The debate over which is the more powerful next-gen games console has been raging for over a year, but in the last few weeks we've finally been able to pore over some first-hand evidence. The Call of Duty 3 conversions to Xbox 360 and PS3 are more closely comparable, perhaps, than many fanboys on either side would have predicted. More interesting is the unspoken rivalry between Gears of War and Resistance: Fall of Man - two showboating titles with similar themes and environments.
One thing has become clear. Totting up specs isn't going to help us choose a winner. On paper, PS3 has more raw processing grunt than Xbox 360, but at the moment - with second generation titles under their belts - developers seem to be extracting more performance out of Xbox 360. That's natural considering their greater experience with the platform. The question is, how much further can Xbox go?
Frankly, the only views that matter in this debate are those of programmers who have experience with next-gen hardware. So this week Guardian.co.uk spoke to Richard Hackett a head of technology at Blitz Games about his experiences with both machines. He feels that CELL has an ace up its sleeve and it's not something you might have predicted...
"As a result of the kind of processing power we have available we're going to see a lot more procedurally generated effects and dynamic visuals than we've seen before. This means not all game visuals will be created by an artist in the traditional way, an increasing amount will be created in real-time from algorithms and parameters.To make sure the artists stay in control and we don't resort to graphics created only by programmers (which is often a bad thing), we're working on systems for artists to create and edit these systems themselves without needing a degree in Software Engineering."
"Certain procedural effects are easier to create on the PS3 because of the power of the SPEs. Effects like water simulations, especially when you move beyond simple surface effects to fluid dynamics require the kind of algorithms that are really suited to the CELL architecture. Having said that the slightly more flexible GPU and unified memory model on X360 allows some neat tricks that level the playing field somewhat. It will be interesting to see what emerges with video processing and EyeToy as well - CELL is designed for streaming and image processing applications in mind. I think we'll see both new visuals and game play out of that. As an aside the audio technology running on CELL created by the guys in the SCEE Technology Group in London is pretty amazing, opening out loads more possibilities for real-time audio effects to enhance the visuals, something that is often overlooked but is an important part of increasing gamer immersion."
Gears of War's creator has spoken out against the trend of turning established franchises into live services, urging developers to focus on single-player experiences.
Too bad he didn't have this opinion when he chased trends with Lawbreakers. Or when he chased trends with Radical Heights.
He learned from the mistake or he wouldn’t be advocating for more single player experiences. I find this refreshing in a world where we often see people so stubborn that they tend to double down on a mistake which results in making things even worse. Seriously, good for him!
@Popsicle
Oh for sure, better late than never. And better to somewhat own up to your mistakes, rather than just blaming your release window, or advertising partners, or gamers lol.
@Popsicle
Of course we will never know his intentions, but it's hard to believe he is just a naive agent that is learning from his mistakes.
He could have done one himself after Gears of War but he did Lawbreakers…look how that turned out.
Jawbreakers would have been a better name! Heck, I might just go and trademark that right now.
You're missing the point. His studio's short lifespan is what *inspired* him to make this comment in the first place.
Oh I know the point...I'm just stating the obvious and how stupid he was in the beginning to jump on a trend he had no real experience in. A first person hero shooter with heavy GaaS elements is a lot different than the multiplayer in Gears of War.
He'd have been better creating something like Gears of War again, a great single player story and a good online mode.
-"A first person hero shooter with heavy GaaS elements is a lot different than the multiplayer in Gears of War."
I mean... you're kinda muddying terms when Gears has always had a strong multiplayer component. Even if I grant you that, Cliffy B started cementing himself at Epic with Unreal Tournament, which was among the earliest shooter series to have "proto-GaaS elements" (downloadable maps, cosmetics, special editions that bundle stuff together). Lawbreakers and Radical Heights (were it finished) weren't major career shifts to him like they would be for, say, Fumito Ueda.
Regardless of that, it's still kinda useless to state the obvious when CliffyB himself made his comments with the benefit of hindsight already.
Look, these a-hole publishers can do this, in fact I want them to, so they can f*ck around and find out and fail hard scaring away everyone else from doing this live service push.
This industry is run by some of the dumbest corporate pieces of sh*t I’ve ever seen. They spend stupid amount of money with literally nothing that stands out from games from the previous generation (look at Arkham Knight to the $200 mill Suicide Squad comparison vids), you’re overpaying devs, and you focus on games as a service to milk consumers that a lot of them grew up off traditional games. We’re not idiots, we sniff this sh*t out and won’t touch it.
So, what’s your answer to not getting a ROI? Raise game prices and double down on GaaS so you can suck your consumers dry. That model only works for some games and even then how in hell do you expect it to work with multiple games!? They’re ruining the damn hobby with this corporate greed.
Cut back on dev budgets, cut back on how much your staff is getting paid, until sales for games bring in a profit. That’s the answer and make some games that feel like there’s passion behind them, not some cookie cut up game that feels like the entire existence behind it is to offer as little as it can with repetitive bullsh*t and selling off all this content throughout its life. It’s gross.
Games do bring in a profit, it's the greed that is killing the industry. Here is a fact, live service games overall make more, significantly more money than single player games
What you should be asking is executives not wanting continuous growth or firing them. Saying devs should be fired when those who are fitting the bills and setting unrealistic expectations would make things worse. What do y9u think would happen if they released say, 30 single player games and over half of them fail? You are going after the wrong crowd.
About time he learned. I guess he finally stopped blaming everyone else and took accountability for his mistakes and realized that people really don't care that much for trends or live service.
A new rumor suggests that the Gears of War Trilogy Collection is real, with it launching on the PS5 day one with Xbox and PC.
Yeah, I can totally see that happening. My only doubt is if they are going to announce that at the same time as the Hallo Collection or if they will try to distance both announcements to try to ease the pain
This same insider was correct about Forza Horizon 5. So this might be true. But I heard rumors are the Halo:MCC is the next big one to be announced. We'll see I guess
They should announce dedicated showcase for all Playstation ports, it would be less painful for their fanbase.
Anyway thank you Team Xbox and Phil i will support the games.
I see them being in the same year but halo coming alongside ns2 and if e day is early next year gears collection could come at Christmas time
NOOOOOOOOOOOO screamed an obscured observer from across the room the street.
Well I’ll check it out DAY 1 🤣 I hope the do a good job porting it and don’t have issues like MCC did when it first launched on s/x🤷🏿
Ease the pain? Pain for who? Lol. More games on more platforms is a gamer friendly approach. Locking games behind hardware is archaic and lame... Let's not turn into corporate stooges.
I remember talking about this with someone on the forums and they made some good points. Like what exactly are these old games doing at the moment? They pushed the hardware and did everything they needed to do for that platform at the time. Now in MS case even their new games are gonna be day and date but if we're taking about old games. Those games are just sitting their not doing anything anymore. When you port the old stuff to another console, that game has life again and move few more units and a new audience.
As I said Xbox is different because their stuff is inching closer and closer to be day and date. Though both Xbox and PS have old games that are just sitting around when they could have new audiences and breathe new life into the older exclusives.
Just imagine how well collections of older Nintendo games would sell on pc, xbox and playstation...
I honestly don't expect Nintendo to gain much from releasing their games on 3rd party consoles. People are conditioned to buy Nintendo games on Nintendo hardware. Once that changes, Nintendo will probably lose out on revenue as people pass on their underpowered console to wait for their game to release on a superior console. Tons of people only have a Switch for exclusives, and those exclusives sell better than most games on the other platforms and Nintendo is able to pocket the bulk of that revenue since it is their game on their console.
Not very considering rom packs have been eaily accessible for years now it's only really GameCube and above you need to pick and choose because the game size is fairly large and the Wii IMO didn't emulate well considering the motion controls.
So as incredible as they are I doubt they would sell unless they are overhauling them somehow but then again I wouldn't want to see them overhauled but that's just me I still play the NES version of Mario 3 over the SNES all stars version as a example because I think it looks better.
The Series X/S backwards compatibility to their old classics was one of the last few selling points for those consoles.
Exactly I also hope we get a fable collection since fable 2 never came to Pc
I hope we also get gears of war 4 on Pc too since only gears 5 is on steam along with tactics
Revenue same as always Microsoft don't care about community it's reputation and they've never been worried about losing loyal customers if you recall the Kinect era they abandoned the hardcore entirely to pursue the hardcore gamers grandma
"Where's the goalposts gonna go now?"
"It's just old games sitting around doing nothing! Might as well get money from it and a new audience you can use to potentially make it exclusive again for next gen for them to be enticed to jump ship!"
~New goalpost
"Eventually Sony will likely be forced to do the same"
Is that you begging for games that you once bashed in the past? Too funny, things must be dry in your land.
"aren’t selling as much as Xbox - and the answer will be that they are on less platforms."
No they won't because Xbox doesn't announce sales numbers at all. So how would they compare these sales? What idiotic logic. These shareholders going to pull numbers out their backside?!
Why doesn't he just use the one account. How many N4G tabs does he have open with different accounts?
Why do you need goalposts? More gamers will get to play games. Phil said it few days ago again no game has any red line around it. Seriously man it's gaming and your choice of plastic box makes no difference
It's 2025 enjoy gaming on any platform. We should be celebrating how the Biggest gaming publisher is allowing their games to be played on all platforms but how can we get that when some people feel the need to take victory laps
Well hate to say we told you so. But we called this happening as soon as we saw these big purchases and falling sales, but, a whole slew of people said this would NEVER happen. Goalpost keep moving too as if it's some weird flex.
TBH, Forza, the Indiana Jones game, the next Elder Scrolls, and I hope Fable will make it over. I'm excited about those.
I don't think MS going the Sega route would be a bad thing. Nintendo and Sony are making good hardware. There's no reason to not make profit off of that.
But the goalposts moving is in reference to people who constantly approve and post disingenuous stories that they scream are true.
For instance, "you can build a comparable PC to a PS pro for $700," conveniently leaving off the OS. Or, "Sony delisted HD2 in 170 countries" when in reality, it was 170 regions of which SteamDB lists as having over 3000 regions.
Chevalier
What is this with we. Yes most of us saw this coming and all I am saying is it's a great thing for gamers on all platforms. We should be celebrating the fact amazing games will be available to all of us instead of taking some victory lap because of a plastic box
"What is this with we. Yes most of us saw this coming and all I am saying is it's a great thing for gamers on all platforms. We should be celebrating the fact amazing games will be available to all of us instead of taking some victory lap because of a plastic box"
Cool and it should be celebrated. But this idiotic narrative is that it was done for us as consumers needs to die.
Lots of idiots trying to reframe this when they literally argued that this would NEVER happen when we said yes it will because Gamepass isn't profitable and sales losses all round and add in lower hardware sales and it was obvious
@isarai: “ Where's the goalposts gonna go now? 😀🫳🍿”
.
The goal post is going home crawl into the shower open the flow and start crying while rocking back and forward i obscured by the darkness of the room.
I haven't played any oif these games either. Will buy and go through the campgains for sure. They a co-op correct? Hope so
They're amazing. If you ever played Warhammer 40,000: Space Marine then you already have an idea how they play.
Sony is in the middle of an FPS crisis, but bringing back two much-loved PlayStation shooters could easily be the solution.
We have alot of rpg's but only cod for a AAA first person shooter unless you toss in xdefient but that is still fixing 2yr old beta issues.
We need more AAA fps games then rpg's
Yes we need some new FPS experiences.. COD is just not engaging enough. We want a Killzone back to the roots, not a Shadow Fall again..
Agree on preferring RPGs though at this exact moment, it would be great to see more horror games. Another reason why Japan Studio closing is just tragic. Loved Siren.
Fuck jim ryan japan studio did so much and helped alot with ports/localization
If they were around bloodborn would be possible like how they helped with demon souls ps4 finial fantasy port.
Horror games would be nice but the jim ryan axe job helped alot in killing playstation dev numbers/freedom and increased regulation with the new censorship crap.
If Sony is bringing back a old shooter I would prefer Warhawk or better yet Starhawk
No thanks. Resistance and killzone were my all time favorite fps games. I completely dominated those games. I met good people, had a ton of fun and have a lot of fond memories. I don't want them to bring back these games, unless they tackle the cheating epidemic. I know I will absolutely hate these games, if I was to play them now, with all the effing cheating going on in fps games.
Bro the market is oversaturated with quality RPGs AND bloated shitty RPGs already.
I honestly don't think we'll be seeing these anytime soon, if ever. Insomniac is officially on Marvel duty since it seems that all they're working on based off the leaks, and Horizon is more of what the casuals want these days. And I now I'll get a bunch of disagrees, but keep in mind that Resistance last got a game on the PS3 (2011) and Killzone was a launch title for the PS4 (2013). 10 years is a long time to make a game, if had any interest they would've done it by now, add InFamous to that list.
Your right except the dates killzone mercenary was on ps vita 2013 same with resistance burning skies back in 2012
Both of those games are either made by smaller B team or completely different developer.
Killzone Mercenary developed by Guerilla Cambridge which is now defunct.
Resistamce Burning Skies wasn't made by Insomniac but by Nihilistic Software also defunct after the failure of CoD Black Ops Declassified.
@good i know i never said they were
I mentioned them as they were the last games under that ip well killzone was last on ps4 but still even though they are different devs they led to the lose of the ip.
I highly doubt they made up for there budget cost even killzone on ps4 had low sales for such a large ip at the time.
Resistance 3 turned me off to the series but I’d love a reboot. KillZone I think can stay dead. Give me a new Resistance like 1or 2 and I’ll be happy.
Except Resistance 1 and 3 were far more similar, 2 was the outlier. 3 was a great return to form after 2 changed so many things from the first game.
I'll keep saying it, have Bungie make a new resistance game, a match made in heaven. Although I imagine Bungie would be too proud to take over an existing IP.
I honestly never cared or liked killzone. Huge resistance fan though. I remember so many nights playing melee only on USS Lexington, and I like the alt history vibe.
Who cares really?, for now the xbox360 is the clear winner in the graphics department..although looking at motorstorm i consider that the exception.
I'm not intrested in 2-3 years down the line..i'm intrested in what console is the best at THIS PRESENT TIME.
i'd really like to worry about the comparisions when the PS3 acutally has some uh... "good"? Is that the word? Yeah, "good" games.
Please god, do not say RFOM. Thats a good 'game'. Games means mutiple.
1.) Gears IS NOT a FPS....if you don't know the difference, you have no business discussing games...PERIOD.
2.) This guy from Blitz has gone on record saying this same tired BS before. The sad thing is, Blitz Games has NEVER made a quality game....EVER. Why should anyone give a rat's ass what HE thinks?
This topic is tiring already and I wish people would stop comparing RFOM against GOW. Gears of war isn't a FPS so to compare the two is stupid.
Don't we have enough of PS3 vs 360? I'm getting bored.. gonna skip to the next gaming article.