Slashdot Log In
More On PS3 and Xbox 2
Posted by
michael
on Tue Jan 25, 2005 02:49 PM
from the controllers-now-twice-the-size dept.
from the controllers-now-twice-the-size dept.
News for nerds writes "The BBC has news about the next-generation game consoles, with comments from various third parties. According to Rory Armes, studio general manager of EA in Europe, they have already received the development kits from Microsoft, but not yet from Sony and Nintendo. He assumes Sony's PlayStation 3 will have a little more under the hood and be more cost-efficient than Microsoft's Xbox 2. Gerhard Florin, head of EA in Europe, remarks 'PS3 will provide graphics indistinguishable from movies.' Spider-Man 2 or Toy Story 2, that's the problem."
This discussion has been archived.
No new comments can be posted.
The Fine Print: The following comments are owned by whoever posted them. We are not responsible for them in any way.
iGame (Score:5, Insightful)
The article mentioned that "Microsoft is obviously a software company first and foremost, while Sony has more experience in hardware", so what then, can a software/hardware company like Apple do?
Watch Nintendo, not Apple (Score:3, Interesting)
Would it be too much to speculate that Apple can easily come out with a iGame console similarly sized like a Mac Mini?
Last time Apple tried to make a game console, the result was the Pippin. It flopped. But by the time the Nintendo Revolution comes out, we'll probably have a half-height GameCube SP to match Sony's new thin PS2.
Re:Watch Nintendo, not Apple (Score:5, Interesting)
Let us not speak of the Pippin any further.
If a critical mass of Mac mini systems end up in TV rooms across America, a few game developpers will probably gravitate towards exploiting that market, and Apple may find themselves selling a popular game console entirely by accident.
Parent
Re:Watch Nintendo, not Apple (Score:4, Informative)
Macs have been notorious for having the smallest selection of crappiest games. The only decent ones are games that are ported from PC.
I'll give you that the selection of games on the Mac is not wonderful, but you're a little off here. There have been a number of great games that started on the Mac and then moved to the PC, or in some cases never did.
Wolfenstein 3d was a mac game before there was a Windows port, and one of the first FPS games, it ruled at the time. The Marathon series were some of the best FPS ever made and were the predecessors to Halo. Marathon 2 had voice chat with your team (and teams for that matter) ages before any PC game. The plots were also way, way better than any current FPS that I have played. I know people who installed mac emulators just to play Realmz which was a RPG that let the user create their own campaigns. How about Myth? It was at one time mac only and the most popular game ever sold (overtaken by the sims). Escape Velocity is a simple, but very fun space shoot em up that was on the mac for years before a pc port arrived. I'm sure there are plenty more.
The Mac is not the best gaming platform in the world, but most of the good titles make it to the Mac and it has some gems all it's own. Characterizing the games as crappy is way off base.
Parent
Re:Watch Nintendo, not Apple (Score:5, Informative)
Parent
Re:iGame (Score:3, Interesting)
Would it be too much to speculate that Apple can easily come out with a iGame console similarly sized like a Mac Mini?
I'd much rather see them partner with an established console maker. The key to a successful console is the games. You need a lot of them. You need a few really good ones. You need at least one excellent, exclusive title. This would be really hard for Apple to swing all at once.
I'd like to see them partner with Nintendo or Sony to release a built in gaming environment and compatible
Re:iGame (Score:5, Insightful)
Parent
Re:iGame (Score:5, Insightful)
Parent
Re:iGame (Score:5, Insightful)
The big problem would be to find a market segment: The other three have the market divided between them (Nintendo for children and adults, Sony for teens (and some adults) and Microsoft for people who like to watch tits in DOA XXX Beach Volleyball). Not many more niches left.
Parent
Re:iGame (Score:5, Funny)
Parent
Re:iGame (Score:3, Interesting)
The fact that they've had mixed success in getting third parties to produce even desktop software for their machines does not bode well for their ability to attract game developers to the platform, either.
Actually, developers are all about OS X. Heck I am sitting two offices away from some people developing Windows only software, that they are developing on powerbooks. I mean have you seen how much freeware/shareware there is for OS X? People love to develop on OS X. Businessmen on the other hand, are
Re:iGame (Score:5, Informative)
I rarely do this on Slashdot, but I'm calling pure BULLSHIT on this one.
The interactive documentation built into Xcode is a pure delight. Double-click on a Cocoa/Carbon/QuickTime/Java method or function call and you get an instant lookup to extremely comprehensive documentation.
Every method in the class, full description of all params, cross-referencing to related methods, historical notes on version compatibility.
As to its highly organized and fully up to date web site documentation: Apple *uses* Google for its web site searches. It is fast and efficient.
Google does index Apple dev. I've many times found links to just the right posting in an Apple hosted Cocoa/Carbon/OpenGL mailing list or other article simply by entering the function name in the Google search box.
In short, you simply don't know what you are talking about. Maybe you're just innocently ignorant, but I really don't know what people like you gain from contributing such misinformation. You've made at least one Mac OS X developer mighty annoyed at the fiction you're trying to spread.
The fact that you've been moderated +5 Interesting shows that the people who have mod points today are as clueless as you. Don't think I'll bother to read any more of /. today.
Parent
Re:iGame (Score:4, Informative)
Off topic and and only tangentially related, consider the excellent ps-one emulators available for the Mac.
Parent
i remember... (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:i remember... (Score:4, Interesting)
Parent
Re:i remember... (Score:5, Interesting)
Case in point. Read this time article from before PS2 came out:
http://www.time.com/time/asia/magazine/2000/0320/j apan.sony.html [time.com]
Don't believe it till you are holding it in your hands.
Parent
Re:i remember... (Score:5, Informative)
Sony and M$ are the liars.
http://www.segatech.com/gamecube/overview/
Parent
Re:i remember... (Score:5, Insightful)
In a movie you have a fixed set of camera angles and actions to be performed, if you could throw all your polygons, artists and CPU power to render those, you would get results close enough to the movie. However in a game you end up having neither a fixed camera angle, nor fixed actions, most stuff is up to the player. You just don't have enough artists to tweak each and every situation. One time the player might have a bazooker, next time a MG and next time he might want to crash into the dino with his jeep. So since you can't prescript all actions you have to let a physic engine and AI handle it, which in turn burns down valueable CPU, which you no longer can use for pushing polys around, in addition to that you no longer have an artists involved who can fine tune the stuff that happens on screen, so you might run into clipping errors or silly looking situations.
Overall it is simply impossible to get an interactive situation look as good as a movie, even if you have all the CPU power you need at hand you still lack the artists for the fine tuning and often have zero control over the camera angle.
Beside from that we already are in a situation where yesterdays cutscenes are tomorrows gameplay scenes, yet, most gameplay looks for more borring then the cutscenes we saw before.
Parent
Quick Summary: (Score:5, Insightful)
Movie animation (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:Movie animation (Score:4, Interesting)
Parent
But still nothing on Nintendo... (Score:5, Insightful)
And anybody else upset that Microsoft wants to rush the next next generation? I still don't think this generation has been tapped out yet in terms of graphics and gameplay potential (maybe I'm just a bit bitter cuz I bought an Xbox last week
Re:But still nothing on Nintendo... (Score:3, Interesting)
As for Microsoft, they may be trying to push forward a *little* bit early, but console history shows it's about time to introduce the new generation for early adopters.
Don't worry about your XBox though, people still
Re:But still nothing on Nintendo... (Score:3, Interesting)
Its simple (Score:5, Informative)
And for a little perspective on rushing things... The GBA and Xbox both came out in 2001. The NDS is already out. Nintendo is the one complaining about the pace of the console cycle. This does not make sense. I'm just saying.
Parent
Finally, on the same level as the PC, for now. (Score:4, Insightful)
"Graphics on PC games such as Half Life 2 will be capable on the new consoles"
In another 6 months, PC's will have moved on yet again to the next generation GPU's, leaving these things behind once more.
Re:Finally, on the same level as the PC, for now. (Score:4, Insightful)
Parent
Physics? (Score:5, Interesting)
Re:Physics? (Score:5, Insightful)
Think Half Life 2, but with objects being more realistic in reaction (all those crates acted like they were hollow and made of balsa wood... which, if you break them open, you discover they are!).
Consider a complex problem of an urban combat situation ala Black Hawk Down, but lets even make it more complex: a helicopter taking a hit to the tail, going into a destabilized spin, slamming at an angle against a building and sliding along, tearing things up as it goes.
These days, the results would be: the helicopter takes the hit, which blows it up, and the dead husk falls to the ground, maybe with some forward velocity retained. The building would likely be unharmed.
Ragdoll these days tend to look like dolls made of rubber. GOOD calculations are very CPU expensive, and multiple iterations are as well, so as few iterations of very fast low resolution calculations are used in physics these days to leave CPU time for other things, such as AI logic.
Parent
Blurring the lines between cut scenes and gaming. (Score:5, Insightful)
Well not really. But I'd feel like I missed something whipping around on the warthog.
This can only be more true with movie like games.
Blurring the lines between cut scenes and gaming. Can't wait! Although I'll probably be too distracted to actually finish my objective
Re:Blurring the lines between cut scenes and gamin (Score:5, Funny)
-Agent Smith
Parent
Every system says that (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:Every system says that (Score:4, Informative)
for the last couple generations (which is when consoles went fully 3D) at the launch of a console, the games looked better than pc games. It took pcs a couple of years to catch up.
The thing is, consoles used low resolutions. 320*240 to 512*384 mostly. Even now, only a few games support 640*480. Compare this to pcs where the expected resolution is 1024x768 to 1600x1200 and you can see that consoles have been "cheating" all along.
They got away with it because TVs weren't capable of greater resolutions and the native interpolation made things look smoother (blurrier, but smoother).
With the advent of HDTVs, next-gen offerings will all have to support HDTV which means a significantly increased strain on the console engines. Will this mean PCs will catch up quicker? We'll see...
Parent
Re:Every system says that (Score:4, Informative)
Heh. Looking at your first link, I think you should consider the source a little bit. This is the same guy who believes he knows how to counteract gravity [blachford.info] and travel faster than light [blachford.info]. So if it's all the same to you, I'll consider his "analysis" of the cell processor with a large dose of salt.
Parent
Porn industry better have devel kits! (Score:3, Funny)
"We want to increase that level of immersion and realism in gaming to people can lose themselves in a game."
Microsoft has apparently delivered devel kits to some of the game makers but Sony has not. I really hope that with these "real-world physics" and "more immersion" that the Adult Industry has development kits from all parties RIGHT NOW.
Lalah! (Score:4, Insightful)
Tell me when we're seeing Virtual reality, because untill then "inovation" is a word Microsoft like to throw infront of their patents.
Re:Lalah! (Score:4, Insightful)
I think that's a little unfair to Nintendo. Mario sunshine was a very different game from all previous marios, not different to the level of others but a signifigant difference. Metroid went from platformer to first person and Zelda was cell shaded and set at sea. I mean, a Zelda that involves a ton of sailing? Then there's Pikmin. I mean, if that is more of the same to you, then you need a new interface, not a different game.
Maybe xbox, maybe PS3. But I'll eagerly await anything that comes out of Nintendo.
Parent
Great news for PS2 owners (Score:4, Interesting)
Yep, this comment sums it up... (Score:5, Insightful)
PS3 will provide graphics indistinguishable from.. (Score:5, Funny)
Yes. I've talked to people at EA. They really have no clue what it takes to get a movie made. When it takes 100 CPU hours to render a typical frame (not unusual) and hours of work by human compositors to achieve subtle 2D effects for which no algorithms as yet exist (such as touching up the lighting because what is aesthetically pleasing isn't geometrically correct) I wonder how they're going to do this stuff at 60fps even if the hardware renders 1000 times faster than is possible on the current crop of PCs.
On the other hand, if by movies they mean the likes of Episode II then Half Life 2 is already better.
Realism? (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:And in between? (Score:4, Insightful)
Hell Sony has been leaning on Nintendo's old SNES controller design for a decade now, only adding rumble and analog sticks after Nintendo introduces them.
Say what you want about Nintendo, but without their constant effort, console gaming would not be anything close to what it is today.
Maybe, just maybe, the poster was picking out three simple examples, and not attempting to be exhaustive. An illustrative sample if you will.
Parent
Yeah, right,?? (Score:5, Interesting)
What I wnat to know is... (Score:5, Interesting)
It's definately rendered - but from what?
http://newsimg.bbc.co.uk/media/images/40753000/jp
Re:What I wnat to know is... (Score:4, Informative)
Parent
In related news... (Score:5, Funny)
In related news, the PS3 will also be packed with the following features:
- Built-in AI indistinguishable from humans
- Integrated 10 MP digital camera
- 10 Gigabit ethernet & wireless
- Controllers will interface directly with the human brain--wirelessly!
- Processor will run at 42 GHz
All these and more, in the Next Sony Platform(TM)!...is there anyone here who still believes pre-release/development crap like this? Anyone? I mean, anyone other than Michael.
And now, it is time for a shameless plug [blogspot.com].
Sure, the PS3 might be faster and more powerful... (Score:5, Funny)
Lots of console hype... (Score:5, Insightful)
I suspect we'll see the same thing here.
The other thing to worry about is that the increasing reliance of highly detailed art means games are going to take much longer to produce, cost a lot more to make, and those costs will certainly be transfered to the consumer. Not to mention that when you're making games that require 100s of artists and with artists being a limited resource, you'll be seeing less projects spread among less game developer/publishers, with less competition and thus less gameplay innovation...
So things aren't *all* rosy...
Still, I'm sure I'll buy the Xbox2 on release day... I'm a sucker for new things.
Detail vs. Gameplay (Score:5, Insightful)
Once you add physics into the mix, every object needs to be broken down into more parts, represented in more ways, its possible impact on the game logic dealt with. (No point putting in a maze puzzle if you can bash through walls.)
So now you need hyper-detailed models with hyper-detailed textures and somewhat-detailed physics representations to produce something that looks as good as a second-tier film from ten years ago.
And the state of the art is, say, Half Life 2, a game which provides gorgeous graphics but runs you around on rails -- because providing that level of detail in a more open-ended game is simply prohibitively expensive. Indeed, by all accounts, Half Life 2's game play is unusually restrictive, even by the standards of First Person Shooters.
The key to me is choosing a level of design detail that suits the game you plan to make and then hiring an art director who can make the game look fabulous at that level of detail -- rather than maxing out the level of detail for the hardware currently available, and then producing the best game you can given the budget constraints you're stuck with.
The way things are trending we'll have games where you only get to visit one room because it costs millions of dollars to texture the pillows, insects, cracks in the wall, navel fluff, etc.
Re:A lot more under the hood.... (Score:3, Informative)