The PlayStation 3 and Xbox 360 may be on equal footing now thanks to recently announced price cuts, but when it comes to graphical capabilities, the PS3 is, apparently, far and away superior to the 360…That is, according to co-president of Naughty Dog, Christophe Balestra.
Balestra recently spoke with tech blog Ars Technica about his company’s upcoming action-adventure title, Uncharted 2: Among Thieves, and said quite bluntly, "I guarantee that this game couldn't be working on Xbox 360. It would be impossible. I'm 100 percent sure of this.”
Bold words, indeed. To demonstrate this, Balestra points to the fact that for the highly anticipated follow up to Uncharted: Drake’s Fortune, “We fill the Blu-ray 100 percent, we have no room left on this one. We have 25GB of data; we're using every single bit of it." Balestra goes on to say that the first game only used about 30 percent of the PS3’s SPU [Synergistic Processing Units] power, whereas the new game uses 100 percent. As a result, Balestra says, "The quality of the depth of field we have, you can't do that on the Xbox."
Again, quite the assertion. Yet as impressive as both of these details are, they seem to beg the rather obvious question: Does this game represent the pinnacle of the PS3’s potential? While Balestra's trumpeting of the PS3's power and his game's use of that power is understandable and clearly evidenced, it also sounds like he is saying that his developers have pushed the PS3 to its absolute limits, which I sincerely hope isn’t the case considering we’re only three years into the PS3’s "10-year life cycle."
I mean, sure, Uncharted 2 has ridiculous amounts of potential, and I can’t wait to get my hands on it, but if it's maxing out the PS3 in the ways Balestra says it is, then where does Naughty Dog go from here? Where do other developers go from here, for that matter? I guess the hope would be that developers will be able to find more efficient ways to use 100 percent of the PS3's various components, which sounds a bit strange considering Sony has long since touted the PS3 as having virtually limitless potential.
Let the well reasoned and civilized discussion commence.
Source
Comments are Closed
Comments
Displaying 61–80 of 105
31234565
Bombalom
This guys crazy and I also think there full of themseleves.
Xbox Says "Anything you can do I can do better"!
TheSiwentKiwwah
has anyone else noticed all the pro-xbox or neutral comments have negative thumbs up/down and all the pro ps3 have positive?
CALiiGeDDon
though i am getting a ps3 soon this game doesn't look good enough for me to buy, the gameplay just looks bad. im gnna get warhawk, killzone 2, and MAG for ps3 and then the sequal to warhawk...theres nothing else exclusive for ps3 thats good
Rickroll_the2nd
Where do developers go from here (after Uncharted 2)? Well laterally of course, if they've actually reached 100% SPU power. New IPs, new styles of gameplay and graphics, faster optimized code are some of the ways games can improve over time. God of War is a perfect example of a franchise that exceeded what people were used to seeing on the PS2 and that came many years after the PS2 had already been in the market.
edgeofblade
So, Blu-ray = power now. That doesn't make a drop of sense.
EKG
Uncharted 2 looks absolutely Brain Shatteringly amazing. Better than anything on my 360. But the PS3 HAS NOT been maxed yet. Just look at Heavy Rain and God of War 3.
EKG
Uncharted 2 looks absolutely Brain Shatteringly amazing. Better than anything on my 360. But the PS3 HAS NOT been maxed yet. Just look at Heavy Rain and God of War 3.
RRODisBack
Shockwave, anyone who defends the Xbox as much as you ARE a fanboy. Every time I say something about the Xbox you ALWAYS defend it.
Arius_de_Galdri
Here's why I think the PS3 is a superior system over the 360:
1. HDD. It's way cheaper to get your hands on a hard drive that is more bang for your buck for the PS3 than the 360. I picked up a 320 GB HDD for my PS3 for under $80, yet it costs $100 bucks for a 60 GB HDD for the 360? Ripoff.
2. WiFi. The PS3 has a built in wireless receiver, an add on that costs another $100 for the 360. Ripoff.
3. Device support. The PS3 has wireless bluetooth support for up to 7 bluetooth devices, including headsets, cell phones, extra controllers, etc. Not so much on the 360.
4. Integrated High Definition Drive. The PS3 has an integrated Bluray Disc drive, allowing you to watch full high definition movies. The 360 has no such drive, and even when a high definition drive was available, it cost another $200 at launch. Damn!
5. Free Online. Why pay $60 a year for online service for your gaming system? Some will argue that the online offered by Sony isn't as good as that offered by Microsoft, but you know what? It's still free.
6. Remote Play. I can literally go anywhere I want to, and so long as I have WiFi access for my PSP, I can access any content (music, movies, pictures, some games) stored on my PS3 HDD from my PSP. This includes any PSOne game in the PS3's disc drive. Microsoft offers nothing of the sort.
7. Playstation Home. Whether or not you think Home is a brilliant creative idea or just a waste of time, it's still something offered by Sony that Microsoft can't match. I personally think Home is pretty fun, the bowling alley, playing chess in the mall, and the "alternate reality" games are very cool.
So, lets add up how much it would take for a 360 to do everything that a PS3 would.
360 Elite: $299
WiFi Adapter: $100
HD DVD Drive: $200
One Year Live Subscription: $60
A 360 with the features offered by Sony would run you somewhere around $650. This doesn't include the things that can't be bough for a 360, like blue tooth compatibility, Remote Play, and the ability to upgrade to a much larger hard drive for relatively little cost.
AMdG
Ugotmefuctup
Only part of what he said is being overstated.
PS3 w/ more firepower under the hood than 360 = YES
PS3 reaching it's limits (via Uncharted) = NO
Uncharted not possible on 360 = DEPENDS (-on how it is developed)
-And, that is the key word: DEVELOPED.
If anything, ND reached the limits of what they could do with dev kit they used for making Uncharted.
ZyloWolfBane
I wouldnt worry too much if the game actually does push the PS3's natural limits right away, people said the same thing about the PS2 back in the day and then as time went on people created better and better graphics engines that made everything possible.
Had this not happened they would have never been able to make games like God of War 2 or Final Fantasy XII.
Its not the system's potential that needs to be measured but the potential and skill of the developers working on each platform that need to continue improving.
deline
Red Alert! All crew to battle stations, weapons systems and shields are brought to full power, the ship prepares for combat with all fanboys.
Uncharted 2: Among Thieves look super good.
I might have a ps3 but not a xbox360 you could try to call me a sony fanboy but i open windows too.
MasterNoble6
Xsux is dying and will soon be dead!!!!!!!!!!!
chocosquirrel
It may be the pinacle of the PS3s power right NOW. But in future years as compression improves, and new firmware updates become available, the potential power will increase.
reagenyouth125
Who cares how good a game looks, if the story blows so will the game......for example Killzone 2's campaign was awful......seriously awful (mostly having to do with that retard Rico). That's why Mass Effect is so good...it's all about a good story.
GAMEFRKsinceBIRTH
well.....yeah, come one we all know how powerful the PS3 is and the promise of the future from the Ps3. So this is not surprising that an PS3 exclusive will not work on the 360.
tommy_deathdoll
Just because Uncharted 2 is using 100% of the PS3's SPU doesn't mean the system has reached its peak. In time, devs will get more efficient with their use of the system's capabilities and produce even higher quality games. Look at God of War II for instance. That was later in the life of the PS2 and I don't think anyone would have seen that system pushed that much in the first few years of its life.
jdawghatesyou
there are 50gb Blu-Ray disks, but they are dual layer, and Im no dev so I dont know if that would effect it at all. Also I want to say that I hate when people talk about Blu-Ray then talk about compression haha the whole point of Blu-Ray is the fact that there isnt a need for compression, because it is a "loss-less" format. Why do you think you need an HDMI cable? Compression make you loose quality. I mean everyone knows that when you compress a digital file and then uncompress it, some 1's and 0's fall off and you cant just creat them out of nowhere haha. And unless Microsoft gets Blu-Ray thay are tapped out, DVD9's can only hold so much, and that isnt much haha
tommy_deathdoll
Just because Uncharted 2 is using up all the SPU in the PS3 doesn't mean the system has reached its limit. As time goes on, devs will find more efficient ways of using the SPU and the quality grows. Just look at God of War II on the PS2. It was later in the years of its life, but no one was expecting that a couple of years into the launch.
ddf
bull sheet they say the samething about mgs and look now
Displaying 61–80 of 105
31234565