Factor5 making exclusives on PS3 because of performance

[fulcizombie]

Spin what "in a bad way " for Sony??
The fact that a freelancer developer has become a sony second party and will make a game for the ps3??And a freelancer developer that hasn't released a good game since...turrican and whose last game(RL3) was a pile of shit???

And if we are talking about getting "freelancer" developers to create games for your console exclusively,i don't think that MS with Epic games,bioware,silikon knights and all these Japanese guys they've recruited have done a bad job either

If MS had announced a factor-5 game nobody would give a shit....

I think a lot of people expected Sony to rest on their laurels and not really do anything new in terms of developer recruitment. Going after factor5, going after smaller developers elsewhere (e.g. Ninja Theory) - it's a little different approach than what they've done before, at least in the early stages of a system's cycle (look at the kind of games they announced back at the PS2's debut - it was really just the usual suspects). I think they're serious about bagging exclusive (western) original content, which is a good thing.

The F5 games may be shite from a gameplay perspective, but they should at least look very good - indeed, look probably better than any other games on the systems if history is anything to go by - which alone is worth it for Sony. If you want to demonstrate your system's technical superiority, you'd think you couldn't go too far wrong with someone like F5. And that's probably one of the prime motivators behind them signing them up.

Isn't that the same thing with what MS is doing in Japan?What are all these great western developers that Sony has grabbed??Factor-5 and the guys who are making "heavenly sword"???That doesn't sound much impressive to me.At least MS is getting some legendary developers from Japan to creat 1st party games for them.

Anyway of course Sony will try harder,they have a much more experienced (than 4 years ago) MS to go against and Sony as a whole is dependant of the playstation buisness.If something goes wrong with the ps3(and taking into account the lesss than impressive sales of the psp) then Sony will be in a world of pain.Samsung has allready destroyed them in the electronic departments,the DS is killing in their 1st handheld efford and they have to pull all the stops to secure the undisputed n.1 position(IN ALL TERRITORIES) in the home console market.

 

[Titanio]

What bothers me about Julian is he makes comments comparing the performance of the hardware he has in his hands, when he clearly knows the parts he's comparing aren't even comparable at this time. There's nothing wrong with claiming one is better then the other, but claiming devkit performance on unfinished hardware isn't the most objective stance to take.

He's not taking into account what the final specs are, even though he may know them. He saying the CPU in the current xbox 360 devkit vrs the CPU in the current PS3 devkit are comparable.

How do you know he's not taking into account the final spec and the outline of the final tech Sony and MS has given him? The question becomes whether you can draw conclusions based on that or not. I don't know the answer, but I'd venture to suggest that MS and Sony aren't really doing what they should if developers can't get a fairly comprehensive handle on each system's final power.

This is exactly the same nonsense he pulled 5 years ago when benchamrking performance on a Alpha xbox devkit (that contained a geforce 2 card and was just a PC) versus a final gamecube devkit (that was clocked higher then the release gamecube) and claiming a performance winner.

He clearly stated at that time that it was a alpha kit he was comparing to.

Isn't that the same thing with what MS is doing in Japan?What are all these great western developers that Sony has grabbed??Factor-5 and the guys who are making "heavenly sword"???That doesn't sound much impressive to me.

There's obviously far more than that. Signing up smaller independent content exclusively to bolster your first party publishing and original portfolio this early isn't something Sony was doing with PS2. It's not a sign of complacency, that's for sure. If you'd asked me if Epic would be at Sony's press conference before last monday, I'd have laughed. Sony are being more aggressive than I think most people expected.

At least MS is getting some legendary developers from Japan to creat 1st party games for them.

..and some of those are simply in collaboration with the same old Xbox supporters as before (Phantagram, Artoon) - "legendary" paid faces for the same developers. Sure, that's not the case with all of them, and I applaud MS's efforts to sign up independent Japanese content, but they do need to do that far more than Sony does. I think Sony could easily coast along without making efforts like this, but they are in addition to the regular supporters. My point is that they just seem more aggressive than I had expected.

 

[Qroach]

Ninja theory is located in the UK, and IMO they are a very good developer. Kung-fu chaos was a great party game that went under the radar of most xbox gamers. It was a solid game with fun gameplay and great graphics/presentation. They are capable of doing great things with the PS3.

I've never liked Factor 5 much. They trash talk way too much for a company that hasn't made a fun game in years. I think the games they made were overrated by the majority of gamecube fans. They made some good looking games, but the gameplay stunk. Even still they made "space games" essentially, and that's probably the easiest thing you can work on from a artistic point of view imo. I don't have high hopes for them doing anything spectacular (at least not at the level of heavenly sword), or fun to play.

 

[X-AleX]

How do you know he's not taking into account the final spec and the outline of the final tech Sony and MS has given him? The question becomes whether you can draw conclusions based on that or not. I don't know the answer, but I'd venture to suggest that MS and Sony aren't really doing what they should if developers can't get a fairly comprehensive handle on each system's final power.


This is exactly the same nonsense he pulled 5 years ago when benchamrking performance on a Alpha xbox devkit (that contained a geforce 2 card and was just a PC) versus a final gamecube devkit (that was clocked higher then the release gamecube) and claiming a performance winner.[/quote]

He clearly stated at that time that it was a alpha kit he was comparing to.[/quote]


Because developers are still very, very hinting opinions beyond the obvious "it's a lot more powerful and we will make great things with it!", not only because they lack final hardware but also because they need time to actually acknowledge the real potential of the system. Is this guy a genius or what, being that other developers are still curious to see what the X360 final hardware will do?

 

[Qroach]

How do you know he's not taking into account the final spec and the outline of the final tech Sony and MS has given him? The question becomes whether you can draw conclusions based on that or not. I don't know the answer, but I'd venture to suggest that MS and Sony aren't really doing what they should if developers can't get a fairly comprehensive handle on each system's final power.

This has nothing to do with paper specs. He's not comparing paper specs, as you can't tell if one console is really more powerful then another by looking at paper. he shoudl know that and you should know that as well. He's comparing the real CPU from the PS3 devkit (which is a cell processor) to the CPU(s) in the xbox devkit (which is two power PC processors).

He clearly stated at that time that it was a alpha kit he was comparing to.

No, I don't recall him stating that, just like he didn't this time. Even if he did, he didn't go into specifics by saying it was a geforce 2 versus a custom chip with embedded Dram form ATI/artx. As usual he glossed over specifics that would/could invalidate his claim.

 

[wco81]

Speaking of LucasArts, it's interesting that they didn't announce any content. Seems they always announce content for new consoles being unveiled. Maybe because Nintendo didn't have anything to say about the Revolution? Maybe they're working on games using that revolutionary controller.

As for Sony getting second-party content going, whatever happened to the people who worked at Psygnosis? They're bringing back Warhawk but not Colony Wars and the like?

Did they ever publish an F1 game for the PS1? Does their exclusive F1 license expire at some point?

 

[Nightz]

I can't wait i'm a big fan of all the Factor5 games from Turrican right up to Rogue Squadron

 

[HappyBread]

At least this shows they're not asleep at the wheel or getting complacent about content (between this and other deals).

The president of SCEE said they imagine themselves in 2nd or 3rd place in the market, so they don't become too complacent. And it seems to work don't you think? A sound mentality in IMO.

http://eu.playstation.com/iw_images/assets/video/e3_2005_dreeves/e3_2005_dreeves_pt1_en.mov
http://eu.playstation.com/iw_images/assets/video/e3_2005_dreeves/e3_2005_dreeves_pt2_en.mov

 

[HappyBread]

As for Sony getting second-party content going, whatever happened to the people who worked at Psygnosis? They're bringing back Warhawk but not Colony Wars and the like?

Did they ever publish an F1 game for the PS1? Does their exclusive F1 license expire at some point?

I'm currently testing one of their games. I know some of them went off to develop a Wipeout clone for the Xbox. But most of them are still at Psygnosis, which was renamed SCEE Liverpool Studio. The F1 license expires in 2007, btw.

 

[Phil]

This has nothing to do with paper specs. He's not comparing paper specs, as you can't tell if one console is really more powerful then another by looking at paper. he shoudl know that and you should know that as well. He's comparing the real CPU from the PS3 devkit (which is a cell processor) to the CPU(s) in the xbox devkit (which is two power PC processors).

Huh, so you're tellung us that developers at this point have no idea what the target hardware is capable of, given this will be the hardware that will run their software? Sorry Quincy, but you're really grasping at straws in this case.

These developers are targeting hardware that is going to launch - not devkits that are going to improve in time.

 

[therealskywolf]

Didnt they said that The Gamecube was the most powerfull too?

Anyway, they arent developing for it because of power, they are developing for it because of the $, Sony has a deal with the guys........

So now that they are under SOny umbrella its obvious what they would say, the same thing they said when they were developing for the Gamecube.

 

[Confidence-Man]

I bought a Gamecube for Rogue Leader. Two days later I was pissed off because it was the exact same game as Rogue Squadron.

Hopefully whatever they do for Sony is online.

 

[Qroach]

Phil,

Huh, so you're tellung us that developers at this point have no idea what the target hardware is capable of, given this will be the hardware that will run their software? Sorry Quincy, but you're really grasping at straws in this case.

Wtf? you can't tell what kind of performance you have in a game by looking at paper specs. You need the actual hardware to be certain of in game/realworld performance. Read what I said again. Despite this, as I said Julian isn't looking at paper specs anyway, He can't possibly know how a custom 3 core Power PC CPU with added VMX capabilites is going to perform real world. Will it be fast, sure, but who knows how fast compared to Cell. He's looking at the hardware he has right NOW and comparing that JUST LIKE the last generation.

I really don't see what's so hard to understand regarding this.

 

[Pozer]

F5 says lots of things. They once even said they were developing games for the xbox. To date I know of none.They're a good developer but they only make 1-2 games a gen. Rogue leader/squadron are still great games.

As for the psygnosis guys, I'd love to see them and the old reflections guys make a nextgen Shadow Of The Beast

 

[Phil]

Quincy;

Of course, but the point is, they're still targeting the hardware that will launch (meaning effective final hardware). I'm not saying that any developer at this point has factual evidence of how fast final hardware will run, but I'm certain they do have a fair idea of what to expect which closely relates to what they are pushing for in their games - which is ultimately what any developer with kits is doing at the moment and why performance on current devkits shown at E3 are running at unstable framerates on unfinished alpha hardware.

The point is, you have no idea what Factor 5 is judging and comparing with. I do find it highly unlikely that they'd move to platform x only because devkits from platform x is more powerful than y without factoring in what x and y will be capable of eventually and in their final form.

Was the motivation money? Maybe. Was it performance? Maybe. Was it maybe a bit of both? Maybe. At this point, neither of us know and probably never will, but your claims of what Julian is judging is merely speculation on your part - one I don't necessarely agree with.

 

[wco81]

His credibilty would be better if there wasn't a vested financial interest.

He could be the new Lorne Lanning.

 

[Kolgar]

First off: Yay!

Secondly: Kudos to Titanio and Phil for their excellent posts in this thread.

Third: I think this hits Microsoft more than Nintendo, as Nintendo seems to be going a different path from its console brethren, and it's Microsoft, I think, that needs to snatch up more of these kinds of development houses to help them compete with Sony.

Fourth: I have a gut feeling that PS3 does whip the pants of Xbox 360 from a hardware power perspective, and I expect that we'll hear more announcements like these in the future - or at the very least, developers telling us that the PS3 is more powerful.

Roll on, Factor 5. Their games are the reasons I bought a GC last gen. This announcement brings me one step closer to my "one-console future."

 

[mckmas8808]

The fact of the matter is a small developer has picked the PS3 to put their games on because of the power. Devs said the same thing when the PSP before it came out. They said that the PSP has given them what they need to make the game that they want. I know you guys remember devs saying that. Now we have our first develop saying it about the PS3. I think we will see the same thing happen with the next gen consoles.
________
N PLATFORM

 

[Qroach]

Phil,

Of course, but the point is, they're still targeting the hardware that will launch (meaning effective final hardware). I'm not saying that any developer at this point has factual evidence of how fast final hardware will run, but I'm certain they do have a fair idea of what to expect which closely relates to what they are pushing for in their games - which is ultimately what any developer with kits is doing at the moment and why performance on current devkits shown at E3 are running at unstable framerates on unfinished alpha hardware.

I think your misisng my point. Julian already has a history of comparing performance on an "early" xbox devkit vrs. "final GC hardware" even while knowing what the final xbox hardware would look like. He's done this before as I and others in this thread has stated.

The point is, you have no idea what Factor 5 is judging and comparing with. I do find it highly unlikely that they'd move to platform x only because devkits from platform x is more powerful than y without factoring in what x and y will be capable of eventually and in their final form.

I'm basing this off what he's done in the past. he knew the specs for xbox and gamecube, yet compared final devkit hardware performance from gamecube to the alpha hardware on xbox. He claimed Gamecube the performance winner without factoring in the final form. So do i think he's doing that again? yes.

I find it highly unlikely that is the reason too, but it's not the point I'm arguing. All I'm saying is that Julian has a history of comparing devkit hardware. Even though it's not logical or even technically possible to do so in a proper way, he's done it before and did it again. I doesn't matter to me if he did or didn't factor in "performance" as his choice for development platform, I'm just saying it's not a reasonable thing to say as he clearly can't tell what system will have higher realworld performance until they both have final hardware. understand?

 

[Phil]

mckmas8808,

There is no "fact of the matter" that this and that is true just because they say so. Lets just keep it to the fact that Factor 5 will be developing for PS3 and that they are highly excited about the possibilities of what they can achieve (and leave all platform comparasments out of this).

Even if Julian's comments are true and accurate (from his perspective) - still doesn't negate that other platforms yield different strengths. It's up to each developer to choose which platform suits their vision best.


EDIT: Quincy, can you also agree to this?