Platform

From Time Travel Game

Taking into account the current state of the games market and the looming spectre of the next generation of home consoles in the next 1-2 years it would be wise to plan ahead with the platform consideration for the game. Dividing it into two areas, Primary and Secondary.

Primary Platform

PC will be the main platform for the game. This is because it can be built towards current high-spec computers with the hope that that it would be easily convertible into the low to mid range of graphical quality for the next gen of home consoles.

Other plus points are the ease of distribution and low costs that PC development can offer. Selling the game digitally through services like Steam cuts down on the distribution costs associated with a retail release. It also gives the game an opportunity to stand apart from the AAA market that traditional retail is focused on.

Secondary Platforms

Even with the lack of information on the state and timescale on the next generation of home consoles (current rumours and estimates put it at Christmas 2013) it is still a good move to plan the game for release on those platforms as a secondary market. Distributing on the next gen equivalents of Xbox Live Arcade and the PlayStation Network will again, like the PC version, allow the game to stand apart from the traditional AAA focused retail market. If the historic evidence of a slow trickle of retail games for console launches continues into the next gen having a solid and reasonably sized downloadable game could mean an increase in sales as players wait for the next big AAA release.