sure you can put things onto SPE’s, and the Cell can handle animation, physics etc, but is the texture memory and resolution going to be better than 360 - i don’t know

Thing is, atm there is not anything on PS3 that 360 could not do lets be honest (insomniac’s and naughty dogs games look stunning but not moreso than unreal engine 3)

So, there’s only the examples that are out there, and there are 2 where PS3 is not a port. Call of duty 4 is even stevens, both consoles running super smooth. And Assasins creed which freezes on PS3 (but most likely due to firmware 2.0 not the games)..

So it’s caught up now, finally, but it’s not exactly streaking away

Thing is, both consoles use tech that is now a few years old, they are both fixed with DirectX 9, top PC games like Crysis use DX10 to stunning effect….there is already a game out there on PC that without lots of technical trickery, is requiring hardware and software above and beyond what PS3 and 360 have..

This mythical ‘unlocking of extra power’ is rubbish, with better dev tools developers will make games look better on the same hardware, still not using every ounce of power…myself i think unlocking the potential of machines is a myth, they are unlocked right away, the games of 08 will just look better than those of 07, and so on and so on, there’s no more power there, they’ll just compress, make clever things like normal maps requiring less polys, that kind of thing

The only thing that will kill the X360 before its natural life-cycle is Microsoft. Nothing else in its specification can be seen as a crippling limitation, as per my post (7).

Over & Out.

A game I worked on years ago was pretty much pushing machine to its limits around 95% CPU and graphics usage.. but then a few months after that I made something even more impressive that only used about 60% - as I found better ways to structure the code and pipe the graphics through.
You can write a routine that does a job in 10 calculations.. then later find a way to do the same thing in 7, or at a smarter time in the frame drawing cycle. It’s the same result in the end but you use less processing time, leaving room for other things.

I also once modelled a tree that used about 400,000 polygons and it looked absolutely hopeless compared to 10,000 poly tree somebody else made.

As long as developers keep finding clever ways to optimise code further, I reckon we still have a long way to go on all 3 consoles before we see their full potential.

PGR4 proved that when the devs said that if they wanted to add in all the effects or realistic weather and whatnot, they would need to make the game multi-dvd, so they just left that stuff out. When you can have all that stuff run on independent processors and can fit it all on to your medium, blu-ray in this instance, the sky is the limit. Now they just need to put a gig of ram in the stupid thing and all the lazy developers won’t have anything to complain about.

Does anyone want to wager how good GoW2 or Halo4 or Bioshock2 will look, in contrast with their ‘first gen’ engines?

Game engines are not written overnight and once you start down a particular route, you cannot throw it away, just because you’ve cracked something and can do it better now than six months ago, when you first started writing the code.

So, time is relative in this case and is in no way an accurate indication of how things will turn out. It’s about how quickly developers become knowledgeable about each console.

I’m not being negative here about PS3, I’m trying to be balanced (I own a PS2 and PSP, afterall), so I don’t think anyone can discount the X360 just yet.

Sony can only win by being innovative (but not in the kiddy way that Nintendo has, PLEASE!) with the games it nurtures and making them have that PlayStation magic that seems not only alien but very barren from X360 games. I think they’ve slightly forgotten to do that recently.

All I read here are sighs of relief from PS3 owners - as if such comments from developers and games like Uncharted and Ratchet & Clank are saviours and justifiers for the extortionate amounts spent on buying into the Sony third gen dream.

I just hope it doesn’t become a nightmare…

Dynasty Warriors 2 to Shadow of the Colossus

I agree totally with Post 4 - this year is the pinnacle of the 360 in terms of what it can produce, we have Halo3, Mass Effect and Gears - all beautiful games…which have been in development since the consoles inception in late 2005 - that is what the console has shown us.

Compare those titles to Heavenly Sword, Uncharted, Demo of MGS4 - as was stated in a previous ThreeSpeech article

“I Don’t think the 360 could do this”

Note: JohnSketch is in no way a Fanboy, he owns all current consoles and enjoys drinking Westons Cider (export) whilst watching Battlestar Galactica and playing with his EyeToy.

Also keep in mind that in it’s first year the PS3 is matching the Xbox 360’s capabilities. Sure they are different beasts to program for, but it looks to me like the PS3 has more legs.

My only wish is that Sony would make it as easy for the hobby developer to write stuff for the PS3 as Microsoft has done for the 360 using XNA.

PS. See when the pain killers kick in, I can be more civil.

it’s like the xbox and the gamecube hit the capability-ceiling pretty quick. then you’ve got the ps2 coming out with stuff like godhand, god of war 2 and okami right at the end of it’s life.

i think with ps3 they have magnified that approach. i wouldnt be suprised if the ps3 keeps up with the successor to the xb360 for a while…..