wheras
replication is the "moulded from scratch" way, and the only way to implement the security features we've been discussing, etc etc (I'm sure you're well aware; just adding the info for others reading the thread).
QUOTE(BenJeremy @ Sep 8 2009, 01:48 PM)
All that aside, though, there aren't any real reasons to release a signed dev build to reviewers. Too many reasons that falls under the category "bad idea", and given the stuff missing from the ban wave titles from last year, I don't think anybody at those dev houses would let a reviewer touch them. The last thing a dev or publisher wants is a scathing review to sink their product, and that's happened on more than a few games devs have permitted a reviewer to "preview" supervised in house; I can't imagine what damage could be done when a reviewer got his hands on an unfinished title alone. All the people who might have had a reason to see a preview dev build were internal, and had review/test or devkit consoles at their disposal.
There's just no reason to sign a dev build.
Makes sense; especially about early reviews harming a product more than they help it. I remember 'back in the day' reviwers would write about playing games that were being developed and being totally excited, and anything wrong was considered 'ok' because the game wasn't ready for shelves yet, anyway. Today, however, we have people that complain about 'betas' being buggy and some games that even ship broken (Bully), so I can appreciate they'd want to do everything possible to minimize that (as well as uphold the system's security at every opportunity).
Thanx for letting me pick your brain
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Topic: Major Nelson Tweets About Halo ODST Bans *Update: MS Detects Copies?* (Read 2081 times)