2. STRUCTURE
Namco has many different branches to the company. So like
Vancouver, Tokyo, Singapore and Europe. There are many different
people working on projects and there are usually 10-15 game
designers, on each project. This is the organization chart.
3. PLATFORM TECHNOLOGY
Namco is releasing games on 3 different consoles such as PS4, XBOX ONE,
NINTENDO SWITCH and PC. One of their iconic game which is going to be
released on all three is Soul caliber 6. they produce for these consoles because of
quality of game, so imaging and how it will turn out. Gameplay, so what it has to
offer and which console is best for the game play and the last reason and ultimately
its for them to make money and what better way than releasing on the top 3
consoles. They are doing this because each console has its specification and
because there are fans of that genre or game on different consoles they decided to
release it on 3 of the biggest consoles and also because each has its own
processor speed and graphics and they are keeping the set graphics and releasing
that onto 3 of theses and the that will ultimately will decide which is the best overall.
4. GAME TYPES
Namco does a range of game types and their reason for this is so they can
reach a wider audience and so they can reach people on other consoles and
explore the wide variety of games so the audience wont be bored and this will
also be good for the company, because not only will their marketing be good
because they do some many genres but because they are also releasing it on
a wide range of consoles. So they do: 3rd person shooter, action, adventure,
anime, arcade classic, card/RPG, fighting, first person shooter, MMO, F2P,
Puzzle, racing, RPG, strategy etc.
5. PLATFORM
They do release games on more then 1 platform in fact they
release on wide range of platforms so: PS4, XBOX 1,
NINTENDO, MICROSOFT/STEAM. This has a massive impact
on sales because where as some company's do partner ship
with either PS4 or XBOX 1, this has ties in with all the major
consoles. How this has an impact is, when they make a game
they do all the tests then they spend so much money on
producing that game and getting the coding for that game so it
works for the intended console like PS4 or XBOX 1,
NINTENDO or STEAM. So if a game fails they have a loss of
how much but if they succeed they have profit of the same if
not probably higher margin.
6. REGULATORY BODIES
Games get banned all the time and before PEGI issued ratings
it was BBFC and this was because games were looking more
photorealistic so they judged the games the same way they will
judge movies. A game that they had banned on 2 occasions
was Rockstars Manhunt 2. This was banned because of
physiological and sadistic violence. This was then later
appealed to the video appeals committee(VAC) which then
favored then game with 4 to 3 votes. PEGI was launched in
may 2002 and was not formally out till 2003 and was a
government based rating system until it became independent
and by 2012 it took over the ratings from the BBFC.
7. DEVELOPMENT SOFTWARE
There are a variety of tools out there that many game
companies use such as:3Ds MAX, Maya, Mud Box, Z-brush,
Sketchbook. It depends on each game developer there are
other tools that can be used and they are: Adobe Photoshop,
Adobe after effects, Adobe flash for UI animations, GameWare,
HumanIK, Scaleform, visual studio, alien tools and pro tools.
Namco seems to use some of these software's but ultimately it
pairs it self with big development company's, and its main
development software is the unreal engine 3 and in some
instances they do use the Cryengine3.
8. MIDDLEWARE
There are many software's out there some are middleware,
that is essentially running a part of the effects and background
of the game while the engine runs everything else.
Wwise: This is the most advanced, feature-rich interactive
audio solution for games.
Astoundsound: The real time interface enables multiple sound
objects to simultaneously come to life in 3D.
Simplygon: This helps any of your 3D assets to run smoothly
on any platform.
Havok: This is designed for video games, and allows for real
time collision and dynamics of rigid bodies. This allows for
more virtual looking theme to it.
FaceFX: This is cutting edge solution for making realistic facial
animation from audio files.
Bink video: This is primarily used for full motion video
sequences in games.
Granny animation: This is a powerful toolkit for building all
kinds of interactive 3D applications.
