Comparing Armored Core 4 For Xbox 360 And PS3

Armored Core 4 has been available for the PS3 for sometime now, and the 360 demo has hit Xbox Live. There are differences, which people have latched on.

From a pinged Insert Credit and GameSetWatch's Ollie about the differences, Ollie noticed that the PS3 version has subtler heat haze effects, and while many believe the 360 demo has full screen anti-aliasing, Ollie believes otherwise. He says, rather, that the it's just the blur filter the Xbox 360 has - The XBOX had it, too.

Effects in the PS3 version seem to be hardware rendered, while in the Xbox 360 version, they are software rendered. What's more, Ollie points out that the frame-rates in both versions seem comparable (though, some people think otherwise). He adds that there are frame-rate drops in the PS3 version, but its only in two missions.

[FordGTGuy]

There are no grounds for an official comparison.

[eques judicii]

also... i can't see the differences they are pointing out from those screens... heat effects you need to see in motion to compare and other than that the differences seem to come from parts of the mech being in slightly different positions. also, like ford said, until the full version is out, you can't compare to a demo. Lost planets load times in the demo were extremely long, but the full version has very very fast load times. But even if the 360 version is slightly weaker, its because the a game is a port... but since they are so remarkably similiar you have to agree that the systems are comparable in power...

[GaMr-]

This has reached a new level of pointlessness. OK rename it "Pointless non-comparison".

EDIT: Fine if its on kotaku then maybe people do want to read this after all.

[ownallconsoles]

XBOX 360 Got owned. XBox 360, how does it feel to have a port now? Now what can the 360 fans say? Developers are lazy? It's just a demo? LOLLLL!! And when the ps3 recieved bad ports they were the first to say its bcuz the ps3 is weaker. Well, look how the cooki crumbles. HAHAHA.

[nambo]

Can you not comprehend (this means understand) what is being pointed out?
Less jaggies on the 360 (some are saying the 360 has full screen AA), reflection on the building on the 360, better heat effect and better frame rates for the 360. And this is just the demo. They'll be doing more polishing before the release. This could be because if the additin al time the 360 has had, but I think the point is that the 360 looks better.

Stop being such a fanboy and think. Maybe you should play less games and study a bit more.

[JPomper]

God... every post you make on this site just affirms what kind of middle school mentality you have.

[TOM]

But the thing you seem to have missed is the fact that the ps3 is looking worse(though not by much)and it was the lead console. Way to look the fool, fanboy. All this power the ps3 has according to sony,maybe one day it will show. Nearly ever game that comes out on both systems the 360 version looks and plays better,and yet the 360 is over a year old........too funny.

[Gamer luv]

Theres nothing more that i hate then a silly coon who acts like a total dumbass.

Especialy one who is a complete fanboy.

Call me a fanboy? Read my posts.

[Grown Folks Talk]

you can't call him a fanboy. you sure as hell can call him racist though.

[GaMr-]

"silly coon" Dude....its just a videogame. Is their a need to racially bash someone over a console. Your taking this gaming thing a little too serious buddy. Lighten up before you turn the console war to a civil war.

[nambo]

WTF. Although I thought ownallconsoles's comment was ignorant, and I've read a lot of ignorant comments on this site, I would have to say not only is your comment the most ignorant of them all, that your racist attitude makes you the most ignorant person on this site. It's just a game.

[D R Fz]

was that really necessary? It really wasn't. Even though we all have our own opinions about different things, it does not mean we should hate each other over those opinions. Especially when it results in racial bashing of any sort. Please don't get too carried away when posting comments, we are all free to voice our views concerning the news posted on this site.

[ASSASSYN 36o]

I took a bubble for that dumb comment. You obviously didn`t read the article.

[Scrumptious]

I think this guy has his facts backwards. Since the 360 GPU is 2 generations ahead of the PS3's, it should be the PS3 that uses software rendering to acomplish specail effects. This has been stated numerous times on the PS3's launch software. The GPU cannot render all the effects, and outsources to the CPU. 4xAA and HDR are free on the 360 GPU, so what is this talk of a "blur filter"?

The only difference I see is jaggies on the PS3 and overdone HDR due to software rendering.

[DJ]

either 360 devs are lazy or you're just talking out of your ass.

[R34GTR]

Im no game dev but I have dev friends in a few companies small and large. From what I here the hardware rendering of the PS3 is amazing. The cell is capable of rendering elements in real-time and in 3-D. Here is my non-dev simple way of summing that up.

Normally when you see an element in a video game its a 2D image looped over and over again to produce the effect of fire burning or water running, rain drops... etc.

Well with the cell they are using full 3D images and rendering them in real time so the patterns actually change. Wich means no two waves will be the same or rain drops will actually bounce in different directions, Leaves will change directions when they sway in the wind. Adding a great level of realism.

Like I said im not a game dev im just trying to re-state what was told to me in lamen-terms so dont bash me. Dont take my word for it though. Check out Lair on the PS3 when its released. Thats going to be one of the first games to utilize that technology.

[ACE]

thats big coming from the biggest sony fanatic on this site lol .

u sony fanatics r funny keeps us laughing lol

[JOLLY1]

The 360 version looks really good. I don't see anything that looks better on the ps3 version. Maybe, I can't see all those good things, maybe jaggies are things people want. Oh well, just my opinion.

[Antan]

Are we going to go down this road every sinlge time a multi format game gets released?? copy-cut-paste replies.

[CaliGamer]

By the looks of things the answer to your question is probably YES!!!!!!

[Grown Folks Talk]

is that i can't read japanese.

[THAMMER1]

No real difference.

[Grown Folks Talk]

was the reflection of the building in the window. angles could have a lot to do with that as well though. not a game i'm going to buy either way. all of this multi-plat comparison is getting tiresome. if you have both consoles, you'll get the one that A) you like the controller better for B) has extra features if any C) more of your friends have if online capable. if you don't have both consoles, you'll get it for the one you do have, so what difference does it make? who is going to go out and buy the other system specifically for a multi-plat game?

[TheMART]

Both screens look dull to me. Plus, is this comparing? My god...

Every single multiplatform game up to now looked best on the 360. So with the first review out (this game isn't reviewed in full version on the 360) I am curious what it does.

[Saber]

not every game, there were reviews that stated Fight Night Round 3 on the PS3 had better character models then the XBOX 360 version and was rated the better version. plus you don't get tearing on PS3 games compare to 360 which happens on all games... also when Oblivion comes out on the PS3, alot of critics are already saying this game looks much better then the 360 version.

[frostbite06]

Those games you mentioned wernt just ports though. Fight Night had a long time to improve and oh yah, oblivion came out a year ago.

[BIGBAER]

With regards to Fight Night 3, the 360 version was voted superior by an audience of viewers in an event held at Harlem's Apollo Theater several months ago.

The event was covered by CNBC and BET with the audience viewing side-by-side live gameplay on matching large screen HDTVs.

The 360 version was voted the superior version by the audience.

Search for: 360 vs. ps3 fight night apollo theater

[Balance]

you can't compare a game vs a demo, when i got the demo for saints row i was wondering why it didn't look like the screen shots. but when i bought the full game there were a ton of more trees the graphics were smoother and more polished. when the full game comes out on the 360 then they can compare.

[PS360PCROCKS]

well first, who cares if it doesn't affect the gameplay? Second, they look identical!!

[ThaGeNeCySt]

yeah, identical crap lol

[ApocalypseShadow]

i'll be picking this up on ps3 in about a week.who cares.

[Grown Folks Talk]

may i ask? why not the 360?

[Contra26]

XBL will just ramp it up.
that's all

graphics, sound, gameplay..... same thing

[ApocalypseShadow]

is because i HAVE A PS3.that i want to add this to motorstorm,vf5,fnr3,rr7,genji2 (yeah the camera blows),nba 2k7,flow,tekken 5,etc.

people ask why buy a ps3,well to play games on it besides all the other cool things it does like bluray movie playback.will it be on 360?yes.but why wait.just like vf5?

ps3 is a good system.it's that simple.and i want to buy games for it.i'll probally pick up virtual tennis3,oblivion,nba street,and any other good game.does that answer your question?

[Grown Folks Talk]

not flaming. you HAVE a ps3, so you are buying the ps3 version. that's my whole point. even if every review said the 360 version was slightly better, would you buy a 360 just for that version? people need to quit jumping to conclusions and accusing every post of being spiteful. i asked you a simple question to prove a point. i wasn't attacking you or your preference.

[HighPs3v2]

Is it really a safe comparison between a demo and a Japenese Version? Wouldnt there be changed to both of those?

[HighPs3v2]

Is it really a safe comparison between a demo and a Japenese Version? Wouldnt there be changed to both of those?

[power of Green]

PS3 version on the top has been out for a while and was built from the ground up for PS3 which is why the game sucks in the first place and basiclly looks like sh*t, it has jaggies no reflection in the window, less next-gen effects like heat blurr, see bottom left corner.

360 version is the bottom pic, it has a little smoother edges more next-gen effects like reflections; if you want to call them that" and heat blurr and it's only a demo of a port from a different console, see botton left corner.

#4 and 4.4 you're both idiots.

People Say who cares but people do care! the sale's pitch had everybody waiting for the PS3 to launch before they bought a next-gen console is being proven a lie every single day people will always compare these console's because Sony sold there console basiclly saying go with Sony because the Xbox is less powerful so this is in the back of the consumers minds and is basiclly the only reason folks gave a dam about PS3 with out seeing games.

[Geohound]

and just want to make this another 360 vs. PS3 BS fest, I'll comment since i am an absolute armored core freak, love the series, and have been following the game since pre-announcement.

1. The 360 Version IS NOT a port, regardless of what anybody but Natoshi Zin says."Project Force", as AC4 was call for some time, was annouced for both the PS3 and Xbox 360 and both were developed alongside one another.

A few months later, the 360 version development was stoped and the game was planned for PS3 only. However, FROM SOFTWARE's publisher in the US, SEGA, are not retared and refused to release a title that would sell on a system without a 9 million unit lead. Thus, FROM SOFTWARE started development on the 360 version again. ARMORED CORE 4 FOR THE XBOX 360 IS NOT A PORT. BOTH WERE DEVELOPED ALONGSIDE THE OTHER, ON JUST FINISHED FIRST.

2. FROM SOFTWARE has made one game for the PS3, 3 for the 360. Experience with hardware arguement out the window.

3. Having played the demo, and the PS3 version(buy 360 version on the 20th), the games pretty fun if you like Armored Core. The Graphics? Just Ok in the post Gears of War\ Crysis world.

4. I really, really, really hate PS3 vs Xbox 360 topics. HATE THEM.

[The great 1]

If anybody actually has the time to notice the difference then they obviously some nerd who ain't got nothign better to do than act like a jerk, by posting crap on the net, if you Xbox fanboys are so big why not campaign in front of your local gamestop or EB games and see what reaction you get, haha thought so all talk and no action, i'm PS3 fanboy 4 life, go PS3 u rule!

[power of Green]

Top pic: PS3 look at the thrusters no distortion of light.

Bottom pic 360 version there is distortion of near by objects.

The 36o version also has slightly less jaggies or none compared to the PS3 version.

Reflections in the window are somewhat noticable in the 360 version as the PS3 version does not have them period in this compareson.

"SABER" not true Some tv network did a side by side compareson test on the street they didn't tell which was which and they picked the 360 v3ersion as the best every time and FN3 was part of the test. welcom3 chang3.

[spacetoilet]

I'm a ps3 owner and I love it. But it's easy to see the 360 has very smooth anti aliasing. Now it's stated that its a blur filter? I dunno.
Looks like AA to me. On the flip side, Sony always went with barely any AA on their machines which results in screen shots that look a little jaggy, but when moving on the screen it looks alot more 'crisp' than other machines using some AA. Now I love that crispness for some reason. Anyway, I've said it b4 and I'll say it again, as pure 'image' quality goes, I prefer ATI over NVIDIA any day. Sony should have chose ATI also. But it's not that much of a big deal in the grand scheme of things.

[Killer Cop]

"This isn't apples and oranges. It's apples and something-that's-not-quite oranges yet."

o.0

"Dude knows his sh-t."

Oh yes, that's a good fact! xD

God knowsmaybe they switched the pictures in a accident. ROFL. They are so unproffesional.

[Gamer luv]

Dude how is owning all consoles ignorant?

Your the winner, not the 360 fanboys, not the PS fanboys, 360 has games like gears and halo, something PS wont be able to compete with, PS has MGS and GT and more, stop being such a fan boy, and fork out the extra dosh and get both

[Funky Town_TX]

xbox1 killed the PS2 and no one cared then and no one will now. Just move on trolls, find another hole to lay in.

[spacetoilet]

Xbox 1 did not kill the ps2, it was a buggy pile of crap. Where u get that assumption from? I had 1st gen xbox scratch my game discs. My replacement one died on me so I ended up at three consoles. I still have on the other hand, my ORIGINAL launch ps2 and ther is nothing wrong with it. Oh and its still the best dvd player I ever seen, unlike the $hite xbox1 dvd player. And don't even get me started on how $hit xbox controllers are.

[Grown Folks Talk]

he was talking about graphically. besides that many people had more than 1 ps2. it's electronics. there's always defects. and anyone that owned a dreamcast surely couldn't have had that much trouble with the original xbox controller.

[chitown]

who cares, this game freaking blows @ss. its so retarded, all u do is build mechs and u hardly ever fight

[blackmagic]

I wonder how this Ollie guy can tell if an effect is running in hardware or software? Sounds like Bull Feces to me.

My observations:
1. As Ollie completely failed to mention, the mech is self lit on the 360 as can easily be spotted by the lighting on the bottom of the shoulder turret. PS3 - nada. Ollie - Strike one.
2. 360 version has reflective surfaces. PS3 - Nada.

3. 360 has AA which Ollie claims is a 'blur filter' (think about the GPU design). PS3 - nada. Ollie - Strike two.

4. Clear heat haze effects around the two engines on the 360 apparently 'in software'. Ollie claims PS3 is running subtle heat haze effects in hardware which are easily spotted by looking at the perfectly straight lines in the background. Ollie - Strike Three. Ollie is out.

My experience has been that the final product runs and looks better than the demo. So the 360 looks better, has better framerates and will almost certainly have better online. Well, I guess it's clear which version I will buy.

Wasn't the ps3 the lead design console? What happened?

[spacetoilet]

Well, again your talking about multi console crap my friend. The games that set apart machines are the games designed for a specific machine. So if the 360 is sweet at pc style games, since it is a watered down pc, then all power to it. But I like where Sony has gone b4 and where it's going now. I love fps and such , but we all need originality and that's what's coming down the road with cell specific applications like 32 player warhawk games or insane physics of LittleBigWorld.
Yes, at launch and right now, there are not allot of titles. I even suspect that Sony would have liked to have delayed world wide launch of Ps3 till xmas this year, but we are 10 million 360's deep so I guess they launched way ahead of the 'good stuff' simply because they had too.
But in the long run, games like Nba street or this $hit in the article or other multi platform unoriginal crap, will be long forgotten. Go ahead and buy it. It's a waste of 60 bucks anyway.

***edit****
This is for DeepBrown, hardware is always preferable because it takes calculation loads off the cpu and use the gpu instead. Thus faster execution of code. Like 3dmark for the pc. Look at the fps on software vs hardware rendering. Its night and day.

[Saber]

Yep for developers to truly take advantage of the PS3, they would have to program from scratch. I was never fond of multi-platform games, I always felt those games were rushed, if they focus on one particular console, the games would be more polish.

After playing Motorstorm, I can safely say nothing on my 360 compares to the complexity, graphics w/ far distance view & non-tearing, smooth game-play of this game...

[chitown]

sorry of topic but i was reading some posts up there but "ownallconsoles"
u proved urself to be three things: a fanboy, an illiterate (did u even read the article its says the 360 looks better), and a liar. u dont own all consoles if u had a 360 u would like it just fine and not be such a blind fanboy.

[NextGen24Gamer]

Both versions aren't very good. But I will see for myself when I pick up the 360 and the ps3 version in a few days. Both are released on the same day. I would place my bets with the 360 version if previous 3rd party games were any indication. But, we will see. As far as this guy comparing the final version of one game to a demo is not even worth commenting over. Every demo I have played has never been nearly as good as the final version. I really liked Chromohounds...and it recieved 70% ish scores across the board. Mech games have been having a hard time lately. But I love them. Especially ONLINE...thats where all the fun is at with Mech games.

[zonetrooper5]

This game does look very poor to me, well i suppose some people like it and alot don't lol :P

[sajj316]

I can't believe this yielded 52 plus responses for ONE screen shot .... wow. Shame on Kotaku for reporting this garbage and shame on you all for responding to this. The definition of 'gamer' transcends personal choice . Shame on you!!

[techie]

I'm confused...how does he know the ps3 does things by hardware, and the 360 by software?

Is doing it by hardware better?

I have to say that I was expecting to read "360 sharper etc" - but it read to me as if the poster was saying the ps3 was better - he said that the 360 just blurs instead of anti-aliasing, and that ps3 does it by hardware (i have no idea how he can tell that) - which i guess is better for physics(?)

That is a problem/plus for the ps3 - you have to program to the hardware (ie. to each seperate spu) and not to abstract software. New developer tools for ps3 help maybe?

Anyway make me understand the differences and why one is better than the other...

[lil bush]

they both look on par with each other and both look good , witch is better for gamers, so in the end it doesent matter

[ApocalypseShadow]

but they were fun.when it first started it was cool to build your mecha.project phantasma(2) was cool because of the arena battles.when the rest came out and onto ps2,the missions weren't that different,the mechs were slow,and it really didn't go anywhere.

but this armored core moves faster,the mecha move faster.and if a dev is at least trying to have mecha that move like humming birds(robotech-anime/macross-j ap ps2 macross is killer from sega-am2/zone of the enders 2),then i'm in.give it to me.

[Drew]

Software rendering? Hardware rendered? WTF? Blur-filter? You mean anti-aliasing, right? This guy is an idiot. It's a shame how uninformed people in Japan are. I mean, honestly.

[gnothe1]

thing I can think of is like with an emulation type deal with the PS3 an PS2 games!! Sony did say they can get better performance out of Ps2 games on the PS3 by using emulation(software)instead of the emotion chip(hardware) so it might be the same way when it comes to developing certain aspects of the game!!

on another note you sony boys are claiming that you are tired of these PS3 an xbox comparisons, well... if it they were in favor of the PS3 then we would never hear the end of it!! you guys would be like I TOLD YOU BLIND XBOX LEMMINGS THAT THE PS3 WAS KING AN THE XBOX1.5 WAS LAME, but since its in favor of the xbox you guys dont wanna hear it. time an time again even though small the xbox has manage to surpass the PS3 graphically. how long will this continue WE DONT KNOW!! will sony ever pass MS WE DONT KNOW!!

[InMyOpinion]

comparing two versions of a game that looks like crap to start with? It does'nt in any way show what the two systems are capable anyways, since it looks like it's converted from Ps2. Look at the lack of detail and the weak lighting effects, not to mention the cheap water effects. Some of the japanese developers need to step up when it comes to next gen graphics in games.

[0LDSCH00L]

I wouldnt mind trying this demo out, problem is.. I cant find it In the Marketplace! Is this out just in the States? when can Canadians download it?