14 DAY TRIAL // DayZ has been a phenomenon on the PC, both from a commercial and a critical standpoint, selling more than 1.5 million units despite the fact that it’s still in alpha stage and Dean Hall, the creator of the concept, believes that the experience could have the same impact on the Xbox One from Microsoft and the PlayStation 4 from Sony.
The developer admits that he has been having meetings with both companies, but at the moment, no agreement has been signed, even if there are no huge disagreements between the two entities.
He tells Eurogamer that, “I would be surprised if we hadn't made a decision by the end of the year. Whether that means it's being actively developed or released... I'd be surprised if any console port could be developed in 12 months; we haven't fully started developing anything yet for a console, so.”
It seems that the biggest problem is the business model for a console version of DayZ.
On Steam, the game is delivered under a self-publishing model and its creator wants to see something similar on the Xbox One and the PlayStation 4, in order to give him and the team at Bohemia Interactive more control over pricing and over the launch of patches and content updates.
It seems that the limitations of home consoles that preclude DayZ from launching might also affect the coming Steam machines, which Valve will deliver alongside its partners later in the year.
Dean Hall adds, “I care a lot about the PC, obviously, and I have nothing against consoles, and there's some really interesting and exciting things happening. That was one of the cool things about meeting with Microsoft there were definitely some things they said that I'm not allowed to talk about that I was like, ‘Wow! That's interesting. Why don't you tell people that?’”
It’s unclear whether the mysterious features are linked to the core features of the Xbox One or to the distribution model for the home console.
Dean Hall says that he expected the beta version of DayZ to be introduced either in late November of this year or early in 2015 and that it will be focused on bug fixing, with no new game mechanics added for a while.
The developer is now going back to New Zeeland and he has plans to search for a new type of perfect multiplayer experience at a new studio that will soon take shape.