Devil May Cry 4 Going Multi-platform! (Xbox 360/PS3/PC) *Confirmed

[archangelmorph]

"it may go multiplat, but thats a long ways away and sony can catch up in sales."

How are they going to catch up in sales being 6-8 million consoles down and under selling the 360 per month?

The 360 is selling in 3 territories.. The PS3 is currently selling in two (The missing one being traditionally Sony's strongest)..

What glorious event is going to happen to jump start PS3 sales without a huge price cut?
There are a lot of factors in reality staring at us now.

Just that..! A huge price cut..!!

Or you think Sony would sit back and watch if the PS3 sales dwindled significantly..? Granted by then it *maybe* too late.. But we'll never know until it happens..

But what we do know is that a price cut is inevitable.. The question is when and how much of a difference it will make..

PS3 sales are slipping monthly closely after launch and not being supply constrained.

Good point..

EDIT:

But it's also true that console sales usually slow down trailing the xmas period.. Sony's launch *only just* made the xmas buzz.. Xbox360 has had two full xmases to reap the harvest of the holiday demand..

Multi-plat titles have more features and overall have looked and run better on the 360 version.

So far yes, and with many of them having the 360 as the lead dev platform.. This could change in the near future.. Although it may not..

Why are people somehow assuming PS3 sales are going to leap frog the 360 all of a sudden?

Faith..??

Why are people assuming that devs will magically unlock the PS3 and then graphics and physics will leap frog 360 even though reality of actual games has shown us the opposite?

I don't agree with this.. It maybe true for multiplatform titles to date but then given the current CELL knowledge-base and the fact that PS3 versions tend to be ports, I'd say that this was a given.. I hardly believe however that title such as HS, LBP or Warhawk look significantly worse than any of the Xbox360's 1st party offerings..

Until something tangible is shown on either front as in real evidence I don't understand those that keep bringing these things up? It seems if your trumping these factors you bought into the Sony hype that has so far been one of Sony's downfalls this gen.

Agreed,

There are numourous hurdles the PS3 needs to cross before it can realistically overtake the 360.. & it's true that with each passing day more and more hurdles seem to be popping up..

But the point is it's still way too early to count the system out because there's still so much that can be done/can happen in the next 3 yrs..

As many have said many times in this forum, we'll have to wait at least another year or so before we will have a proper picture of how playing field has levelled out..

 

[JohnyBeGood]

"it may go multiplat, but thats a long ways away and sony can catch up in sales."

How are they going to catch up in sales being 6-8 million consoles down and under selling the 360 per month? What glorious event is going to happen to jump start PS3 sales without a huge price cut?
There are a lot of factors in reality staring at us now.

PS3 sales are slipping monthly closely after launch and not being supply constrained.

Multi-plat titles have more features and overall have looked and run better on the 360 version.

Why are people somehow assuming PS3 sales are going to leap frog the 360 all of a sudden?

Why are people assuming that devs will magically unlock the PS3 and then graphics and physics will leap frog 360 even though reality of actual games has shown us the opposite?

Until something tangible is shown on either front as in real evidence I don't understand those that keep bringing these things up? It seems if your trumping these factors you bought into the Sony hype that has so far been one of Sony's downfalls this gen.

Why do you worry so much about 360's fate?

 

[Paul_G]

I have no problem with being put on record for saying this:

The PS3 will outsell the other consoles, it will be tough but it will get there, Europe and Japan is in the bag, Sony "hating" USA will be tough but that is mostly question of price.

There will be PS3 games that will outshine the games from the Competition, thinking that the consoles are "about equal" in power is just plain wrong. Will it be every title? no, as it can be clearly seen from these forums, some developers just can´t be bothered or just isn´t up to learning something else than their primary platform.

I also have no problem being put on record for disagreeing with you. I believe that the PS3 will outsell the 360 in Japan (duh!) and by a narrow margin in Europe. I believe it won't outsell the 360 in the US. I believe that the Wii will outsell both consoles in Japan and Europe, and will as near as makes no difference tie with the 360 in the US.

Of course there will be games on the PS3 that outshine the 360, but conversely, there will be games on 360 that outperform equivalent PS3 games.

(All of this is by 2011 btw, when i think attention will begin to shift to the impending release of Wii 2/PS4/Xbox 720)

I guess we'll see in about 4 years time

 

[swanlee]

"The PS3 will outsell the other consoles, it will be tough but it will get there, Europe and Japan is in the bag, Sony "hating" USA will be tough but that is mostly question of price."

I will go on record and say the only way the PS3 will outsell the WII and the 360 is if the PS3 has a 10+ year life span, and both MS and Nintendo will have moved on to the next gen by the time the PS3 eclipses any current gen console in total sales. Even Japan is not buying the PS3 in good numbers, the WII is destroying it in Japan and it seems a large number of consumers have moved onto handhelds in Japan.

The PS3 would need to nearly double 360 sales per month to catch up to it in the next 4 years, and right now the 360 is widening it's lead since the PS3 sales are slipping monthly.

Sony's name is not going to save them this gen.

 

[Shifty Geezer]

Why choose cloth physics among all physics, is the 2x figure based on any tests?

It was just a rhetorical point. Cloth dynamics isn't unique to PS3, though it may be better. We can say the same of most effects. Thus, perhaps PS3 can handle 1000 rigid bodies versus XB360's 250. Is that going to make a game totally impossible on XB360, or will it be possible in downgraded form? How about if PS3 can handle 1000 rigid bodies and XB360 can only handle 10? Will that enable unique experiences on PS3? For sure.

Only if it's impossible will new gameplay be the reserve of PS3, and that seems improbable. The only other aspect is better, rather than unique. Will PS3 games look better? Perhaps. But if the XB360 doesn't look bad, and the difference isn't enormous, the benefit of PS3's SPE's will go missed by most.

The PS3 will outsell the other consoles, it will be tough but it will get there, Europe and Japan is in the bag, Sony "hating" USA will be tough but that is mostly question of price.

That Sony hating USA has bought 40 million PS2s, 40 million PS1s, and 10 million PSPs. Wish I got that sort of hate!

I'd say it's a $500 pricetag hating US, rather than Sony hating.

 

[Carl B]

The damage control and system lists wars in this thread are all colors of awesome, GAF-style without the animated gifs. Funny how it was "PS3 is going to be the main choice for 3rd party titles, just like PS1 and PS2 before", and now it's "oh well, this generation will be decided on 1st party anyway. Have you seen LBP ?".

DMC used to be listed pretty near the top of every single "list war" post as one of the reasons to get a PS3, and now it's "Oh, well, the series sales are not so hot anymore, so Capcom is whoring it out; no big deal.". Losing that and Ace Combat the same day has to hurt at Sony HQ.

I don't know about all this Corwin - certainly for my part I've never said anything to the effect of "PS3 is the place to be for 3rd party," have always said 1st party is where the investment needs to be, and don't even know what a 'list war' is. To boot, I certainly don't visit GAF. But it seems a lot of members bring GAF (and it's associated drama) here; leave GAF at the door friends. B3D isn't some microchosm of what's playing out elsewhere... if you consider points made to be incorrect, dispute them - if you don't, accusing the participant of debate expediency doesn't really address the topic at all.

 

[Carl B]

I am not Laa-Yosh, but my answer would be no.

Putting aside the fact software is what makes hardware go and market forces influencing development budgets to design and deploy complex software designs I don't think the SPEs will offer gameplay only possible on SPEs. I believe this for two reasons. The first is that games are a product of systems and not specific features and the hardware isn't as far apart as most thing, even in worse case scenarios. While local stores can offer performance higher in select scenarios much higher than even the flops metrics so loved on these forums the end of the day is that gains are often offset by losses on any platform. And where this dovetails with gameplay is that, like graphics, you can do a lot of scaling. e.g. LOD was discussed in the Edge thread, but this isn't just a graphics technique. As Minty mentioned a long time ago, lets say the PS3 is ripping the 360 in cloth physics and at the end of the day, all gains and losses aside, the PS3 is pulling ahead 2x due to cloth physics. So the programmer may have to cut down on percision, say take the 200x200 cloth on the PS3 and make it a 141x141 grid on the 360. You could go quite extreme with this example, but I have a hard time seeing gamplay that is impossible on Xenon. Slower? Definately yes. Less complex? Yes. Undoable? No. And that is point two, namely that we have seen some ports of games that surely should NOT have been possible on weaker hardware happen. Corners were cut and a lot was invested in making it happen but publishers have figured ways to get titles to work when push comes to shove on pretty different hardware.

When I said 'gameplay not possible on the 360,' it wasn't meant in the absolute sense like, "360 is incapable of physics," but it was in the sense that 360 is not capable of physics-based operations to the extent that a game premised entirely on this attribute would reach the same level of achievement on the 360 as the PS3. For example, word out of High Moon after the 'Cell Jam Session' in Carlsbad is that they are working on some edgier EDI games centered on taking advanatage of Cell; one mentioned was a game revolving entirely around fluid dynamics.

When I say that this sort of game would not be possible on the 360, it is not to say that 360 could not also run a game based exclusively on fluid dynamics, but it *is* to say that one will so vastly outclass the other if that were to be the primary computational operation, that one might seem a generation removed. This is of course a niche application on a non-standard game, and as stated in the normal dev environment these extremes of focus would never be reached, but they do demonstrate real-world efforts that are focused on Cell's unique strengths. LBP is a larger-scale, less extreme demonstration of this... but it is a demonstration all the same of the level to which PS3 is already a step (or two) ahead of 360 on something such as physics operations.

And we needn't even look to unreleased/announced titles to see the spread - a game such as Motorstorm incorporates a level of physics-simulation as yet unseen on any 360 game to my knowledge. This is partly due to the optimization that Havok has done for the Cell and the SPEs... but that again itself is a product of the SPEs having a much higher ceiling than the XeCPU in that regard.

 

[Shifty Geezer]

LBP is a larger-scale, less extreme demonstration of this... but it is a demonstration all the same of the level to which PS3 is already a step (or two) ahead of 360 on something such as physics operations.

Though I agree the PS3 could well show as much as an order of magnitude better physics, I don't know that LBP is a good example. I'm sure LBP's physics can be managed on XB360. At least what's shown so far. Perhaps the scalability will allow huge towers of moveable blocks and stuff which XB360 couldn't handle, but the level shown to date wasn't hugely taxing that I saw.

Are the reasons for greater physics showings on PS3 (if there are) because it alone can do physics well, or because other developers on XB360 haven't considered it worthwhile? The physics stuff has been mostly 1st party, no? Which suggests more a difference on emphasis than ability.

 

[patsu]

It was just a rhetorical point. Cloth dynamics isn't unique to PS3, though it may be better. We can say the same of most effects. Thus, perhaps PS3 can handle 1000 rigid bodies versus XB360's 250. Is that going to make a game totally impossible on XB360, or will it be possible in downgraded form? How about if PS3 can handle 1000 rigid bodies and XB360 can only handle 10? Will that enable unique experiences on PS3? For sure.

No... not like this to show off Cell and gameplay. It should be something that is varied and all happening at the same time (i.e., use up all 6 SPEs and 2 PPE threads) such that the entire game world comes "alive". I'm not sure what yet... perhaps more realistic animation/expressions, more tailored comrade AI, more interesting/cascading physics altogether; or something EyeToy + SIXAXIS related.

Then it has to be fun (or more fun) too. The issue is likely not Cell performance, but the difficulty and resources/time available to realize it.

Only if it's impossible will new gameplay be the reserve of PS3, and that seems improbable. The only other aspect is better, rather than unique. Will PS3 games look better? Perhaps. But if the XB360 doesn't look bad, and the difference isn't enormous, the benefit of PS3's SPE's will go missed by most.

Possible.

Sony can choose to differentiate using specific games (e.g., EyeToy-based, LBP, ...), or perhipheral services too (i.e., outside games, similar to Xbox Live).


EDIT: If Sony continues to hack on Playstation Edge and integrating it with popular specialized/middleware vendors, they may eventually be able to make a difference here.

 

[Nesh]

just out of curiosity a game that calculates "countless" variations of complex animations would it be better suitable on Cell?

Nughty Dog's recent game comes to mind because the game seems to have thousands of animations already according to devs. An example of this are the cover animations. They dont look the same.

Another example is HS. I remember DeanoC talking once about the useage of SPUs for multible AI behaviour, from hoards of enemies to individual AI.

360 is doing a great job at delivering great graphics but from what I ve seen PS3's 1st and 2nd party games seem to offer a bit more attention to physics, like Motorstorm.

 

[PatrickL]

"Europe is in the bag" seems to me a bit unrealistic. What about wait July to see who, besides the sonyboys, bought the console. Because 600 € is not that easy to swallow for most families.

 

[NERO]

From everything that I have read from many different sources it appears that there is truth to the ps3 "winning" in physics simulation but there is also truth to the cells spes having to help RSX in shader operations to have similar images to the 360. Does this make the PS3 physics sim edge mute in regard to multiplatform games as there aren't enough spes running to handle both physics code and shader ops (when this has to be the case)?

 

[archangelmorph]

just out of curiosity a game that calculates "countless" variations of complex animations would it be better suitable on Cell?

Nughty Dog's recent game comes to mind because the game seems to have thousands of animations already according to devs. An example of this are the cover animations. They dont look the same.

Another example is HS. I remember DeanoC talking once about the useage of SPUs for multible AI behaviour, from hoards of enemies to individual AI.

As much as I believe can be achieved with the CELL with regards to advanced animation (& bucketloads of it), I don't think the 360 isn't capable of doing alot of very complex animation processing too..

Games like Assassin's creed prove that alot of leverage can be gained from both hardware platforms in this regard to do exceptional things with animation and character behaviour..

IMHO animation systems are and have been restricted significantly by software system scope and design up til now..

It seems to be that now dev's actually CARE about animation systems (As a primary means of preventing their visually astounding characters from turning looking like ugly, jerky sh** in motion..) the entire industry is catching up to the select few dev companies who invested the time into getting it right in the past (Prince of Persia team, ICO team etc..)

 

[betan]

Though I agree the PS3 could well show as much as an order of magnitude better physics, I don't know that LBP is a good example. I'm sure LBP's physics can be managed on XB360. At least what's shown so far. Perhaps the scalability will allow huge towers of moveable blocks and stuff which XB360 couldn't handle, but the level shown to date wasn't hugely taxing that I saw.

What is shown is in LBP user can create content. The first thing that came to my mind when I watched the GDC demo was building a large pyramid pyramid of oranges or something and making it fall as player passes through. Certainly there needs to be a limit of number of oranges or any interacting objects.
This limit better be significantly larger than what 360 can handle.
(Assuming cell's limit is smaller or equal to RSX's limit)

"Europe is in the bag" seems to me a bit unrealistic. What about wait July to see who, besides the sonyboys, bought the console. Because 600 € is not that easy to swallow for most families.

indeed...

 

[patsu]

From everything that I have read from many different sources it appears that there is truth to the ps3 "winning" in physics simulation but there is also truth to the cells spes having to help RSX in shader operations to have similar images to the 360. Does this make the PS3 physics sim edge mute in regard to multiplatform games as there aren't enough spes running to handle both physics code and shader ops (when this has to be the case)?

Possible but my question is if SPE is handling physics and part of vertex processing, can there be more value add (transform the vertex based on physics in real time) ? In short, the whole is more than the sum of its parts. Only the devs will know though...

It seems that many are still struggling to understand and overcome PS3's limitations today (instead of tapping on its strength). The first/second parties are pushing the technology envelope (e.g., Edge, Lair) but few are doing both fun + technology (exception is LBP). Personally, I think we have to wait until the third wave (after exploring technology strength) to see wider use of PS3's uniqueness... if at all.


EDIT: Out of the last GDC, I think "Playstation Edge" is under-rated in impact and importance. I sure hope they commit to some timeline, advanced feature set and developer support though (like an officially supported development platform)... kinda like how PSN integrates third party middleware.

 

[scooby_dooby]

Oh but that's the thing, I do see the HDD as vital for the next gen gaming experience.

And I bet that you back in the days used the HDD as a reason to prefer the original xBox over the PS2.

Since it was free, why not? But like any platform, it was the games that drew people to Xbox, and the better GFX.

HDD vital for 'next gen' gaming experience is nothing but FUD. PS3 has a HDD: therefore it must be required for a true next gen experiece...puh-lease. Someone has been listening to Sony PR far too much...

What exactly is a 'next gen' gaming experience?

40% of the 360 userbase never connected to Live, are they not experiencing 'next gen' gameplay on their 360's as they play through GOW or Crackdown?

 

[archangelmorph]

It seems that many are still struggling to understand and overcome PS3's limitations today (instead of tapping on its strength).

Which was the same for the PS2..

Not suprising really..

You have to discover where those strengths lie first by changing and adapting your implementation strategy from experienced practices to new different approaches which relate to the differences in hardware architecture.. Only then will you have the leisure of fine tuning your efforts to fully exploit the potential of a platform..

 

[aselto]

LBP is a larger-scale, less extreme demonstration of this... but it is a demonstration all the same of the level to which PS3 is already a step (or two) ahead of 360 on something such as physics operations.

Did you play Crackdown? In this game you can blow up several dozens cars and bodies at once and physics are calculated for all this objects. Very very impressive IMO.

 

[Tap In]

.... The issue is likely not Cell performance, but the difficulty and resources/time available to realize it. .

As someone who does not agree that cell will play a huge differentiator this gen, I think this statement is as accurate as any written in this thread.

Also, I think that for one, we see what we want to see in these released games (Motorstorm for example) when saying it is an example of producing physics better than 360. I think this comes from the facts 1) that are minds are prejudiced somewhat to seeing what we want and 2) it's possible some here have not yet had extensive 1st hand game play on the 360 to really know what it's been doing to truly compare. I also have played Motorstorm and think it's amazing but have seen some amazing stuff done in 360 games as well (Crackdown for one). Videos do not tell a story. In the end, it's the TYPE of game and how much time and resources a dev decided to attribute to each facet regardless of the platform since both are more than capable this gen. IOW, just because we do not see a MS game yet on 360 does not mean it would not look or play the same way if it were designed for it. (although I do think that toward the end of the generation the difference may be more noticeable if that is the focus of a certain developer)


I'm sure that a couple of devs will do as Carl has mentioned and design some niche games that absolutely outdo what the 360 can do in a specific application/niche type environment, taking full advantage of cell's abilities. I'm also sure that it will be able to do as Shifty suggests, a few more things on screen than some 360 games BUT, they will be hardly noticeable by the end user or game reviewer. At the same time, the PS3 will be limited in some areas where 360 is not, possibly using the multiple Xenon cores in a more efficient way than PS3 can afford on the one PPE. Or, as it's been mentioned, if SPEs are being used to help RSX (compared to Xenos) some of the extra horsepower for those other things AI, physics etc. may be reduced compared to what is otherwise possible....but yes the extra horsepower is there.

As Joshua mentioned, the time, money, resources and inclination to exploit Cell to its full potential (working around the other limitations) will be the deciding factor this gen (1st party). The rest of the system's attributes (Memory for example) will keep it IMO, closer to 360 than previously anticipated. I think that our expectations for Cell dominance need to be adjusted due to the fact that it is part of a system. (and they have been to an extent compared to 18mos ago)

I also agree that PS4 is where it would be exploited more fully and if the competition does not find a CPU alternative to match it, may be left in the dust performance-wise at that point. Not this gen, however. IMO

 

[Nesh]

"Europe is in the bag" seems to me a bit unrealistic. What about wait July to see who, besides the sonyboys, bought the console. Because 600 € is not that easy to swallow for most families.

Depends. Nobody is expecting PS3 to reach 360's sales in Europe in July anyways. Its common sense just like with every launch that the first to rush out to get a console are the hardcore gamers (plus a few normal gamers who want to get it sooner). If initial sales are many they will spread the news of increasing sales and more will follow the trend. Consumers dont always think rationally, they tend to follow the press a lot.

I remember during the PS2 that many who werent much interested to gaming got excited by the huge sales chaos and crazy demand and wanted to get it. It was like the initial sales auto-adverdised the console for a farther boost in sales.

It also depedns wether the PS3 will have a price drop until July, and of the games it will have.

I ve noticed that we in EU are more used to paying more for electronic devices. They are always more expensive anyways. Also in EU we tend to reckognise other functionalities that come up with a certain price.
Also we Europeans seem to be more pro-Playstation. Many also werent planning to get a 360 but got it because they wanted something next gen to play on until the PS3 arrives.

There is still the possibility that EU may give a huge boost in sales and support for the PS3.

It remains to be seen though, but what can be said for sure is that there iare great possibilities that in EU its expected to do better than what it did in US and Japan. Wether the console will lead in EU is a different matter