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EA sez: PS3 more powerful than X360

K

Kleegamefan

K. LEE GAIDEN
Gamespy interview with Glenn Entis, VP/Chief Visual Officer at EA

http://www.gamespy.com/articles/634/634928p1.html

GameSpy: Okay, everybody knows that you can create all kinds of great graphics with the new systems. Everybody knows that the new systems have plenty of processing power and that you can run 3500 individual characters on the screen at once, all with their own A.I. Is that all we get with the new systems?

Entis: We've obviously spent a lot of time thinking about this. It starts with the graphics. We know graphics are a great focus and a great way to signal that something is new. One of the most important things that graphics have to do is deliver strong emotional impact. When I watched people yelling during the Killzone video [at Sony's E3 conference], you could see it's all about emotional impact.

For more casual audiences games must have the feel of mainstream entertainment. They need to deliver some sort of fantasy or emotional package. One of the most important things in emotional impact is characters. We really hit on that because to me it's not about realism, but it's about having a character that... [he breaks off to explain]:

The first thing animation student learn in art school is that the job of the animator is to make the audience believe that they can understand what the character is thinking and feeling. It's been hard to do that in games because of the state of animation in games, but also because of what the platforms have been able to produce. You see a lot of very mechanical motion in games. I think that what this generation should be able to do -- again it's a combination of talent and of platform [processing power] -- is to have characters that give much more believable performances in the game, whether it's a character that you're controlling or an enemy NPC.

To a large extent, you cannot think of many great performances you've seen in games. Games are not movies so people aren't watching it just for the performance, but you still have characters interacting with characters and there's a big difference between feeling like there's something really going on verses zombies walking around.
Click to expand...


GameSpy: Is PlayStation 3 more powerful than 360?

Entis: Well, I don't think any of us are really ready to say for sure. There's no final hardware specs on any of the systems [at the time of this interview].

Sony will have more processing power. There's no question about that. Then the arguments are about how easy it will be for people to get to and use it. The extra processing power will help. I think a lot of what we've been talking about in terms of dynamics is that physical simulations, fluid dynamics and to a certain extent AI. Some of the AI may actually end up using floating points, especially when you're using statistical AI and processing. Floating point is going to help all that.

The other place that I think floating points will help is less relevant to consumers. I think floating point will help with the process of building games. I think we'll see much more procedurally generated assets. So we'll see textures, noise patterns, and animation with some components that are procedurally generated. We'll see models procedurally generated in some cases, particularly when there are very large scale worlds with a lot of variety.

[Editor's note: for a discussion about procedural content generation in games, check out our Spore Preview from GDC 2005.]

Every team is going to have a choice, "Do we actually build all that stuff one-by-one, or start abstracting out rules that can generate some part of those models on the fly?" All of that is going to start moving from how much raw data can we just take and play back as is?

Architecturally we're going to want to shift the problem of creating worlds from how much human labor and disk space we throw at it to how do we start condensing some of that and start moving on to the processors.
Click to expand...
 
The non-sensational title was better since it wasn't contradicted in the interview!


GameSpy: Is PlayStation 3 more powerful than 360?

Entis: Well, I don't think any of us are really ready to say for sure.
Click to expand...

(what he does say is cell > xecpu)
 
Heh, nice thread change to grab interest! :D

Just like I expected, though. EA using X360 as a stopgap methinks. Playstation brand is the EA moneymaker. They won't to keep their dominant market share on the Playstation platforms.
 
Well they haven't really said anything in that interview that we don't already know. Both systems have tradeoffs. The PS3 of course has a stronger processor. I say stronger because the 360 has a strong processor also. However the 360 has that RAM on the GPU which could play a pivotal role, as well as the included HDD.

Sony has more time to make changes to final hardware so a lot is still to be seen. I wouldn't be shocked to see changes to at least one of the following, HDD included, RAM boast, GPU speed boast, or extra SPE's. All aren't likely, but I expect at least one.
 
Did anyone really think the Xbox CPU was stronger than the Cell? This says nothing about the overall power of the two consoles though.
 
xbox was more powerful then the ps2 and we all know what system was more popular. power does not mean anything these days.
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Yes, but how many developers did MS snare simply by being the most powerful machine?
It's what attracted me.
If PS3 has something to equal or better MS-Live..MS could find their supply of exclusive AAA games drying up faster than cold turkey in the sun.

Choice A) Xbox360 - Relatively small marketshare, less powerful console.
Choice B) Ps3 - Mega market share, more powerful. Dildo-esque controller.
 
"EA using X360 as a stopgap methinks."
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No offence, but i'm sick of seeing this because unless the X360 tanks *horribly*, i think we'll see almost all devs going multiplatform.

Even if the X360 does get beaten by the PS3 (which everyone expects it to) it is STILL gonna take a while to catch up to the X360 initial base, and the X360 base will theoretically be too substantial to just disguard.
 
samus4ever said:
xbox was more powerful then the ps2 and we all know what system was more popular. power does not mean anything these days.
Click to expand...

It was more powerful, but MS did a bad job of making that known to everyone. You can already tell that Sony's going to focus on the power of the PS3 over its compeition as one of its marketing points.
 
DCharlie said:
No offence, but i'm sick of seeing this because unless the X360 tanks *horribly*, i think we'll see almost all devs going multiplatform.

Even if the X360 does get beaten by the PS3 (which everyone expects it to) it is STILL gonna take a while to catch up to the X360 initial base, and the X360 base will theoretically be too substantial to just disguard.
Click to expand...


Well I hope X360 does get a ton of multi platform ports. Then I don't need to buy a PS3 right away! I'm just basing my thoughts off the fact that we know who is EAs big money maker. It is the Playstation platform.
 
I think the fact we are seeing Biohazard/Resident Evil 5 for X360 (and PS3) shows that X360 will be nothing like the Xbox....

This system is getting more appealing with every passing day....
 
SolidSnakex said:
It was more powerful, but MS did a bad job of making that known to everyone. You can already tell that Sony's going to focus on the power of the PS3 over its compeition as one of its marketing points.
Click to expand...


I think every PS2 owner who has ever pondered the subject knows this. They just don't care, because the games they want to play are available on the PS2.
 
"Well I hope X360 does get a ton of multi platform ports. Then I don't need to buy a PS3 right away! I'm just basing my thoughts off the fact that we know who is EAs big money maker. It is the Playstation platform."
Click to expand...

well, given that the PS2 has a much larger userbase surely that is to be expected? anyways, i'm not having a go at you, i just expect most companies to cover all their options and make thier cash on all three machines this time.
 
Mrbob said:
Well I hope X360 does get a ton of multi platform ports. Then I don't need to buy a PS3 right away! I'm just basing my thoughts off the fact that we know who is EAs big money maker. It is the Playstation platform.
Click to expand...


EA ports Madden to toasters. And I've never seen a current generation EA game that could convince someone of one system's superiority over another. I hope that changes, though.
 
Mrbob said:
EA using X360 as a stopgap methinks. Playstation brand is the EA moneymaker. They won't to keep their dominant market share on the Playstation platforms.
Click to expand...

What do you even mean by this?
 
Right. I agree we'll see more multi platform games. Which is a good thing. EA rise to power also occurred with the increased popularity of the Playstation platform. EA did well on Genesis too which had a large installed base. But they didn't do nearly as well on Genesis as they did when they switched to PSone and then exploded on PS2.

What do you even mean by this?
Click to expand...

I question EAs effort towards the X360 platform versus the Playstation 3. Especially after their ho hum Xbox conversions on PS2 games.
 
"EA rise to power also occurred with the increased popularity of the Playstation platform."
Click to expand...

bear in mind that EA got burned quite badly when they jumped onto the PS2 with a lot of their early games (F1, Quake, etc) bombing spectacularly.

Their policy of dropping DC (and the games they had) back fired somewhat initially. In the end they could have released the games they had ready and basically they wouldn't have done much worse than the games they initially put out on the PS2.

Internally, i think it was viewed as a mistake - although of course there are rumours of money hats and visits from sony, but these will never be confirmed/denied.

Not that there's any doubting that the PS2 has brought them the cash, but i think EA can sell pretty much any thing to any casual these days...

... except maybe Shox... because that was actually good... and it confused people...
;)

(personally, i think EA put out some half decent stuff - but they are still teh EVILS)
 
EA has made some damn fine games this gen. But I'm mainly an Xbox gamer and have been disappointed in their conversions. The rumor next gen is that X360 is EAs lead platform. Which would be sweet! Now future PS3 users can feel my pain! :)

I want every company to use Xbox 360 as their lead platform! :D
 
Klee is definitely not a fanboy of any system :lol


It is easy to see why he retitled the thread.

Other thread - 95 views
This thread - 850 views
 
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