Fuchsrohre

Oh dear, NVidia, who are making the custom RSX chip to go inside PS3 have revealed that the chip isn't even complete yet.

...which means non of the demos shown recently at E3 were running on finished hardware, DOH!

class_A

And your point is? The Xbox 360 demos weren't running on finished hardware either, they were running on the PowerMac G5 based dev kits.

DJ Dunk

iTrader: (5)

http://www.ukresistance.co.uk/2005/0...lie-watch.html
http://www.ukresistance.co.uk/2005/0...ch-part-2.html

Iain Young

The point I guess is that MS were always up front about saying this (and the current xbox dev kits are a fair bit less powerful than the final machine will be), whereas Sony have been keeping it very quiet. Also, Sony have been strongly hinting at performance figures, trying to make the PS3 look much better than the xbox 360, when in fact the true performance of neither machine is actually fully known (especially the PS3), and quite a few developers are expecting the performance to actually be very similar. Just seems that Sony are being a bit underhanded...

I've a feeling the Sony / MS war could get quite interesting on the run-up to xmas

Fuchsrohre

Yes Class_A, "the point is" Sony has been effectively pulling the wool over people's eyes running demo's on dev kits and showing what looked like a bunch of pre-rendered badness

Perhaps Sony should've either announced this or just waited til they had finished hardware ?

Microsoft on the other hand are now making a big song and dance about how their demo's were at least "real"

Microsoft spokesman:
Now that you've done the whole MTV thing, you've shown the system to the specialist press, and it's playable downstairs on the E3 showfloor, how do you feel?

I feel great, and I'll tell you why. Xbox 360 is real. It's downstairs right now. It's shipping this year, and gamers around the world will be able to play games in high def this year. It's real. The games are real. There are Alpha kits downstairs that you can get your hands on and play. I've just played Call of Duty 2 with Steven Spielberg, he was blown away by it. And then there's stuff like Full Auto with the destructible environments and damage models. Again, it's all running on Alpha at the moment so it can only get better from here.

You keep mentioning that what you have is 'real'. How big of an advantage over Sony and Nintendo do you have because of that?

When we saw the technical specifications for PS3 we weren't surprised, and I think once everyone starts to digest those specs they'll realise that there's not an awful lot of difference. They don't have a chip yet so what they're giving you is what they think they'll get. We have chips, as the people playing the games downstairs will testify, and we feel happy we've made the next leap forward.

I think time will tell how much of an advantage we have. What I will say is that we've always made it clear that we didn't want to be at a disadvantage with timing. We don't like that idea any more.

class_A

Well what's the news there? It's games industry and spreading FUD about rivals whilst hyping your own products and playing the numbers game is nothing new, certainly not to Sony (Emotion Engine ). Hence my original "what's the point" as I'm sick of all the fanboy crap that circulates when paper launches take place, I just want to play nice looking games!

I too don't think there will be too much difference in performance between the systems, which should hopefully lead to some competition on price. I think MS is in an excellent position to build on Live, and the Media Center Extender functionality looks well integrated too. Sony seem to be pushing HD heavily with the inclusion of BluRay and HDMI - I've not seen word on whether Xbox 360 will be offering HD-DVD support.

Iain Young

Of course it's not new, and there's not even really any news (I never said there was). Sony do seem to being a bit more naughty than usual with their claims however. It's almost as though MS have got them worried

Same here. That's why I own one of almost every major console made in the last 15 years or so

MS has HD support from the gaming side. They haven't announced what format dvd they are using yet as far as I'm aware...

Dream Weaver

The MGS video did have "Made using PS2 technology" on it though, so they weren't really telling any lies.

Neanderthal

iTrader: (6)

True, although I wouldn't put it past them (Sony) to wack that on the render just to cover themselves

DanPhillips

If you read an actual transcript of what was said then you'll see the wording was very carefully chosen.
Pay special attention to some of the interviews done after the presentations.

Sony don't usually make false claims and unfortunately exaggeration has become the norm when hardware companies are trying to "spoil" each others pitch.

Sony has a simple message...wait for both machines to be available before making a decision as to which one you'll buy.

And if you take notice of that message...Sony will win

Cheers

Dan

Iain Young

They just don't want MS to get a 6 month head start

Fuchsrohre

"Sony has a simple message...wait for both machines to be available before making a decision as to which one you'll buy."

Thats not the message I got - looking at their demo's, I got the distinct feeling they were desperate to show something and over stepped the mark with lots of pre-rendered eye candy of how they *think* their games will look.

Edcase

I did say this on every single E3 / Sony / Xbox thread

in fact, only a few of the entirity of the PS3 demos were running on PS3-related hardware, the rest were mockup videos.

Fuchsrohre

no offense ed, but didn't realise you were part of the industry at the time

this should be of no surprise to anyone I suppose, as its been going on for so long. They're both, Sony & M$, starting to push things a little too far for my liking.

Ed, on another matter, do you think your company and others like it, will help ease the burden of developement costs significantly ?

Edcase

no offense taken!!

you never can tell who are on forums

to answer your question, yes I do. I particularly believe it will make a difference for 'borderline' titles, which fall just on the wrong side of a game publishers risk analysis. we don't just do in-game advertising but also work with brands to tie-in out of game co-promotions to promote and extend the game into new channels. nobody has better distribution and above the line marketing budget than major FMCG brands.

I originally come from an independent game developer background, and the past 5 or so years have seen the biz-dev landscape for game developers change dramatically, simply because publishers have become so risk averse.

to be fair, you can hardly blame them - the cost of them funding the development is bad enough without them having to put it in a box, market it and get it on shelves (and then give a huge percentage to the retailer for doing so). it really is an incredible risk releasing a completely new game brand today. this is one area where new console launches are good, as early adopters are not generally 'mass-market' consumers and so it is much easier to get good tie ratio (although of course the ultimate sell through potential is nowhere near as good because of the comparatively small installed user base.)

basically I got sick of spending hundreds of thousands creating design documentation, preproduction demo's and pitch materials only to get messed around by publishers. I also got sick of the fact that many of the publishers simply haven't got a clue how to market titles to the mainstream audience. The days of just putting a few full-page adverts in C&VG are long gone.

I have specifically made a point of working directly with the developers where possible, for example the deals we did with red bull and worms was with team 17 not sega and likewise dredd vs death was with Rebellion not Vivendi. I think both of those developers will happily say that the revenue's from this activity made a big difference to them, not to mention the profile of the games in question, which are still being talked about today in game, advertising and mainstream press.

As an ex-game developer and an avid gamer I am also acutely aware of many peoples immediate worries about having adverts in games, and I can categorically state now that we would never do anything out of context / infringing on the game flow / experience. all we are doing is monetising the already existing billboards (for example around the track on GT4, city streets in GTA etc.) as well as placing real-world products and technology (Red Bull power up, in-car GPS for in-game maps, mobile phones for messaging etc.) all the studies that have been done so far show conclusively that gamers *want* the real-world products and brands in the games as it adds to the realism. And the coolest thing is that we can put in products that haven't even been released yet, because were not constrained by real-world manufacture processes.

at the moment we are being quite conservative in our figures but we expect to add around $1 revenue for every game sold, realistically we are hoping for several times that as the market matures, although of course this maturity will only be realised once there is a significant installed user base on the next-generation platforms as current platforms are not ideal for the ad-serving technology. (We are already active on PC and soon for mobile.)

it's certainly an incredibly interesting market, and hopefully in a few years once I have made my millions I can play around with game development again and go back and finish some of the concepts we were never able to get placed with publishers, like Speedball Arena

have a read of these articles if you're interested:

http://www.mediaweek.co.uk/articles/...5/24/itsgameon
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/technology/3727044.stm

Fuchsrohre

The whole concept makes perfect sense, and another parallel with the evolution of the film industry.

With electronic distribution around the corner, the world is looking rosy at last for the developer!

It'll not be long before the publisher is removed as the main source of funding, and who knows, some kind of mutual tie up with developer and advertiser, eg. Coca-Cola putting the backing behind future games ?

Its all very interesting and about time it all changed.

I wish you all the best with it! Just remember us all when you buy your Carrera GT and turn up at the next track day!

F

Edcase

Yeah most of the problems are the ways that the publisher funds development. there are some other models out there like film-style completion bonding, a couple of games funds like the one that helped rescue Juiced from Acclaim recently, but they are very much a minority.

the problem is that most publishers are not interested in signing games that have been produced and funded this way, as A) they have to give a bigger royalty share and B) more importantly they don't get to own the IP, which is what it is all about nowadays.

and yes, don't worry, you are all more than welcome to clean my GT between laps

Edcase

Yeah but you would say that

DanPhillips

Yeah,

But the point is it is just a marketing war, the real hardware is only relevent to a small minority of people who'll buy and they'll be the first couple of million at most...and if someone were to try and confuse those people so that their own hardware had a chance then it's really only to be expected.

At the end of the day the 2 machines do look pretty similar in spec, so it will come down to who can market it better and who has the stronger brand. My guess would be that it'll probably end up similar to the last gen with Sony taking around 60%. Which in my opinion was a shame...but only from a programming point of view and for next gen I would prefer a single system with a much bigger percentage purely so the competition for game quality could be increased a tad and I can make more money from roaylties

Cheers

Dan

ps. saw you were looking for Sony laptop...staff discount ?

Fuchsrohre

"Sony taking around 60%"

2 reasons why that *may* not happen:

1. Sony won't get a large head-start like they did with PS2
2. Which platform gives the least head-aches to develope for - I would assume the cell processor is going to have a steep learning curve initially for developers, whereas the new XBOX won't be that far removed from the existing development process

Edcase

You have mail!

Edcase

I think much of it depends just how big gap is between the launches of the two platforms.

some estimations suggest that UK and Europe may not see it until next autumn, giving Microsoft almost a year head start in what is now becoming the most important territory. Sony have recently stated that they now expect to sell more PS2's in Europe than North America, which is pretty amazing. And yet we still get treated like second-class citizens when it comes to launch day, look at the delays for PSP for example.

America is already buzzing about Xbox and now 360, so if sony lose launch momentum in Europe I think we could see a pretty close call this time around, particularly if the games don't match up with the quality of the videos at E3

either way, I am platform agnostic, professionally and personally. all I care is the topline figures for installed global user base of both platforms grows significantly again this generation, which is pretty much guaranteed

DanPhillips

You might be right, but at this stage I wouldn't bet on it. Didn't the dreamcast have a substantial head start ?

The second point is yet to be proven, How many games take advantage of a pc with 2 processors in ? not many if it was simple to do a lot more would, it requires a big shift in the way tasks and systems are designed and implemented...its actually hard to find things to run in parallel beyond rendering and the main game because of the dependancies each of the systems have on each other...ie ai cant run till the physics has finsihed because it needs to know the real current positions of entities etc.

It might actually be easier to get things running in parallel on cell because the other "processors" are limited...maybe.

Looking at it at the moment and trying to convert some of my/my teams code onto it is looking fairly easy...the 1st generation of games might not use it optimally but I guess we will be using most of the cell's core for one thing or another

Cheers

Dan

JAG1977

The PS3 demos were actually using NVidia's next gen PC chip, which is not as powerful as the final RSX PS3 chip.

So the final games could theoretically look better than the demos.

The fact is Microsoft have rushed their hardware and very few of their demos were trully impressive, more like Xbox 1.5.

The kind of people who buy consoles upon launch tend to be the hardcore gamers who will snap up the latest gadgets, so Sony will not actually lose many sales from the mass market if they launch a year after Xbox 360, particulalry if the launch titles are not impressive.

Edcase

No, the only fact is that you really don't know what you're talking about

I also suggest you read this:

http://xbox360.ign.com/articles/617/617951p1.html

JAG1977

The reaction of Microsoft after the PS3 presentation tells you all you need to know about who came out of E3 on top.

Edcase

I didnt say Sony didnt come out on top, I'm saying that at this stage its all smoke and mirrors whereas Microsoft *has* finished chips *has* a launch date *has* the best online / content portal the gaming world has ever seen and has been brave enough to show games still only half complete running on hardware only 1/3rd power.

Even so, PS3 only got slightly more interest from consumers than Xbox, and thats despite their 'demo videos' () getting them more headlines on content and news portals.

http://www.gamesindustry.biz/press_release.php?aid=9216