FFXIII interviews extracted from LEVEL magazine

"The developers seem smitten with the horsepower under the PlayStation's hood and insist they couldn't re-create the experience on other systems."

Because Final Fantasy games have always been known to push consoles to their processing limits...

FF games are known for MANY MANY hours of FMV.
Not graphics.
So Bluray is good for FF XIII.

Movie movie movie , 10 seconds of game, Movie movie movie ovie movie movie THE END.

By pushing the consoles to their limits, they want more realistic graphics, rather than something fantastic...

@2

Theres way more gameplay than fmv in final fantasy games. In Final fantasy IX it says on the cover "over 1 hour of fmv". That took me over 80 hours to complete.

I remember last time SquareSoft was smitten with horsepower and pushing graphics to the absolute limit. They came up with a little movie called Final Fantasy: Spirits Within.

If they don't watch it, they are going to lose a whole lot of money on this project.

@4

FMV is strictly pre-recorded material. The advertised 1hr of FMV didn't include any cutscenes which were rendered on the fly.

The thing is, Final Fantasy VII was wildly successful because at the time its graphics were incredible. Squaresoft (and now Square Enix) has consisted primarily of graphics whores ever since, and with good reason. Even though some gamers can recognize the difference between spectacle and quality, games with beautiful or advanced or unique graphics still sell ridiculously well on that merit alone.

Time and time again I've seen mediocre games sell better than good games based only on graphics quality alone. Square Enix completely recognizes this, and is doing what they're doing because they know it will sell well.

I'm curious if the runaway success of the Wii will impact the state of the industry as a whole; it's underpowered compared to its competitors, but it's selling like hotcakes. If it keeps doing as well as it's doing right now, then developers will be forced to focus more on style and substance than on spectacle, simply because the Wii isn't very capable of anything graphically advanced.

lmao, the xbox 360 is effectively more powerful for gaming, so I don't see why squaresoft are so smitten with the PS3. Unless the final fantasy XIII engine uses some kind of crazy physics simulation, then the PS3 is no more suited than any other console.

@5

Spirits within didn't even push graphics to the limit except for the main characters' hair. Other than that, the textures were bland, the movement was unnatural, and NOTHING ELSE even had nearly as many polygons as that darn hair.

Advent Children, on the other hand, pushed graphics more to the limit. Though admittedly it was made later, Advent Children still accomplished a good number of things that they technically could have done with Spirits within and just didn't (for example, realistic body language and movement). Notice that Advent Children was much more popular than Spirits within, this is largely because it pushed the graphics to the limit throughout the entire movie instead of through a single character's hair.

The biggest problem with Spirits Within was that it failed at its primary goal: Looking absolutely incredible. As long as FFXIII looks good, it's pretty much guaranteed to be a success, whether or not it's any fun.

@ Covarr

Yes because Kung-Fu fighting in Zero-G and shooting monsters out of your arm is so realistic.

Actually, (while I hate both movies) the reason why Advent Children sold better was because it was rooted in the whore lovers series of Final Fantasy VII. Spirits Within was a Sci-Fi movie that you could mistake as a Teen rated version of Alien or Serenity.

Its like you can have a crappy condom and it will sell crappy. But put "American Idol" on that condom and people will buy it like they breath oxygen.

I'm not a fanboy of any particular company. I own all three last-gen consoles and have enjoyed games on each one. I currently own a Wii because, frankly, it's all I can currently afford. I'll probably pick up a 360 eventually and *maybe* a PS3 should the price plummet (which means no time soon). With that in mind, Squeenix is making a huge mistake with concentrating on the PS3. The console isn't even selling that well in Japan, fer goodness sakes! I know that the 360 will never be #1 in Japan, so I can understand them not wanting to focus on it. The thing is, with as much cash spent on development of games like FINAL FANTASY, you would think that they'd want to develop it for the machine that will give them the most profit. That means the Wii. The Wii is at least as powerful as the original Xbox. The FF games made for the PS2 took a machine that was severely underpowered, made the most of it, and delivered gorgeous graphics. It all comes down to the artistry involved. The Wii has the potential to deliver in the graphics department *and* cost companies less to develop for. Also, FINAL FANTASY isn't the system seller that it was when VII was released on the original Playstation. I just think it's a bad move all around. Pride goeth before a fall!

@7. I don't see how you've come to that understanding. What makes the 360 a more powerful gaming tool is the ease of coding for it comparitively to the PS3 - and yet not sacraficing in output (that much anyway). However. PS3 does have superior hardware - whether it be a guaranteed HDD or the blu-ray drive, or whatever it is you wanna focus on (the RSX or the Cell Processor are big ones too). Anyway the big difference with the PS3 is that it's much harder to code for - but when you do it - and do it right - the result will be greater - it's just how hardware works. I just don't understand fanboi language "d00d - 360 is so the roxorz compared to ps3 anyway = squeenix sux" seriously - think before you speak.


@10. Squeenix also knows that FF will move consoles - especially in Japan. Did you see 360 sales in Japan after the release of Blue Dragon? They went up quite a bit. And even then - people prolly didn't want to buy them in Japan, but did so for Blue Dragon (that's speculation). However, there's a large group in Japan who are looking forward to FF13 on PS3. I think the first guy who got a PS3 in Japan was asked "what game are you looking forward to playing most?" and you know what he said - that's right - "final fantasy." The truth is - he isn't alone - FF has a HUGE following in Japan, and Squeenix is covering multiplatform releases with The Last Remnant (even though it won't hold a candle to FF, I predict anyway). So by sticking to the PS3 - they are ensuring that their focus and concentration on one system is payed off - and they are counting on the fact that the results they present will make people buy a ps3 if they haven't yet (and besides, there's more than one FF game coming out on ps3). Not to mention - it's not coming stateside for a while, and we're already seeing demands for price drops all over the place - blu-ray construction prices are going down too. So there's a lot to consider - for all we know Sony has made some kind of agreement with Squeenix anyway - or maybe Squeenix just fell in love with the PS3 architecture? Who knows, at this point - it's all speculation.

Covarr: That's not the reason, the true reason is because it had "VII" after "Final Fantasy" in the title.

jSN I'm not a fanboy, and I couldn't care less which console was better, but anyone who knows anything about computers knows that just because a cpu has more cores doesn't mean it's better for a specific task.

The spus in the cell are mighty, I'll give you that. But the 360 is more suited to games, in that it has a more powerful graphics chip, which has access to more memory.

Just because sony tells you the cell is awesome, doesn't make the PS3 more powerful, it just makes it better at certain jobs.

If anyone is a fanboy, its you, since your the one who got up in arms when I talked about facts that you don't like.

Dan - listen man - the cell's architechture is different. It's suited better to different jobs (hence different programming is needed to take advantage of its DIFFERENT architecture). The 360 is pretty much a PC let's be honest. The PS3 has the potential to use all that extensive hardware that it has over the 360 to it's advantage- but it's really dependant on the developers to take the time to take advantage of that hardware difference. You won't be able to compare the capabilities of these consoles until the devs start taking advantage of both of their set ups.

I get all up in arms because I hate when someone just says straight up - one system is downright better than the other. That's such nonsense. They're just different. Each has their own advantages and disadvantages - and that includes Wii. And when sony says "hey the cell is awesome" I don't believe them any more than I believe M$ when they say "hey the 360 is awesome" but the hardware in the PS3 is what makes me think it's better. Also blu-ray is a much better medium than standard DVD - but that's only if a dev. takes the time to fill it with stuff (and I'm not talking special features).

BTW - go back and read my first post - I never made any fanboy claims aside from showing what the PS3 has that the 360 just doesn't. Rehash - blu-ray, guaranteed HD, and then the other one's is what people have been saying are better - the RSX and the Cell. You think SE would lie without a Sony contract (for the FF games) and say the PS3 is the only system capable of doing what they want in FF13 ? I just think if anyone knows what it is that makes one system better than the other - it's the dev's - not us.

Well all the Final Fantasy movies look about the same to me. And they look spectacular at that. I've never had any complaints about them other than the very difficult and weird plots that are in each. But other than that the graphics look very nice to me.

Anyways I don't know if the game is going to the 360 or not. I hope it does but given Square's hard on for sony and the ps3 I highly doubt it will happen so that should give you sony fanboys a lil bit of happiness.

In the event it stays exclusive the ps3 I'm still not going to buy a ps3 because its not worth it in my opinion. Especially since the FF games have become more movie like than game like. Even though the cutscenes are cool and pretty they don't replace a great game.

@7

yes and no, xbox 360 is more suited for gaming = yes, but it is not more powerful, it's gpu can push a lot of polys, but the ps3 was designed to approach gaming from the cell stand point rather then relying mostly on a gpu.

The huge issue is that Sony neglected the dev community with it's horribly user unfriendly SDK. Developing games for PS3 is hell. Plus balancing cell load is a bitch that no company has done yet. I think FF might be the first to approach this.

Personally I'm a PC gamer though ;D, and while my system is a year old, I still rox the 360 and all current ps3 titles. :D

At the end of the day, games require a powerful gpu, and a powerful cpu, and that's all it boils down to, and that's what the xbox 360 has.

sony took the roundabout approach, shoehorning the cell into the PS3 because they too were probably swayed by IBMs marketing (I've met the guy in charge of marketing the cell in the UK, he's persuasive)
They are hoping that people will find a way to use the cell's capabilities to make good games, which, on paper, sounds OK. But in reality, its much more productive to build hardware capable of what you want from it, rather than asking for what you want from something which is largely unproven.

No, I liked your arguements between each other, but what it comes down to is if a game is fun or not - that's what will sell it the most. Graphics definitely help, and most games that are good usually have better than average graphics because the developer took time into doing that as well as everything else - that's what makes the game really shine.

I do hope ff13 comes to 360 though, mainly so I don't have to buy a ps3 for it, I don't like the idea of buying a system for 1-3 games. Besides, if Squenix wants to make any money from it they pretty much have to port it to 360, unless the sales spike is that huge for FF. I really can't see that many people plunking down that much cash for it, and I'm a really hardcore ff fan too.

@ Mike

Its really in the legacy of the PS1

The original PlayStations CPU also handled all 3D graphical computations, the PS1's "GPU" actually only handled 2D mapping. The PS3 is shooting for the same thing, a much more centralized system of computations than the competition (360's kind of in the middle and the Wii/GC architecture practically has the two components working completely independently of each other)

The one thing that will hurt the PS3 in the polygonal race is that the RSX, essentially an off-the-shelf Nvidia component, is not the best partner for the CELL...

Well, for all you worried about having to buy a ps3 for FF. Yes you likely will have to (unless things change and they decide to make it multi-platform [dont count on it]). However, there will be other games that come out between now and then that will be fun to play on the PS3 - but that aren't necessarily worth buying. FF would be your killer app - getting you to buy the system - then once you have it - you'll want to play games you didn't have access to before (say, God of War - or Heavenly Sword, or Folklore, or Lair - ya know whatever piques your fancy - I only want some of those myself). So you wouldn't only be buying the ps3 for the FF games - but that would be the proverbial tipping point that gets you to buy it. Plus, by then some of these games might be greatest hits games or whatever - not to mention you'll likely see a price drop by the time we see FF13 in any of it's forms.

I think Squeenix can definitely count on many users seeking FF and a PS3 - by the time it comes out. Plus by the time we get FF - the PS3 install base will likely be much higher - as there are several top notch games coming (some of which I mentioned).

Side note: some PS3 owners have to think about buying 360 or Wii as well - thats just what happens - ya know. There are exclusive titles (even though FF isn't an official exclusive) like say Zelda for Wii or for me - Mass Effect for 360. I really want Mass Effect. Will I buy an xbox just for that game - no, but will that be the final straw in getting me to drop the money for another system - possibily.

@jSn

"I think the first guy who got a PS3 in Japan was asked "what game are you looking forward to playing most?" and you know what he said"

Actually, the first guy to get a PS3 in Japan couldn't speak japanese. He was a chinese student scalping the console. Just like several other unemployed chinese and korean students in Japan being hired by business men to wait in line for days so that the consoles could be scalped. In fact, these shenanigans and the ones later in the states are what lead to PS3 having such a tragically low launch attach ratio. Hell, it couldn't even achieve 1:1. Since then it's gone up dramatically (I believe it's currently at 5.2) but no, the first PS3 buyers were not FF fans. They were broke students who's only line of employment was sitting in a line for days.

Ok - well I distinctly remember reading an article (I believe it was IGN - about them waiting in line somewhere on launch day in Japan) and the guy who got the first one there said he wanted FF. I remember - because the writer was making fun of the guy for wanting a game that didn't even have a set launch date or something...

@jsn

"Ok - well I distinctly remember reading an article (I believe it was IGN - about them waiting in line somewhere on launch day in Japan) and the guy who got the first one there said he wanted FF. I remember - because the writer was making fun of the guy for wanting a game that didn't even have a set launch date or something..."

Sorry JSN, Sheppy is right. When they asked the first what game he's most looking forward to playing, he was a chinese student who spoke no English. His answer was "The tennis game".

It clearly showed he wasn't a gamer and just a chinese student working for/as an eBayer. Why? There were no tennis games released at launch but there was a ps2 tennis game recently released. However, I don't know of many people who rushed out first day to buy a ps3 off shelves as soon as it was available to play non-upconverted ps2 games on a ps3 that at that time looked arguably worse than the ps2.

I'm sorry but the xbox 360s gpu beats the rsx. You in your first post stated "However. PS3 does have superior hardware - whether it be a guaranteed HDD or the blu-ray drive, or whatever it is you wanna focus on (the RSX or the Cell Processor are big ones too)"

Later you stated to Dan when he commented the xbox 360s gpu is stronger, "BTW - go back and read my first post - I never made any fanboy claims aside from showing what the PS3 has that the 360 just doesn't..."

Well, I re-read it on his behalf and you wrote "the RSX or the Cell Processor are big ones too" in reference to the power of the hardware. Please, please please, don't say you didn't claim the rsx is powerful when you posted it just before that it was and ask someone who read your post to re-read it. Its insulting to Dan. I think he's literate and read your post in its entirety.

BTW, Here's a link for you jsn if you want to learn facts about the xbox's 360 system specs. Its best to only read the first 5 pages though as the ps3 information is based of before-released and they haven't done a re-review since after release so the ps3 stats are all speculation. xbox 360 were firm stats as it was out at the time and a real one was used in the review.

http://www.anandtech.com/video/showdoc.aspx?i=2453

http://www.winsupersite.com/showcase/xbox360_ps3_wii.asp

"lmao, the xbox 360 is effectively more powerful for gaming"

What exactly are you basing this off? Saying the 360 is more powerful for gaming than the ps3 seems to be extremely short sighted. The 360 has a monster gpu coupled with a customized but none the less general purpose cpu. Except for the memory structure it is similar to a pc. Are PC's designed only to play games? No, they are designed to run many different kinds of applications at the same time, something game machines don't really need to do since they are specialized.

It sees like your whole argument is based on the fact that Xenos is more powerful than RSX (which it is) but you are neglecting to take into account how RSX and Cell are supposed to work synergistically even on certain tasks which are traditionally left to the GPU alone.

You are right though that the Cell is unproven when it comes to games at this point but from what I'm seeing developers that are taking the time to do it right can make the two work very well together.

From my point of view the RSX + Cell combination shows a lot more promise for games than Xenon + Xenos.

Thanks cc123 - those are some good points. And to Wes - I'm not gonna go dig up the article - but I vivdly remember reading about an FF guy buying a ps3 on launch day (might not have been the FIRST ps3 owner - but whatever - that's semantices- launch day is launch day). And as far as you saying the GPU of the 360 is > than the PS3's - you base it on admittadly inaccurate estimates of the ps3. How can you do that? So yea - you have solid specs for the 360 - and completely speculative specs for the PS3 - then you say - well hey the 360 is better than the speculative specs for the ps3 - so it must be better in reality. Ok - fine - but if your going to say that - don't tear me apart like your "holier than thou" because your whole basis for saying 360 is better is just speculation. The things in parentheses were items I wasn't focusing on - since they are speculation as to which is really better (hence "whatever it is YOU wanna focus on") - but the ones I mentioned are clear advantages not even left to speculation. Blu-ray + DVD > DVD and a guaranteed HD is better than some systems without one. That's fact - and you can't argue with that.

@jsn
I don't base it on purely inacruate results. I am basing that on modded xbox 360s running linux doing benchmark tests in programs like 3dBenchmark versus ps3s running linux.

I only said the last part of the first link is inaccurate because it was written when only the 360 is out so only he 360 statistics are firm/correct via testing/dissemably.

However, when the ps3 was released people tested it versus the press release claims and the hardware is once again over promised and a bit under delivered as Sony continually claims.

Theoritcally the PS3 has a greater gigaflops in terms of floating point calculations but to reach the theroticaly limits described in IBM's white paper it has to be a specially formatted 4x4 matrix calculations in a non-ordered set.

Another important thing to remember is that only 6spes has to be working in a cpu for it to be shipped to improve yields. Also, 1 spe is reserved for os. Another SPE can be taken from any game at a moments notice by the os. This takes you 7spes down to potential 4spes in some situations.

7 SPEs are often shown as theortically producing double the gigaflops when under non-ordered sets of 4 matrix based calculations. However, take away the 3 for defects+os usage+potential os usage and its cpu advantage is not so great anymore. Just a small lead at most. Its amazing how many people buy into the 7 spe hype not realizing its potentially 4 spes your buying.

Effectively when in games, its capable of about 50-60% the theoritically maximum when it comes to calculating AIs etc. Even the Assassin's Creeds developers stated that the xbox 360's cpu is better suited towards Ais such that the xbox 360 version will have a better AI.

I recommend you try research both systems gpu throughly as well as cpu. Like that the xbox 360's gpu has 16 pipelines which are multi-purpose so they can be used to do pixel or vertex shading. PS3 has 8 vexter, 8 pixel pipelines which are single-purpose.

The result, in an all or mostly either vertex or pixel shaded scene, xbox 360s gpu would have a decided advantage. Though if there was exactly equal pixel shading and vertex shading in a scene(which would be fairly rare but possible) then the xbox 360 would lose this advantage.

The xbox 360 has 10mb of edram still on its side which allows it to apply 2x to 4x aa(2/4x depending on res) on 256Gb/sec transfer rates with almost no performance loss.

Another added advantage is xbox 360 uses a unified memory. Both the PS3 and xbox 360 come with 256mb of ram for their video card and another 256 for their pc.

Since the xbox 360s is unified, in a graphics intensive scene, the xbox 360 can share ram from the cpu with the video card. Thus temporarily boosting graphics calculations. Similarly, if its a cpu intensive scene, the xbox 360 can share ram with the cpu from the gpu.

With the PS3, you would be limited to 256mb of ram as it cannot 'share'. So in cpu/gpu intensive scenes this would create a potential performance bottleneck.

xBox 360's os also uses a bit less ram than the ps3s os, so the xBox 360 is a bit fortunate in that it has more cpu ram to begin with and/or to share. Some people chalk that up to ms being more experienced with small mobile low-memory os's like those uses on palm pilots.

Regardless, most pc gamers know its your video card which really helps determine the graphical capabilities and limit you gaming potential more than your cpu. Usually, most store-bought pcs come reasonable ram, fairly good cpu, crappy graphics card(to save money while still allowing desktop applications to run reliably). I mean honestly, I can have a Intel Quad Core QX7800 cpu but what good would it do if my games were running through Intel on-board video =).

The Cell/RSX being better than the Xenon/Xenos argument would be true if the cell being so much more powerful argument was not based off of theortical whitepapers specs provided as propaganda in the console war(marketing) and if not for the 2 always unuseable and potentially 3 unuseable SPEs issue. It would be possibly true if the xbox 360s gpu was not so advanced that it has a lot of dx10 card features built into it except one or two. Maximum 5 spes can be used to games which might be lowered to 4 if os demands it at anytime.

Those are concrete facts that are based of disassembly done on the ps3's 60gb model. Not speculations. If you doubt it, research it.

PS. One of my favorite quotes was from the EGM Magazine 208 from their editorial. 'The console war is a marketing campaign and they are looking for uneducated volunteer worker to help their cause. Don't be a sucker. Ask them to pay you'.

@jSn

About the blue ray being better than dvd. I'm sorry. I can argue with you about that. Its another weapon of the console war. Marketting hype people fall for.

Remember how I talked about your gpu in the earlier post and how it only has 256 MB of ram which cannot be shared with the cpu?

Well, let's say you go all out in a 3d-modelling program. You create the most realistic beach volleyball player with the most realistic looking 'anatomically correct' parts imagineable with several million polygons used just to create the characters hair.

Let alone the gorgeous textures. A character so great it can truely! Truely! only fit on a blue-ray! Yessss Yesssss!! Mwhahaha! Success. Right? Wrong.

Let's say this wonderful model's data takes 256MB its so beautiful. Combined with 6 characters x 2(for each team) + 24 characters total to choose from etc.

Wait a sec? 256 MB for one character? cause its sooooo highly highly detailed. So highly detailed it could onlllly fit on a blue-ray disc? But. But. The ps3s gpu only has 256mb of ram and you want to create amazingly detailed 256 mb characters?

Well, it would be amazing detailed character. A character with no background. No set and no other characters. Its hard to have a volleyball game with just one character isn't it?

Although Blu-ray gives the potential for huge amounts of storage. Its really only theortically good if your system and gpu has enough ram to create the virtual world/environment and then load the virtual elements.

Too high def would be a bit of a disadvantage as it would create loading times. It would result in an extremely small world that's extremely sectionized. As such that you fight in one tiny room with your super-high def characters, scenery, interacable objects, walk into next room. 'LOADING --- PLEASE WAIT'. Fight one bad guy. Walk into next room. 'LOADING NEXT HIGH DEF BAD GUY CHARACTER MODEL --- PLEASE WAIT'. etc.

Not to mention, characters with too high defintion/textures might be too much stress for the gpu in the ps3 or xbox 360 for that matter to handle causes frame rate drops etc.

Blu-ray is admittedly great for watching movies if your not on a budget and can afford 30 bucks per movie. Its also great if your creating an interative 'video' 'video game that would consist of a lot of watching full motion videos frequently thoughout games.

Mind you, when you see some games in-game-graphics like dead rising, gears of war, etc cutscenes, the line between computer-generated fmvs in maya/3d studio max/etc and in-game graphics are becoming so close, in-game looks as good to me as an fmv.

I mean, the in-game cutscenes from dead rising, gears of war, etc look as good as the fmvs from most ps2 games/xbox 1 games and some 360/ps3s

I also feel in-game cutscenes can sometimes help for the sense of immersion maybe? Like in dead rising when you see Frank West sneaking around the corner and almost hits Jessica with the fire-extinguisher. It looked pretty good to me.

Had my blu-ray/hd-dvd drive started whirling up and my fan speed boosted, my screen gone black for a second and 'Ben Affleck look-alike 3d character model' showed up to attack a blone-3d character model of Angeline Joline, it might have broke sense the immersion a bit ;). Like if the graphics boost up/down during fmv to in-game.

However, for gaming, blu-ray/hd-dvd its not really practical as you'll never theoretically be able to make and maintain textures large enough to fill up 60Gb and effectively use those textures in a game unless the game developer in question is an fmv graphics hog =).

Mind you, you could start seeing games being slightly over 9gb. In which case you might see dual-dvd disc games for the 360 like one for single player/single co-op, one for multi-player(ctf, death match, etc) but games are pretty unlikely to ever use more than 18Gb with our current gpus in consoles. It'll happen eventually.

It's coming. However, it'll come probably in 3 years when the xbox 720 // xii // ps4 maybe in the future.

@wes

"Those are concrete facts that are based of disassembly done on the ps3's 60gb model. Not speculations. If you doubt it, research it."

Seems that your "concrete" facts and extensive research didn't even help you grasp the number of spes available to games.

Cell has 8 (EIGHT) spes. One is disabled to increase yeilds. The other is used by operating system tasks. That leaves 6 (SIX) spes available to the games. And where the hell did you get this from: "Another SPE can be taken from any game at a moments notice by the os." Cause it sounds like you just pulled that one out of thin air.

So I guess using your own logic but with the correct number of spes available then RSX + Cell would have an advantage over Xenos + Xenon huh?

You also completely forgot to mention that the 256mb of XDR ram used by the Cell is running at die speed (3.2 Ghz). This puts a serious dent in the argument that the unified ram used by 360 is better. If I had a choice between 256mb of ram running at 3.2 Ghz or 512 of ram running at 700 Mhz I'd take the faster ram specially since I have another 256 of GDD3 on the gpu.

I think you should go back and reread some of those docs. ;)

@jsn

I know one possible come-back to the limited gpu ram might be 'Why not use the built in hard drive for caching? See 'HDD + Blu-Ray > DVD!'

It would work in theory but take for example the volleyball game /w amazing anatomically correct example above. With amazing 256MB character textures with 12 characters on the screen. Assuming no background, net, ball, etc. You'd need at least 12x256MB or roughly 3GB or 3072MB.

Now let's assume that once the data is in the gpu, the processing for the character's movement(calculating the hair strands waving in the wind, is almost instanteous so it can move it out as fast as it can move it in). This is not true as it would actually take some time to process it but we'll pretend the gpu is just insanely fast.

Now a sata-hd can theoretically transfer up to 3GB/Sec of data. So if all 12 characters are in the scene, you would need to load the textures/models for all 12 characters. That was 3GB. So to run all 12 characters into and out of the gpu, it would take 1 second.

That's just for a single frame. So you'd be calculating these amazing high def, only could be fit on blu-ray, graphics at 1 frame per second due to bottlenecks created by gpu memory size and/or hd transfer speeds.

So for the blu-ray advantage in extremely highly detailed gaming models that might fill up/be capable 'only' by a blu-ray disc, which as you can wouldn't be practical at all, you'd receive 1 frame per second or extremely sectionized gameplay with very large loading times.

In other words, both the built in hdd and blu-ray doesn't assist in highly detailed graphics that would be 'only' capable on the ps3 so it provides no real gaming performance advantage over the 360 in this regards.

@wes part 2

So your argument against blu-ray is that it's not really useful because our gpu's can't use more than the amount of ram alotted to them???

That is the dumbest ass argument I have ever heard against blu-ray! I guess DVD9's aren't really necessary since 256mb ram is less than 8.5 gigs. Hell even an 800mb CD is really too much for that! We should go back to 1.44mb diskettes...that'll solve our problems.

"but games are pretty unlikely to ever use more than 18Gb with our current gpus in consoles." Are you for real? We are going to blow thru 18gb in no time..some PS3 games already use more than that.

Having extra space on a disk allows you to have MORE of everything. It doesn't mean you have to use bigger models and textures genius.

Holy crap!

Wes you are typing soooo much bullshit per minute that I can barely keep up with the flood.

How about you go and check your facts then come back and write some CONCISE posts...

@jsn

In PS3s defense though, the blu-ray disc could potentially allow for a much 'larger' world at the same level of graphics.

In that, I meant if you can fit a world large enough rpg-ish world to last about 30 hours without replay value(like maxing your character level, collecting every item, boss character, multiple endings etc) in 6Gb such as the ps3/xbox 360 game called 'Enchanted Arms', you could in theory fit 45 hours into 9GB or 250 hours into 60 GB without any replay value.

Mind you, I honestly know of few developers who would have the budget, time, or vision to make a world that provides gamers with a 250 hour single player gaming experience before multiplayer or replay value. If a game developer did that, I'd be really really impressed.

It would probably take them 3x-5x as long to develop the game from start to finish though so if they made it when the ps3 first started, they should be able to release it the day the ps4 cames out :) Just kidding, but, yeah it would take a long long time to create a 250gb game that could 'only' fit on a blu-ray disc.

I have written concise facts cc123.

I've just provided a fair number of concise facts which are not bullshit if you take the time to research it or double check the calculations.

The ps3 is still a good value for what you get. HD-DVD or Blu-ray players, or at least one of them, will probably be very popular and possibly in most households just like dvd-players are come 3 to 5 years off in the future.

It also comes with a lot of accesories pre-included like built in hard drive, wi-fi, a blue-ray player etc. For $600, you get $800 worth of hardware most of which is the blu-ray player which would be great for my personally cause I have a 1920x1080p hdtv.

However, the idea that blu-ray allows you to make games or that its a superior gaming machine because of the cell/rsx combo versus xenon/xenos, really is propaganda with not many facts in favour of the ps3.

Its saving graces would be that it has one damn good marketing machine and works well as a high def player. Its cheaper to buy a ps3 than a blu-ray player and not that much more than a stand alone hd-dvd player so its a great choice for audio/video enthusists. Especially since the latest firmware updating their ability to play files/videos from a networked pc.

Also, linux. A big plus.

However, a more powerful gaming pc? blu-ray allowing high def graphics not possible on a xbox 360 due to the dvd-rom drive?

Just not true. I'm pro-ps3 for the extra-features it offers and great value. I'm also pro-xbox 360 for the gaming experience + live. I am anti-propaganda from either the 360 or ps3s side.

360 has had its number of hardware issues to we all know about but technically gaming-wise its hardware is more powerful in gaming performance. Reliable? Hell no! Powerful in gaming performance? Yes. Much more powerful in gaming performance? No, that not much but a little bit. Xbox live could get better too like if it were free =).

Dude your "facts" are WRONG! You didn't even get the SPE part down.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ps3

Your argument about blu-ray is ridiculous.

Half of the stuff you said is complete bullshit. I can't believe you took the time to write all that out and didn't take the time to understand things.

@cc123

Yes, so in summary my point is. Blu-ray is limited by the gpu's power and bandwidth limits such that it won't improve the graphics or make games only-developable on Blu-ray gaming consoles/pcs.

Yes, I do agree with you as stated above that it could potentially make games at the same level of detail but longer like potentially up to 250 hours provided that the developer has the time, budget and vision to create and complete such a project. Its primary use would be lots of full motion high definition videos.

However, most developers [extremely?] rarely create 250 hours of single player gameplay before replay value or multiplayer value comes into play. So its a fairly mute point regarding gaming. It would be useful for large amounts of fmv in a game, but, that's kind of a mute point in face of the quality of a lot of game's in-game cutscenes.

Also, cc123, you seem to feel that games have breached the 18GB mark. So out of curiousity, which pc game where you referring to that spans more than 1 DVD dual layer 9GB Disc?

The majority of ps3 games are released on xbox 360, so it can't realistically be any of those games. So its probably not one of the sports games? as they are usually not multiplatform. Probably not a fighter? as they are mostly multiplatform?

Are you under the impression that one of the launch exclusives like R:FOM or Gundamn Wing due to their impressive graphical natures took 18GBs?

Or because you used 'Gb' and not 'GB' did you mean 18Gb / 8 bits per byte (2.2GB)?

Can you mention the specific game you feel is 18GB?

Yes, the PS3 Wiki has a lot of old, outdated and inaccurate information. Heck, the gpu section is one tiny paragraph:

"The Graphics Processing Unit is based on the NVIDIA G70 (previously known as NV47) architecture, which focuses on maximizing per-pixel computation in favor of raw pixel output. The GPU makes use of 256 MB GDDR3 VRAM clocked at 550 MHz with an effective transmission rate of 1.3 GHz and the XDR main memory via the CPU."

It doesn't even mention the amount of pipelines, pixelshaders or vertex shaders. It just lists one tiny paragraph void of details like the 3dbenchmark stats that can be found on other sites. There's a link to the 'Main RSX Synthizer' wiki site but even it clearly says:

"This article or section needs to be updated.
Parts of this article or section have been identified as no longer being up to date.
Please update the article to reflect recent events, and remove this template when finished"

I recommend you do some more research and find facts, not an outdated wikipedia link, which was the first link you were able to think of finding via googling. Congrats cc123. Congrats. You've quoted a out of date website as the only rebuttal to a lot of concise facts.

Try attacking the message, not the person. I can insult Bush till my eyes go red but another republican president will just replace him in 2 years :) It would be much better to debate about republicans and attack the message/platform than the figure head as figure heads change.

Attacking the message, not the person, is one of the first rules of debating.

Who is arguing that Blu-ray will make the graphics better? I never said that.

But your idea that more disk space isn't necessary because our gpu's ram limits it's use is retarded. There are plenty of uses for disk space, music, sound , models(quantity), textures (quantity)...etc

PC game over 8.5 gigs: Microsoft Flight Simulator
PS3 game: RFOM 22 gigs
http://www.cdfreaks.com/news/Resistance-PS3-game-uses-22-gigabytes-of-Blu-ray-disc.html

There are plenty more you can look those up yourself, they are documented in many places.

GB not Gb. Bytes.

and how about your respond to what I said about the SPES since you completely fucked that up.

"Yes, the PS3 Wiki has a lot of old, outdated and inaccurate information."

The same info is available in a bunch of places. You screwed up and now your covering your ass.

"Congrats. You've quoted a out of date website as the only rebuttal to a lot of concise facts."

You are a complete joke you haven't put a source on any of your info.

That's nifty that you say R:FOM is 22gb and quoted a pre-release press release. If you search for it on a torrent site or search for it using an irc search engine for an iso/rip. You'd notice the rip is only 15gb. Since they didn't compress the textures at all, once you rar it, it drops to around 9GB when using maximum compression. Its ridiculous. The majority of all PS3 games aren't using anymore than a traditional dvd and those that are, aren't giving us exceptional gameplay lengths or graphics yet :):

Games > PS2 NHL.2K7.EUR.PS3-NextLevel 04-01 08:12 7.99 GiB 1 2
Games > PS2 Marvel.Ultimate.Alliance.PAL.PS3-DNL 03-29 16:01 6.62 GiB 0 0
Games > PS2 The_Godfather_The_Dons_Edition_USA_PS3-PARADOX 03-29 14:44 8.75 GiB 0 0
Games > PS2 Splinter.Cell.Double.Agent.PAL.PS3-DNL 03-29 10:37 6.27 GiB 1 4
Games > PS2 Tiger.Woods.PGA.Tour.07.EUR.PS3-SUSHi 03-27 21:59 6.62 GiB

@cc123
"The same info is available in a bunch of places. You screwed up and now your covering your ass."

Still refusing to do the research and find out what I said was correct? Still just relying on outdated wiki facts versus hardware analysis's by independant third parties or bothering to look up the 3dbenchmark results I've mentioned?

Instead, one again not attacking the message and attacking the person? Geesh. At times, it seems like almost everyone on joystiq resorts to personal attacks when they can't find a counter-rebuttal to facts provided.

"Still refusing to do the research and find out what I said was correct? Still just relying on outdated wiki facts versus hardware analysis's by independant third parties or bothering to look up the 3dbenchmark results I've mentioned?"

Are you fucking retarded?...cause I 'm really starting to think you are.

Have I said anything about any 3dbenchmark in any of my above posts?

Let's see some of your links to the updated specs...cause apparently everybody including the devs have the wrong info except wes on Joystiq.

@cc123
If you don't believe me about R:FOM just being uncompressed, I'll give you another example. If you open most torrent sites, search for ps3 + enchanted arms. You'll probably notice the ps3 iso is 15gb and the xbox 360 iso is less than 7GB.

Why? The ps3's videos are uncompressed video blogging up the disc. Its not like its double the length or single player storyline =).

@cc123

Geesh. I've providing you instructions on how you can confirm the blu-ray iso sizes. I just can't directly post a torrent site link as its against joystiq's rules and I'd get banned.

I wish I could do EVERYTHING for you but can only give you step by step instructions.

Yeah ok. Obviously you dodge the questions that blow your arguments to pieces, you keep using the word "facts" yet have no sources.

You have written more bullshit per square inch than anybody before you on joystiq.

Congratulations.

@cc123

Congratulations! Another personal insult but still unwilling but likely perfectly able to follow the steps provided to you to do the research necessary to confirm the facts given.

Lol...you are such a joke.

I'm not gonna read anymore of your crap...there are limits to how much nonsense I can process in one day.

Have a nice night!

@cc123
http://www.techreport.com/etc/2005q2/xbox360-gpu/index.x?pg=1

Anyways, here's the gpu link since you didn't want to go through all the work of googling it.

@cc123

For a 17 page discussion on the differences between xenos and the rsx which I've read through in its entirely, try this page here:

http://forum.teamxbox.com/printthread.php?s=c0e9768a2fba0a59ff28c5bf658c53bc&t=347946&page=17&pp=40

Ok - I'm sorry I was absent when this whole thing went down- but I've a few things to say.

Bluray is a better format tha DVD regardless of whether or not dev's will take advantage of it. It's a much larger storage medium. And the thing you've been knocking a lot Wes - which is that the files are uncompressed - is actually a good thing. In compression you lose quality (however minutely) and you can ask any audio buff about this. By having all the files on the disc uncompressed (because now you have the space - thanks to blu-ray) you don't have to focus on compressing things to fit on a DVD - instead you can focus on the more important aspect - creating content.

The volleyball example is relevant - but that's not why I was saying blu-ray was better. I was referring to it being a superior storage medium to DVD. It allows for higher def. images and sounds (space) and allows for them to be in an uncompressed format (which requires more space).

I think ya'll need to calm down - aside from all that. Each system clearly has its advantages and disadvantages - and sometimes advantages lie in the sole fact that the architecture is different. 360 may be more effective at producing a better game that is multiplatform or whatever- but I think we'll find down the road that games crafted specifically for the ps3 from dev's who took the time to work out the kinks in the system (kinks as in flaws it has compared to 360) will be better (not a word I really want to use - but I can't think of one thats more applicable) than the 360's.

I think taking full advantage of the 360 architecture is easier, and that's why we'll see better 360 games sooner. But I think there will be a limit to this - and we're going to see a plateau in the increasing quality of the 360 games much earlier. However, like ps1 and ps2 before it - as the system gets older we're likely going to see ps3 hit its stride late in the game when developers are finally opening up the hardware to its true potential.

The unfortunate problem - which I actually stated earlier - is that ps3 is harder to script for - and as such you're not going to see people take advantage of the different way in which its hardware is set up - at least for a little while.

I don't need to get into teraflops - or pixel counts - or number of shaders - or any of the techinical know how to understand this. This is strictly understanding people and how they interact with different types of machinery. Since we are dependent on the dev's (rather than strictly our input into the computers) all we need to analyze how the systems are going to do is how the dev's are interacting with them. And what they are telling us is that ps3 is hard- but that it has potential. 360 is much easier - which means it's future potentials are already being to be realized - another reason why M$ is planning a much shorter lifespan for the console.

Do I think Sony should have made a much bigger effort to give the proper introduction to the PS3 architecture (to the dev's) and close the difficulty gap? Absolutely. Did they? No - they didn't, and I've no idea why. But they've started trying to fix that - and we're not going to see if these fixes are effective until games start coming out a year or two down the line.

It's easy to pass judgement on numbers, but I urge you not to underestimate the power of great minds (developers) to push a system past limits we didn't even realize were possible. We've seen it throughout history - and I'd think we'd be very foolish not to expect someone to tap these systems for much more than they appear on the surface.