Killzone 2 dev: Blu-ray is a necessity

by Ross Miller { Oct 17th 2007 at 5:25PM }

The upcoming PlayStation 3 exclusive Killzone 2 could not fit onto a DVD (capacity of dual-layer disc: 8.5 GB), according to the game's producer Steven Ter Heide. In an interview with GamePro, Heide said, "It is not a luxury to have Blu-ray, but rather a necessity, as compression only gets you so far."

He added that the one level shown at E3 took 2GB of space (approx. 24% of a dual-layer DVD), which is unsurprising since he said the same thing during an E3 presentation. Assuming he meant assets exclusive to the level (we're guessing quite a few vehicles and enemies will be seen in multiple levels), that'd make for a rather short game on DVD. Still, it's hard to be convinced by the statement when reusable assets are factored in. The real decider will be the final product; we're hoping Heide's statements indicates a plethora of content when Killzone 2 comes out.

Heide also lauds the Cell processor. We wouldn't expect a Sony developer to join in on the hardware hate-fest, but we're not hearing a lot of other developers at this point standing up for the PS3. Killzone 2 still does not have a release date.

[Via PS3 Fanboy]

Tags: blu-ray, dvd, killzone, killzone-2, sony

Reader Comments (Page 1 of 3)

jsn @ Oct 17th 2007 5:29PM

yes of course it is..

NATO_Duke @ Oct 17th 2007 6:17PM

Steven Ter Heide is such an ubber SDF fanboy. Pfft!

Jake @ Oct 17th 2007 8:12PM

The donkey ney's. The pig oinks. The dog barks. The Sony dev gushes over the PS3. This is not newsworthy.

ukickmydog (NDF - Earth) @ Oct 17th 2007 9:52PM

of course when you invest thousands of dollars in dev kits and other development tools, your gonna want to try and justify it...

Neebs @ Oct 17th 2007 5:31PM

Prove it to me this way: A 3rd party multiplatform game released simultaneously performs and looks better than the Xbox, changing discs notwithstanding.

TMGE_rock @ Oct 17th 2007 6:32PM

"Prove it to me this way: A 3rd party multiplatform game released simultaneously performs and looks better than the Xbox, changing discs notwithstanding."

This is nonsense... a multiplatform game will never be able to take full advantage of Blu-ray (or the PS3s power in general), simply because the same game has to work on multiple consoles, wich may be weaker (and as you know, the ps3 is the only console were developers can rely on Blu-ray, HDD, and Cell processor).

A multiplatform game can only look as good as the weakest platform allows it to be ^^

blooh (CDF - Nipple Ring) @ Oct 17th 2007 6:43PM

uhh what? that's not true. it's not like there's a definite better/worse between 360/ps3, they're different due to the different hardware

good devs could coax all the power possible out of each machine for multiplatform. of course, that would take a lot of time and money, and so far it takes more time/money to make a good ps3 version of multiplatform games

Vegeta (aka Ska Oreo) @ Oct 17th 2007 7:45PM

@blooh

And that's why they won't do it. It costs too much money to do that. It's a lot cheaper if they made every version of a game look the same(with the exception of the Wii).

Snatcher (MDF - Halo Ring) @ Oct 18th 2007 2:00AM

Multi platform games can look better on one system vs another. Just look at last generation. XBOX games always looked better than PS2 games multi-platform. XBOX Madden for one always looked better than PS2. Or maybe they didnt know how to program for the best selling PS2?? I'm suuuure they just couldnt tap into the RAW POWER (400 BABIES) of the emotion engine!!

ROFLCOPTER!

arrrgh @ Oct 17th 2007 5:31PM

cool, so the fmv's they're trying to pass off as ingame footage won't fit on a dvd? nt. ;)

Tahiri @ Oct 17th 2007 5:50PM

This game uses no FMV

Deviation @ Oct 17th 2007 5:53PM

That's the best you could come up with? Really? I guess the fact that people have actually played the game slipped right over your head?

Wes @ Oct 17th 2007 9:36PM

Lol, the guy's joking. Geesh, you take him way to seriously and forget that Sony @ E3 200..6? actually did make a killzone 2 fmv and lie about it being real-time and in-game.

Later, they got their pants pulled down around their ankles when the company working on the fmv admitted it both on forums and in a television interview.

Krazy Koala @ Oct 17th 2007 5:34PM

Ok now I'm getting a little annoyed with all this graphics bs. Most games look great to me and 360 games are fitting on a DVD9. How is it that most of the PS3 fanboys always bring this stuff up and yet they were perfectly satisfied with their PS2, which had the worst graphics last gen. So much hypocrisy.

Killzone 2 looks good, I'll give them that, but seriously all this shit is getting annoying, from all sides. Believe me, games are more fun if you don't hype them.

Tahiri @ Oct 18th 2007 5:31AM

Correction, you made up that example of hypocrisy, the same people who were fine with PS2s graphics are not the same ones saying they like PS3s graphics more than 360s. Not only that, but it's a different situation making it apples to oranges.

Autopsy15 @ Oct 17th 2007 6:42PM

4 words: Metal Gear Solid 3. Worst graphics? Think again buddy.

Sircolby45 @ Oct 17th 2007 7:57PM

@ Autopsy
MGS's graphics are far from impressive. I have seen MUCH better from many games that are already out. So far I have seen nothing that impressive about MGS, or any of its' predecessors. Just another game built up by the hype machine.

The1 @ Oct 17th 2007 5:35PM

The developers comments would hold more weight, if they were not owned by SONY. Maybe in 5 years DVD's will be obsolete and make this necessary. Heck, look at The Orange Box, which is the best value for gamers today which is on DVD.

SoulBlade @ Oct 17th 2007 5:52PM

Yet it's two DVDs on the PC. Why?

WiNG @ Oct 17th 2007 5:57PM

It's zero DVDs on Steam

Disc changing ftl.

blooh (CDF - Nipple Ring) @ Oct 17th 2007 5:57PM

360 > pc?

Shagittarius @ Oct 17th 2007 6:24PM

Editor FTW?

sig7 @ Oct 17th 2007 7:00PM

Orange Box is based on an engine from 2004. So obviously it will fit on a dvd. Also, it's two dvd's on pc because alot of the older dvd drives do not support dual layered dvd's.

8 Gigs is not enough for this generation, and in a year time this will become very clear.

Wes @ Oct 17th 2007 9:42PM

@Sig7

Why? what happens in a year? Will pigs fly? The sun eclipses again destroying all dvd5/dvd9s?

Ohh right. Sony gets it first hyped games. FF13 and MGS4? Wait a year? I thought they were due out in just six months? Ahh the 'delay'station thing. Your expecting 6 month delay on the release dates. Ah, I gotchya Sig7. *winks*.

Or did you just mean that MGS4 and FF13 could fit on 1-2 dvd9s? Cause yes they could.

Thank you, please come flame again.

phattie @ Oct 17th 2007 5:36PM

Im sure they could have fit in if they rendered it at 640p and tried to pass it off as HD.

Neebs @ Oct 17th 2007 5:38PM

With luck, you'll be as gone as Fernando after such a trolling comment.

T3H WICKERMAN (FDF) @ Oct 17th 2007 5:42PM

Fernando seemed kind of innocent compared to ol'phatties average comments. As for a halo 3 stab in this thread, NO bad boy! Can it really take up that much space or are these guys blowing some haze up my arse?

phattie @ Oct 17th 2007 5:44PM

ummm, where in my original post did i mention Halo?

commen-cents @ Oct 17th 2007 5:46PM

oh snap

Intentless @ Oct 17th 2007 5:49PM

Anyone that plays video games... and apparently those that are of the SDF category know that there were complaints about the resolution of Halo 3. Bungie stated that its two layers of 640... Nothing in recent history has stated a res of 640... it doesn't take much to deduce that was your source....

ThornedVenom @ Oct 17th 2007 7:01PM

Fernando got banhammer'd? Dammit, I always thought that he added a bit of humour to threads. Sure, he was being annoying at many times, but from time to time he just rocked the house.

Neebs @ Oct 17th 2007 5:36PM

And even if the E3 show was in game, does that mean 2GB for every 5 blandly-coloured minutes? No. The engine will be there, proper programming will cause them to seek smaller load times with more efficient code and smaller maps.

Huey2k2 @ Oct 17th 2007 5:40PM

FLAMEWAR COMMENCE!

RAGE MACHINE @ Oct 17th 2007 5:40PM

Blu-Ray is a necessity if you only want to sell 5 copies of your game.

Grant @ Oct 17th 2007 5:41PM

Sonys Ad:

Now!
True True HD!
Runs in 2160p!
Xgay 320 Suxors!

Sean @ Oct 17th 2007 5:42PM

If the level shown at E3 really was 2 Gigs. It would take nearly 4 minutes to load off bluray.

DBX00 @ Oct 17th 2007 5:45PM

It's called using a HDD cache like every other game

Tahiri @ Oct 17th 2007 5:50PM

It supported streaming dumbass

AirIntake @ Oct 17th 2007 5:52PM

The level still has to load at least once onto the hard drive, taking 4 minutes. Plus, if each level is 2G, and there's approx 6-10 levels like in most games of this type, that's between 12-20G of data for 1 game. Even a PS3 with an 80G HD will become full quickly with all this cache data sitting there. And if you delete the cache data after you eject the game or something, then you have to load all of it back on to the HD again, taking another 4 min per level.

cartman80 @ Oct 17th 2007 5:52PM

Load it where? :-)
Into memory? The PS3 has a little under 512MB of combined video/system memory they could use at any given moment.

Either that data stream comes in uncompressed and they compress the living sh*t out of it during the load (kind of dumb), or they stream the level while you're playing - loading a room or two at a time as they need to, unloading the already visited ones.

I'm guessing Method #2. That's what they did for Killzone 1. And boy did that method suck (textures popping in a good 1-2 seconds too late, occasional freezes waiting for the data to be read, etc).

DBX00 @ Oct 17th 2007 5:45PM

They asked him a question and he gave them an answer. It isn't like the guy is going around screaming that Blu Ray is great; he's just answer questions that are asked of him. I'm convinced that a larger capacity drive is required when you have a game at 720p or 1080p. Single player games have been getting shorter and shorter as a result of either high development costs or running out of capacity on the drives. Either way, I'd rather have a Blu Ray drive and give developers the ability to expand than to leave it out. The cost of the drive has come down so much that the price to reward ratio is worth it to me. Of course, I already own a 1080p display so I see the benefit of having something that pushes content to that limit.

blooh (CDF - Nipple Ring) @ Oct 17th 2007 5:51PM

or they could just use 2 or 3 dvd's, like blue dragon did and some other 360 games are going to use

switching discs is so easy, and I welcome it if it saves me $200 from the console's price

SoulBlade @ Oct 17th 2007 5:56PM

Price is an obsolete argument now and it's almost as tired as RRoD. PS3 has SKUs that are decently priced. There's tons of posts regarding what it takes to get a 360 to have the same functionality as a PS3, and it usually ends up being just as expensive if not more.

The last thing you want to do is get people started on paying for Live.

blooh (CDF - Nipple Ring) @ Oct 17th 2007 5:59PM

i don't need a tacked on superdvd player for my game system, so that saved me 200 bucks :) so i spent 40 to get live, and am still $160 cheaper. and hey, i spent that on good games too

DBX00 @ Oct 17th 2007 6:02PM

Do the math...

$399.99 PS3
$349.99 XBOX 360 Premium

$499.99 PS3
$449.99 XBOX 360 Elite

Where's the $200.00 or even $160.00? I know you're not going to try and convince me to buy a XBOX arcade...

DBX00 @ Oct 17th 2007 6:03PM

Do the math...

$399.99 PS3
$349.99 XBOX 360 Premium

$499.99 PS3
$449.99 XBOX 360 Elite

Where's the $200.00 or even $160.00? I know you're not going to try and convince me to buy a XBOX arcade...

SoulBlade @ Oct 17th 2007 6:04PM

Are you comparing the most expensive PS3 SKU to the least expensive 360 one cuz that makes a lot of sense...

You can take the core, and then not have a guaranteed HD. You can take the premium, which is what... 300 still? I really don't know nor care. If the PS3 is currently at 400 and has a guaranteed HD and can do Blu Ray out of the box, that's pretty decent, especially since on top of the 300 or whatever it is for the premium you're paying for live, so you're saving 60 bucks which buys you one game. Good times.