Was Uncharted 2 really impossible to make on Xbox 360?

solidus12

solidus12

Member
Let's go back in time, shall we back when developers and publishers were console warring.

I remembered this article stating that Uncharted 2 would be impossible to port on Xbox 360 due to many technical factors.

"I guarantee that this game couldn't be working on Xbox 360. It would be impossible. I'm 100 per cent sure of this," Balestra told ars technica.
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"It's the combination of Blu-ray and hard drive," he explained, revealing that "every single bit" of the 25GB disc had been filled.
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"You can play the entire game without loading. We don't require an install. We're doing all the post-processing effects on the SPUs [Synergistic Processing Units]. The quality of the depth of field we have, you can't do that on the Xbox.
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Sourcel

How true are these statements?

Do you miss the old days where developers were taking shots at one another?

Like this example from Sucker Punch:

R1u5VW8.jpeg
 
Nothing is impossible, but considering it was made on an engine that specifically targeted the PS3's hardware along with taking advantage of a format with vastly more space available it would have needed some serious work. In the end it's a pointless question as we'll never know for sure nor does it matter.
 
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Pure marketing BS lol. Sony needed the PS3 to feel next gen back in those days, remember no one was buying PS3 at the time.

It may have been a bit difficult because the architecture and storage formats of both systems were so different but 360 could run mostly any game PS3 ran (and vice versa)
 
They had a shit ton of effects that were added to the engine in comparison with Drake's Fortune, once they started using the SPUs.




DoF, Per-Object Motion Blur, SSS, the perfect AO, simulations, the constant streaming.. all thanks to Cell.
 
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Same reason as how games couldnt run that much on ps3, when in reality devs didnt utlize the console that much.
 
"You can play the entire game without loading. We don't require an install."
So yeah, accurate. 50 discs would be needed.
 
Vick said:
They had a shit ton of effects that were added to the engine in comparison with Drake's Fortune, once they started using the SPUs.




DoF, Per-Object Motion Blur, simulations, the constant streaming.. all thanks to Cell.
Click to expand...

you could do all that on the more powerful Xbox GPU with unified 512 mb of vram.
 
Skifi28 said:
Nothing is impossible, but considering it was made on an engine that specifically targeted the PS3's hardware along with taking advantage of a format with vast more space available it would have needed some serious work. In the end it's a pointless question as we'll never know for sure nor does it matter.
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Thread closed, of course its "impossible" the way it was set up for PS3, its like saying Gears of War would've been "impossible" for PS3 because PS3 doesn't have Xbox Live. Yet a port did exist, just for development purposes.

That being said, PS3 did have some massive advantages Xbox did not have, like the aforementioned blu-ray storage and the CELL processor being highly powerful when utilized correctly. I do believe some games like The Last of Us may have been technically impossible on the 360 without some massive downgrades in areas, given how the devs themselves said they were using the CELL in bizarre ways you couldn't normally do with CPUs of the time.
 
Mr Moose said:
"You can play the entire game without loading. We don't require an install."
So yeah, accurate. 50 discs would be needed.
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they are playing video files and masking the loading that way. if you skip cutscenes a loading screen appears.

this is still the case even though they have moved to realtime cutscenes since Uncharted 4, but all PS3 games were using pre-rendered video files to mask the loading. thats 3-4 discs max and you could install the game on the harddrive on the 360. Same as MGS4 which let you install everything at once eventually.
 
Witcher 3 is possible on Switch.

Porting games two similarly spec'ed systems would also be possible. The X360 was easier to develop for, from what I recall, due to its unified memory structure and devs not needing to work around 256MB limits for either CPU or GPU.
 
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Nvzman said:
Thread closed, of course its "impossible" the way it was set up for PS3, its like saying Gears of War would've been "impossible" for PS3 because PS3 doesn't have Xbox Live. Yet a port did exist, just for development purposes.

That being said, PS3 did have some massive advantages Xbox did not have, like the aforementioned blu-ray storage and the CELL processor being highly powerful when utilized correctly. I do believe some games like The Last of Us may have been technically impossible on the 360 without some massive downgrades in areas, given how the devs themselves said they were using the CELL in bizarre ways you couldn't normally do with CPUs of the time.
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Wasn't there a PS3 version?
SlimySnake said:
they are playing video files and masking the loading that way. if you skip cutscenes a loading screen appears.

this is still the case even though they have moved to realtime cutscenes since Uncharted 4, but all PS3 games were using pre-rendered video files to mask the loading. thats 3-4 discs max and you could install the game on the harddrive on the 360. Same as MGS4 which let you install everything at once eventually.
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So yeah, you literally can't play it on 360 the same way. You'd need to switch discs.
 
Vick said:
Yeah.. well, I'll trust Balestra (miss him so much in current ND) over you, no offence.
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Nah facts are facts. The Xbox GPU was more powerful, the vram was double on the 360. All those things hes talking about can be done on the GPU. They were putting it on the SPUs because the GPU was weaker and needed the cell to make up for it. plenty of open world games added streaming to their engines back then. uncharted is a linear game, and streaming is mostly done on the vram which xbox had double of. DoF, motion blur, and other stuff hes talking about is all done on the GPU. its cool that they were able to use the cell for stuff traditionally done on the GPU but it doesnt matter when making comparisons to a GPU thats better at doing those things.

And ND shipped Uncharted 1 with screen tearing so its not like they were all knowing geniuses. Look up how GG had to give them the solution to their tearing issues. I think he ballestra himself who said it was so easy they were dumbfounded that they couldnt figure it out themselves despite a 3 year dev cycle.

Mr Moose said:
So yeah, you literally can't play it on 360 the same way. You'd need to switch discs.
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no, you would install the disc on the harddrive.
 
A lot of PS3 games used BD discs for asset duplication. And that was used for asset streaming, thing impossible on X360 with DVD w/o installs and interruptions.

BD also helped a ton with the asset varierty too. Especially in later games like TLOU.
 
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Probably could have been done, but would likely have required a ton of work to do to get it working on the very different GPU. Disc swapping would be needed as well.
 
Yes, 100% impossible for the 360 to play Uncharted 2. It was also impossible for my Master System to play Super Mario Bros. no matter how much I tried to shove the NES cart in.
 
arstechnica.com

Uncharted 2 makes PS3 shine; couldn’t happen on 360

Uncharted 2 is set to be a showcase for the power of the PlayStation 3, and …
arstechnica.com arstechnica.com
There is more details in this link than the Eurogamer one. And after reading it I kind of agree with it. Not that the game can't be made for the 360. But that either Naughty Dog can't, or would have lost so much time/changed so much things that it would not have been the same game in the end. Like how we can get Portal for the N64. There is skill in making multiplatform games. No shame in Naughty Dog not having that skill.
 
SlimySnake said:
Nah facts are facts. The Xbox GPU was more powerful, the vram was double on the 360. All those things hes talking about can be done on the GPU.
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Facts are one thing, conjectures made by someone in their room about stuff made when they weren't around, in direct contraddiction to those who made it, is a whole different affair.

Perhaps they could be done, all at once on a similar fidelity game with comparable animations at native 720p plus MSAA x4 and stable framerate? I don't think so, even simply because there was nothing like it.

And this is Uncharted 2 we're talking about, we also had Killzone 2, God of War 3 and especially Uncharted 3 or even a GTA V lead platform PS3 (by far the most impressive R* game of the generation) with better textures and AF.

SlimySnake said:
They were putting it on the SPUs because the GPU was weaker and needed the cell to make up for it. plenty of open world games added streaming to their engines back then. uncharted is a linear game, and streaming is mostly done on the vram which xbox had double of.
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There was nothing on 360 like those collapsing/moving/changing levels in real time, or those train levels. "Linear" means very little in these cases, their Nepal map could host free-roams.

SlimySnake said:
And ND shipped Uncharted 1 with screen tearing so its not like they were all knowing geniuses. Look up how GG had to give them the solution to their tearing issues. I think he ballestra himself who said it was so easy they were dumbfounded that they couldnt figure it out themselves despite a 3 year dev cycle.
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Very well known story, that has zero relevance here.

Edit:

Daneel Elijah said:
arstechnica.com

Uncharted 2 makes PS3 shine; couldn’t happen on 360

Uncharted 2 is set to be a showcase for the power of the PlayStation 3, and …
arstechnica.com arstechnica.com
There is more details in this link than the Eurogamer one. And after reading it I kind of agree with it. Not that the game can't be made for the 360. But that either Naughty Dog can't, or would have lost so much time/changed so much things that it would not have been the same game in the end. Like how we can get Portal for the N64. There is skill in making multiplatform games. No shame in Naughty Dog not having that skill.
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Well There It Is Jurassic Park GIF
 
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of course not. With enough work it certainly was possible. PS3 was the difficult console to develop for, due to the Cell.
 
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Skifi28 said:
Nothing is impossible, but considering it was made on an engine that specifically targeted the PS3's hardware along with taking advantage of a format with vast more space available it would have needed some serious work. In the end it's a pointless question as we'll never know for sure nor does it matter.
Click to expand...
Uncharted 2 isn't that big, remove the additional language files and it'll fit on a dual layer. Course that means one pressing per region but hey, it works.

Vick said:
There was nothing on 360 like those collapsing/moving/changing levels in real time, or those train levels. "Linear" means very little in these cases, their Nepal map could host free-roams.
Click to expand...

Because no one was there to design it. The whole cell thing was overblown in hindsight. The guy who lead the engineering on both even said so. Play the train level and you'll notice that it really depends on your progression because it starts looping the same assets after a while.
 
Vick said:
Facts are one thing, conjectures made by someone in their room about stuff made when they weren't around, in direct contraddiction to those who made it, is a whole different affair.
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Isnt that exactly what hes doing? I mean he didnt have xbox devkits. How does he know what the Xbox 360 can or cannot do?
 
SlimySnake said:
Isnt that exactly what hes doing? I mean he didnt have xbox devkits. How does he know what the Xbox 360 can or cannot do?
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I'm pretty confident a PC/Dreamcast programmer who became ND co-president for 12 years, where he launched series like Uncharted and TLOU, can have access to whatever kit/information about it he could possibly need.
 
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Hard to say without having access to the Uncharted 2 version of their engine. It could very well be just marketing/PR bullshit, like a lot of devs and publishers do. But it could also be true. If it is indeed true, then I reckon it is mostly related to how they are using the BluRay in terms of its capacity and/or to stream and query assets.
 
I'd say the Gears series matched it graphically. It could be done on many discs.

What's really exciting is the work Sony is doing on the Cell today. It's top secret, so you didn't hear it from me, but PS6 WILL be Cell powered.
 
Vick said:
They had a shit ton of effects that were added to the engine in comparison with Drake's Fortune, once they started using the SPUs.




DoF, Per-Object Motion Blur, SSS, the perfect AO, simulations, the constant streaming.. all thanks to Cell.
Click to expand...

I swear to God this game still has some of the best textures of all time.

On side note, I played this game so much that at 0:57 in the video, you can see Nate's left hand sitting flush with the flat bed train car but in the finished version of the game, at some point that animation broke and now his left hand floats above the train car.
 
Remember: the ps3 was so much stronger that just about every port ran better on the 360. /s

Jokes aside, the power gap wasn't drastically wide between the two, so I'm calling bullshit, just translating it to amd and the power pc architecture wouldve been a pain to do. The bigger issue (aside from the obvious exclusivity deal) wouldve been storage since the ps3 used bluray, but its not like we havent had games with multiple disks before.
 
They said the same thing for ratchet and clank a rift in time. That it's only possible on PS5 because of the SSD.

That was also untrue.
 
Vick said:
They had a shit ton of effects that were added to the engine in comparison with Drake's Fortune, once they started using the SPUs.




DoF, Per-Object Motion Blur, SSS, the perfect AO, simulations, the constant streaming.. all thanks to Cell.
Click to expand...



Xenos ALU power proved to be more efficient than using SPU deferred shading in Cell. Battlefield 3 is a perfect example.

"All thanks to Cell". It was a necessity for the PS3 to recruit help from Cell to basically match 360's more advanced GPU. BF3 devs wrote an entire paper for Siggraph explaining their work on Frostbite and the use of SPU deferred shading. Interestingly, on that same paper they talk about Xenos ALU power handling all this on its own.
 
SlimySnake said:
you could do all that on the more powerful Xbox GPU with unified 512 mb of vram.
Click to expand...
You certainly couldn't , in fact you probably couldn't even do all the original Drakes fortune precision fx like physics on leaf motion and HDR lighting on that old 24bit colour Xenos GPU, never mind all the higher quality stuff in Uncharted 2.

However to answer the original question, yes a inferior version of the same game that didn't feel that different would have easily been doable on the 360 IMO.
 
I wouldn't be surprised if 360 could run uncharted 2 that game kicks butt I love hearing what developers could and couldn't do with the 360 and PS3's cell.
 
Skyrim was the perfect game for me, it's likeness matters more to me than Uncharted likeness in my opinion.
 
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