Read + Write + Report
Home | Start a blog | About Orble | FAQ | Sites | Writers | Advertise | My Orble | Login

More





PS3 Gamers Brace For A Rocky Ride

October 9th 2008 01:12
bioshock ps3


Throughout the life of the PS3, stories have emerged that have highlighted the difficulty developers have had in creating games for the PS3. Early figures suggested that the cost was prohibitive for most third parties as the advanced technology required a lot more manpower, time and expense. Add to that a dev kit whose price would stagger some second world countries and it looked as though second rate ports and first party titles were the immediate future for the console. Some developers are only now looking at bringing titles to the PS3 since the install base is just about reasonable enough to make a return on their investment. Take Valve, who have said "So whether or not you like developing for that platform, if they've got millions of people connected to that platform and buying their games you have to take it seriously." Sounds like a company ready to put out quality content...


And then there is the case of Rainbow Six 2. Vegas 2 designer Philippe Therien, from Ubisoft Montreal, said the team was "working really hard right now to put them on par graphics wise" but admitted that there will be "slight differences" between the two versions, including lighting.
Activision seem to have found a way around the problem. Throw resources at it until you have created the tools to make the job easy enough to manage. “Over the past year, our central technology group has created a proprietary set of tools for next-gen development that has enabled our developers to address the challenging PS3 architecture in efficient ways. Our tools allow us to identify performance bottlenecks in the PS3 and focus our effort in a targeted way to improve performance that would otherwise without these tools simply be a trial-and-error approach.” You can see from this how smaller developers would have an issue. Without the pure dollar grunt of a super power like Activision they have no chance at developing the necessary tools.


Surely though, at this point in the consoles life cycle, developers have gotten to grips with the machine and started churning out quality content?
It would appear not. The Unreal 3 Engine continues to create problems. Propoganda started developing titles for the 360 due to the widely known fact that U3 works best with Xbox. They even delayed PS3 releases so they could get their games “up to the standard of the 360 version.” And with the popularity of the engine, this is bound to continue as new titles license it for their games.
Ubisoft seem to have found a way around it though - throw 80-90 bodies at it. Their latest title Endwar has had this tribe of programmers recruited to do nothing but port the game over to the PS3. A massive investment beyond many developers.

All of this leads us to the cause for concern - Bioshock The Xbox 360 game of the year has just started to make its appearance on the PS3 and the reception has been chilly. Pixelated screen shots have sent the communnity into a fanboy feast of fury. The games community manager launched into damage control and addressed the matter by saying "one of the major goals for the team in creating the PS3 version of BioShock was to match the visual experience of the 360." She went on to say that "We did investigate rendering to true 1080 mode, but were not able to support it given the game’s memory demands." All this caused by attempting to adapt the game from an entirely different platform and obviously with an enourmous and difficult effort.

These issues have no real solution. The more complicated system that is the PS3 means through the growth of the console more learning is bound to be needed. If it is true that only 30% of the systems capability have been unlocked, we are bound to see another year or more before developers have the tools and knowledge to create a profitable product, shutting out many of them in the foreseable future and for those that can afford to go ahead, inevitable differences and bugs.
33
Vote
   


xbox 360 blu-ray


Okay, we could ask this question every time someone restarts the 360 receiving a Blu-ray rumour and publish the quote of Robbie Bach, Microsoft’s president for entertainment and devices, saying that its not happening. In fact, todays quote is “(that blu-ray for the xbox 360 is) so far out that there isn’t anything to talk about.”

This does leave the door open somewhat, and it may be a door that Microsoft need to walk through.

Consider the HDD install option, a great way around multiple disks, an option Microsoft has recently introduced. Unfortunately, large capacity hard drives are not an option, as the price is utterly dispicable with many of us needing to sell of one of our lesser used organs to purchase anything of practical size.
Also, as developers push the console further, higher resolution textures and sound are being packed into blockbuster titles. These require space, or a dreaded disk swap. A combination of the two could work, but who wants their one button start up that took them away from PC gaming in the first place to take such backward steps? And even if the game is installed on the HDD you'll still need the disk in the drive.

Of course, if you believe Microsoft, the answer is downloadable content. But lets face it, with new games weighing in at a minimum of 8GB , this is not a practical alternative for the masses, not at least for the current generation and probably not for the next. And as studios work more of a Hollywood angle into gaming, you can be sure these sizes will increase, particularly if the physical limit of the disk were removed via direct delivery.

It would be a safe bet that this is the last christmas that Microsoft can ignore the needs of the industry. To keep pace with an ever improving PS3 who are steadily increasing the worlds Blu-ray install base, the options are limited. Come the gaming explosion that will be next christmas, one DVD will not be enough.

15
Vote
   


Microsoft Tokyo Game Show Booth List

October 8th 2008 03:19
tokyo game show


Microsoft has announced their list of games to be shown at the Tokyo Game Show.... It's looking like a fun place to be.

The list is:

The following games will have both trailer and demo consoles:

FIFA 09: World Soccer (Electronic Arts)

Mirror's Edge (Electronic Arts)

Bionic Commando (Capcom)

Street Fighter IV (Capcom)

Resident Evil 5 (Capcom)

Otomedius G - Gorgeous (Konami)

World Soccer Winning Eleven 2009 (Konami)

Star Ocean 4: The Last Hope (Square Enix)

The Last Remnant (Square Enix)

Sonic World Adventure (Sega)

Gundam Musou 2 (Namco Bandai)

Ninja Blade (From Software)

Race Driver Grid (Code Masters)

Fallout 3 (Bethesda)

Fable II (Microsoft)

Banjo Koozie: Nuts and Bolts (Microsoft)

Far Cry 2 (Ubisoft)

H.A.W.X. (Ubisoft)

End War (Ubisoft)

Prince of Persia (Ubisoft)

Ketsui: Kizuna Jigoku Tachi (5pb./Genterprise)

Dodonpachi Dai-Ou-Jou Black Label (5pb./Genterprise)

Saints Row 2 (THQ Japan)

The following games will have trailers only available:

Bayonetta (Sega)

11eyes Cross Over (5pb./Genterprise)

Chaous; Head Noah (5pb./Genterprise)

36
Vote
   


fracture lucasarts xbox


Our predictions for Fracture are, thankfully, still looking hopeful thanks to the early review of Fracture from Kotaku


[ Click here to read more ]
15
Vote
   


thq


There seems to be no end to the movements happening in the gaming industry at the moment. THQ is the next in line, with 27.2 million dollar losses and the announcement that Jack Sorensen, executive vice president of worldwide studios, has quit the company


[ Click here to read more ]
26
Vote
   


xbox 360


The economic situation in America, combined with the new slimline look Microsoft has adopted for it's gaming division, has combined with the news that the Xbox and Zune divisions will be freezing all new employment


[ Click here to read more ]
26
Vote
   


too human


Recently, news that a development studio has laid off workers ends with said developer ending up looking for a new sugar daddy, but spokeswoman Susan Lusty Of Silicon Knights assures us that their culling season is only due to the traditional cycle all developers go through after the launch of a title


[ Click here to read more ]
26
Vote
   


star wars mmo


The Force is strong with this one... This one being the day of the 21st October. The date has been textured in as the launch of a new LucasArts and Bioware joint proejct, considered by most to be the much anticipated and often spoken of Star Wars MMO


[ Click here to read more ]
24
Vote
   



Nintendo DS vs DSi

What we need is a comprehensive summary of everything that the new Nintendo DSi will be, can be and yearns to become. Thanks to 1up, we have exacly that


[ Click here to read more ]
37
Vote
   


nintendo wi-fi dsi


Nintendo are bound to be the first company to develop a fully working tri-corder, no doubt


[ Click here to read more ]
29
Vote
   


More Posts
11 Posts
55 Posts
64 Posts
240 Posts dating from May 2008
Email Subscription
Receive e-mail notifications of new posts on this blog:

Colin Stevens's Blogs

I have no other blogs :(
Moderated by Colin Stevens
Copyright © 2006 2007 2008 On Topic Media PTY LTD. All Rights Reserved. Design by Vimu.com.
On Topic Media ZPages: Sydney |  Melbourne |  Brisbane |  London |  Birmingham |  Leeds     [ Advertise ] [ Contact Us ] [ Privacy Policy ]