PlayStation 3: $499 – Developers Speak

I find all of these people trying to put a positive spin on the inclusion of expensive blu-ray tech in the ps3 quite amusing. Many justifications are being bandied about, such as the ability to add more cg animation to games and the fact it will play blu-ray movies out of the box.

Anyone who is a regular gamer would have noticed the trend of less cg being used in games, and more in-game engine cinematics. I personally have never liked the inconsistent feel of games using cg animation for cut-scenes and the quality is often so much different to the engine generated graphics that it often destroys the submersion of the experience. Anyone who honestly believes that 9GB of storage space is not enough room for games which are NOT heavily laden with vast amounts of pre-rendered animation are deluding themselves.

Now, my favourite argument, that somehow Sony are performing a humanitarian service by including out-of-the-box support for blu-ray movie playback. Just in case you people hadn't noticed, the format war is not over. In fact it's hardly even begun! This is a feature that Sony wants you to pay a premium for, when in actual fact the only REAL reason it's included, is as part of Sony's business strategy to win this format war and reap vast sums of money from royalty payments from blu-ray movie sales.
Let's state this simple and concisely:
Sony are giving their customers NO choice, and are forcing them to accept their proprietary format which may or may not become the accepted standard in distibuted high definition movie formats.
Microsoft are providing a machine which is not susceptible to a negative outcome from this impending format war, and are not forcing their customers to subsidise the fight!

I really don't think a lot of you understand how little the average consumer cares about a high definition movie format. Without a high definition television, there is simply no appreciable difference between the next gen and current gen video formats. To think this is going to be a major sales feature is seriously underestimating the apathy of a vast percentage of the population.

I totally agree. At this point in time I dont find it very prudent to buy a $499 video game console for features that are not likely to heighten the experience to a degree further than just a graphics upgrade. That money could go elsewhere into something more worthwhile. Anyone who thinks $499 is worthwhile for a game console needs a serious reality check. Im sorry if I offended any of you "hardcore gamers."
But I agree, we're becoming Sony's pawns in a game most of us dont understand. There's a bigger, deeper inherent picture in all this. Sony is hoping to bank off the Playstation brand to prop other technologies to the unknowing consumer who pays a premium to set a certain standard rather than predominantly for a heightened experience.
I'm not sold on Blu-Ray just yet.

9 gb soon wont be enough for a game. anyone who has Half-life 2 for the pc knows that. the source engine itsself took up a ton of space. also, that was when the game is a 32 bit program that isnt next gen but not quite ps2/xbox gen (half-life 2 for xbox just isnt the same as the pc version). we dont know how big games will get in the future. i dont think it will get to 25 gb any time soon, maby not even on the PS3 but it WILL pass 9gb.

You having a laugh? The code is always the smallest part of any game. Game code and executables are always small and under 10Mb and probably a lot smaller than that.

The biggest part of any game is always the assets (models, art, textures, sound and videos)

Actually, one of my favorite aspects of ToS was the lack of of CGI. I perfer to play, not watch, my games (message to all the FF games).

Having more space on a format allows programmers to be lazy in coding, less space requires more efficient code and compression techniques. Given that compression techniques have been steadily improving and the average size of an xbox game didn't even fill half a DVD - even now towards the end of its life cycle there's no reason to assume we need more space.

this is a good article which addresses the issue sensibly. These are some stats from the article about the size of current 360 games:

* Condemned: 3.9 GB
* Madden 06 NFL: 3.3 GB
* Dead or Alive 4: 5 GB
* NBA 06: 4.5 GB

Hardly filled right up now.

Sony Europe say €600, or £420. So I'd say £450, as they have a profit black hole to fill.

People will pay it; people pay £2000 for HD Ready TVs out of a need to be alpha of the tech herd when HD TV is around the corner (HD TV is a seperate standard - HD Ready is 440k pixels, HD TV 2 million).

I'll stick with the 360, and consider Rev. Even Bob Ross got me excited, and yet FFXIII being on the cards just made me shrug. This PS3 thing's just not happening to me. I think it's the lack of proper, proven footage.

Price is a very important issue to all the Moms and Dads that will be buying a next gen console for xmas 2006.

yes the spoilt brats will get there ps3's but the rest will be getting the 360's and Revolutions.

one of the other important factors which i have not seen anything on yet is the price point on the games. at 44- 49.99 360 seems to be ok, but people do complain at this price point, will ps3 game be even more as its new format ?

http://www.theinquirer.net/?article=30820

Rough price will be between £380 and £430 in the uk if this rumor seems to be correct. Not a bad price if you consider that it has blu-ray, however hands up people who have the money for a HD screen. With current pricing in the UK of between £800-2500 your gonna need to be really into your games and movies to warrant spending that kinda money on a consoleand dvd player. I'm sticking with my PC thank ya very much for my HD gaming. I've got oblivion running at 1600x1200 on my 21" monitor and it looks saweeeet thank ya very much. And i agree with joji you might as well wait. Sony will only be rincing you for all the money that they can for at least the first 18 months of its life. Until the price of HD tvs come down substantially theres no point with the supposed next generation consoles, not when you can get a pc that'll run higher resolutions and actually has good games available now for the same price.

Let's, class, disect this post quote by quote shall we:



That's just a matter of consoles being able to render more polygons in real time. It's only a matter of time before CG becomes as passé as FMV and FMV style games (I'm looking at you Phantasmagoria).



Point taken. Of course the quality is going to be different, that's the whole fricken point of CG movies! To show us something that the machine the game is on can't do in real time or can't find a mechanic to make that scene playable. If there's narration and story going why not have it in super high quality CG rather than a blurry, pointy polygonal mess. CG is the reason Final Fantasy is the most profitable RPG franchise and why Final Fantasy VII is one of the top 3 best selling games of all times. For better or worse.




Well your wrong, how long it's going to take to need more space is debatable. Take PS2 launch titles as examples, all on regular blue bottom CDs. Then take MGS2: Sons of Liberty, released just two years after the system launch. Flip THAT disc over, gold bottom DVD. AND not to mention the Subsistence special edition which came with two discs meaning that the 6GB PS2 DVD discs could not contain everything also meaning that MGS 2 takes up the whole damn disc. What someone should look up is the space of Oblivion. Now THAT is a good measure of what space games are going to take to produce. Games are getting larger by the day, so we certainly do need more space.





It's nice you omit that Microsoft all along wanted to have HD DVD playback. And now they are producing an HD DVD add-on. So then by your argument, if Sony makes a Blu-Ray add-on instead of including it rather than saving gamers' pockets and gamers' tv stand space, then Sony is giving gamers a choice. Sony is in no way not making you not be able to hook up an HD DVD player AS WELL. Obviously we are not buying this system because of the playback formats the PS3 supports, we're buying it for games. And by your next words...



well it means by Sony adding Blu-Ray capability and us gamers apparently not caring about HD movie formats, it's a nice feature if we decide to buy some high quailty movies. So Sony ISN'T pigeonholing us, because as you say, we gamers don't care.



That's funny! There's no difference??? How many HD or Blu-Ray DVDs have you seen? Well I know. NONE! Because there not out yet. The fact is this, HD DVDs and Blu-Ray DVDs will have MUCH LESS COMPRESSION (read: look better) than regular DVDs. Now, if next gen DVD players will output in 480i for proper playback on non-HD tvs has yet to be seen, but the simple matter is, that they are going to blow regular DVDs away. Just pick up any random DVD, and look closely at the shadows and color gradients and s**t. You'll see artifacting, pixelation, and blurryness.

Also to all of you who think HD isn't going to matter and no one cares. Graphics are the #1 reason people buy games, better graphics = better sales period. So HD tvs ARE appealing. Also roughly 2009, say goodbye to standard definition analog broadcast. I do believe that the PS3 and 360 will last well into 2009, so HD will be if not is now a big factor.

Oh and as for HDTVs being expensive, someone can get a Magnavox 27" HDTV for $400 in America. That's the price of an X-Box 360. NOT EXPENSIVE. Hell you can get a 23" Philips LCD HDTV for $700, the price of a 360 with three controllers, rechargable packs and a few games.

How much did you spend on your PC and display???
Looks like over $3,000 plus any upgrades you've made to it. Yeah, that's the price of an HDTV and console and proper cableing. So it's not really a big difference in price. Plus the cost of constantly upgrading to keep ahead of the PC curve will certainly drain one's pockets.

Sorry to double post so quick, but opinions needed to be spilled.

so whats the justification for loading more space on a single optical disk than the entire hard drive of my laptop?... CG movies? man, if i want to look at purrdy videos, ill go watch that final fantasy movie. CG is just an excuse to show something that the console cant render itself... if it cant be done, then dont do it... HL2, arguably one of the best games of all time managed to create an amazing story without the use of ANY cutscenese, the player never left mr. freemans eye ball.

If games like Civ4, HL2, Quake4, AOEIII and what not can be loaded onto a single dvd for my computer, than why is it needed to have a 25 gb media format. and its not because ps2 games have more content. tell me FEAR doesnt look a bit beefy at the midsection and ill slap you... better yet, sony needs a slap.

ive been mulling this over a bit... dual layer DVDs hold what... 9 gb... 8.4? fairly expensive at that to purchase yourself... 15 bucks for 3 or so.

blu-ray... 25 gb... even if not at retail, i cant imagine this stuff is cheap.

the prospect of forking out 70 bucks to get a gaming fix doesnt look like one i want to get caught up in.

um, then don't.

Now you're having a laugh!

More available disk space = lazy coding?

It's already been stated that the code takes the smallest portion of space, well behind image, audio and geometry assets. You'd have to be a really lazy coder to make a dent on DVD size media.

As for your compression argument, I have two points;

1. Why use lossy compression for "HD era" <ick!> games, when there's plenty of disk space? The only reason I can think of is data transfer rates / load times.

2. Any smart (or lazy, if you want to look at it that way) developer would just license a third party compression library (MPEG, Softdec, RAD, etc).

No, I think the biggest cause of lazy coding in a vast increase in processor power. Just look at symetries between Windows and Intel. Every time a faster Intel chip is release, MS follows with a new, "improved" version of Windows "optimised" for that processor. Odd that is runs just as slow (or slower) that the previous version of Windows.

The conspiracy theorist in me suspects the delays in Vista as actually the Windows team just waiting for the processor manufacturers to "catch up". God forbid they should consider cutting the fat and <gasp> optimising Windows' code.

I agree a lot with Elysiums comments, though I understand and respect others won't.

To some degree I kind of hope both Blu Ray and HD-DVD fail miserably. The only time they deserve to take off is with the recordable option (not because freaking PS3 has it and its being forced on us), and that ain't gonna come any time soon.

Bar PS2, normal hard drive based dvd recorders are what most of the masses are more likely to invest in than Blu Ray or HD-DVD, especially when the humble VHS is on its way to the big techno glue factory in the sky. Once VHS disappear how aare you going to record. It's either Tivo, Sky digital or DVD recorders with or without hard drives.

I'm sure all us happy gamers will love all this tech upgrading to a degree, but what of the real masses who aren't gamers. Will they give a rats arse about changing formats after just upgrading to dvd players in the last few years. HDTV perhaps a yes but until Blu Cheese and such can record it ain't shiznit to many people out there.

We'll see soon enough.

With regard to space on game dvds I do think the space can be taken advantage of and can hide some crap games. There's the plus side too. I know many will differ over the likes of the FF series use of CG but as far as games go SE make good use in enhancing the gaming experience to another level. I'll never forget playing FFVIII and playing and watching the Galbadian soldiers clash with my classmates. On the flip side LoZ OoT is a good example of how to do a game, lack of CG forced Nintendo to be more creative and the rest is gaming history.

Not long to go on the graphics front til the only way games can look prettier is to wear a bloddy dress and dance for you. CG or not, just don't forsake the game itself.

Agree or disagree, its interesting stuff all the same.