Final Fantasy XIII [PS3, X360]

[corduroygt]

The PS3 hdd is there, so why not use it? ND does it best by caching data to the HDD and streaming data from both HDD and BD simultaneously. This way you don't have to wait for the installation before playing (although that's not really a problem for me, I install all my 360 games before playing anyways) and loading times are minimized.

 

[AlNom]

That will work much easier with a linear game than a non-linear one.

 

[patsu]

inFamous installs 1.3 - 1.8Gb to HDD and streams their world. R&C installs 0.5Gb and streams from HDD and Blu-ray.

 

[Dr. Nick]

http://scrawlfx.com/2009/11/final-fantasy-xiii-gets-new-english-shots-more-fang
Box art for Japan.

 

[Dr. Nick]

Yoichi Wada Interview.
http://www.gamesindustry.biz/articles/yoichi-wada-part-two-interview?page=1

http://www.gamesindustry.biz/articles/yoichi-wada-part-one-interview

 

[Dr. Nick]

Westeners get it March 9th 2010. That is both Europe and North America

Dev Doc
http://www.gametrailers.com/video/dynasty-doc-final-fantasy/58996

http://www.1up.com/do/newsStory?cId=3176928

http://www.xbox.com/en-US/games/splash/f/finalfantasyXIII/
http://www.xbox.com/en-GB/games/splash/f/finalfantasyXIII/default.htm

 

[Arwin]

That will work much easier with a linear game than a non-linear one.

Maybe, but it shouldn't be hard to gain benefit from using having both a HDD and a BD drive to read from in almost any game that is large enough to not be a download title. It means you can read from two different locations at the same time after all, and that alone improves your seek-times (but it should also imrpove your data transfer rates). And I'm sure you could install everything you need more often locally, even if it's just main menus, main character data and such ... . Especially in games where you can't run/travel the world that fast anyway, a streaming engine that preloads areas beyond view to the HDD that you are nevertheless heading towards fast enough. Even if you turn or turn around all the time (and how often does that really happen?) and the engine streams in lots of data needlessly, the benefit should still be there.

 

[Billy Idol]

Hmm, I think that this game will be very interesting to compare, at least for B3D. As a former PS3 exclusive, the devs claim that they designed a new (SPU heavy) engine to exploit the strength of the PS3. Now, as a multiplatform title, I am curios how the port to the Xbox360 turns out on a technically level. Seems to be the first case where a PS3 centric heavy hitter gets ported to the Xbox360...

 

[Arwin]

Hmm, I think that this game will be very interesting to compare, at least for B3D. As a former PS3 exclusive, the devs claim that they designed a new (SPU heavy) engine to exploit the strength of the PS3.

Do you have a cite for this? Because I thought they abandoned that in favor of a PC centric engine at some point.

 

[Billy Idol]

Do you have a cite for this? Because I thought they abandoned that in favor of a PC centric engine at some point.

Hmm, yeah seems that you are right! The White engine was first promoted to be PS3 specific with emphasize on the SPU, but reading this stuff:

http://www.psu.com/article.php?id=1252&page=0&commspage=

it seems that the Crystal Tools are definitely for multiplatform development...concluding, I can easily guess what platform comparison will expose :smile:

 

[Dr. Nick]

Hmm, yeah seems that you are right! The White engine was first promoted to be PS3 specific with emphasize on the SPU, but reading this stuff:

http://www.psu.com/article.php?id=1252&page=0&commspage=

it seems that the Crystal Tools are definitely for multiplatform development...concluding, I can easily guess what platform comparison will expose :smile:

I think this will be the last really interesting comparison because this game is probably the last game to be released that was conceived as a true exclusive.

I suspect for now on exclusive will either be timed meaning they would likely be created taking other platforms into consideration while creating the game or they will remain exclusives. I'm not expecting see another situation like for the rest of this generation but that is just me.

 

[Acert93]

Hmm, I think that this game will be very interesting to compare, at least for B3D. As a former PS3 exclusive, the devs claim that they designed a new (SPU heavy) engine to exploit the strength of the PS3. Now, as a multiplatform title, I am curios how the port to the Xbox360 turns out on a technically level. Seems to be the first case where a PS3 centric heavy hitter gets ported to the Xbox360...

Burnout Paradise lead strongly on the PS3. Anyhow, since 2006/2007 a lot of developers have been explicitly saying to lead on the PS3 and to use best practices that leverage the SPEs as this is beneficial to other platforms as well. I am not sure many games are "ported" these days. Most are designed as multiplatform; the problem early one was lack of development kits as well as well defined areas of the "least common denominator."

 

[Dr. Nick]

please delete

 

[Billy Idol]

Burnout Paradise lead strongly on the PS3. Anyhow, since 2006/2007 a lot of developers have been explicitly saying to lead on the PS3 and to use best practices that leverage the SPEs as this is beneficial to other platforms as well. I am not sure many games are "ported" these days. Most are designed as multiplatform; the problem early one was lack of development kits as well as well defined areas of the "least common denominator."

What I actuall meant is that in the case of FV13 it was first designed as a PS3 exclusive (see for instance Bayonetta, which following the discussion here was designed as a Xbox360 exclusive, causing much trouble while porting to the PS3 afterwards). In the case of Burnout Paradise, they lead on the PS3 but designed it as a multiplat. I don't know if we ever had such a case, where a PS3 exclusive (without the Xbox360 in mind while developing) gets ported to the Xbox 360. For instance a scenario like this: ND is bought by MS and they start to port UC2 to the Xbox360 (I know, will never happen, just an example).

I thought that maybe FV13 fits to this scenario, but the problem is, that we cannot be sure, about FV13 as they maybe knew right from the beginning that FV13 goes multiplat.

 

[Dr. Nick]

What I actuall meant is that in the case of FV13 it was first designed as a PS3 exclusive (see for instance Bayonetta, which following the discussion here was designed as a Xbox360 exclusive, causing much trouble while porting to the PS3 afterwards). In the case of Burnout Paradise, they lead on the PS3 but designed it as a multiplat. I don't know if we ever had such a case, where a PS3 exclusive (without the Xbox360 in mind while developing) gets ported to the Xbox 360. For instance a scenario like this: ND is bought by MS and they start to port UC2 to the Xbox360 (I know, will never happen, just an example).

I thought that maybe FV13 fits to this scenario, but the problem is, that we cannot be sure, about FV13 as they maybe knew right from the beginning that FV13 goes multiplat.

Devil May Cry 4 is probably the last game that we think was made only with the PS3 in mind, VF5 doesn't count because it was orginally made to run on intel/NVIDIA arcade hardware. I think that FFXIII without a doubt was being designed only with the PS3 in mind. Even after the announcement SE maintained that the 360 version wouldn't be worked on until the Japanese PS3 version was done. It turns out that they were indeed working on it at the same time some time after E3 but the game likely spent most of it's development as a platform exclusive.

 

[Billy Idol]

I think that FFXIII without a doubt was being designed only with the PS3 in mind. Even after the announcement SE maintained that the 360 version wouldn't be worked on until the PS3 version was done. It turns out that they were indeed working on it at the same time some time after E3 but the game likely spent most of it's development as a platform exclusive.

If this is true, we get an interesting situation: I am curious how this face off turns out!

 

[obonicus]

DMC4 was built on the MT Framework. Why do we assume it was made for PS3?

 

[Dr. Nick]

DMC4 was built on the MT Framework. Why do we assume it was made for PS3?

Dead Rising 1 used the MT Framework I would assume that it was made with the 360 in mind. It was announced as a PS3 exclusive I would assume that it remained exclusive for sometime until they decided to go multi and I think a considerable amount of people think the same.

 

[Acert93]

DMC4 was built on the MT Framework. Why do we assume it was made for PS3?

I don't know if DMC4 targeted the PS3 or lead on it.

But per the other part: You can use a mutliplatform engine and still focus your design and implimentations to a specific hardware.

A simplistic example: We have a multithreaded engine. We target our AI, Physics, etc to systain 30Hz on a platform with 8 in order processors with L2 256K cache.

Now port that to a 2 Core OOOe CPU with 2MB of L2. The code will still run but the original target designed around has changed significantly which may cause a change in design, quality, performance, and if necessary re-writes where necessary. (BTW, multiplatform doesn't mean each system uses the exact same code across the board so multiplatform engines don't mean universal code).

 

[Dr. Nick]

Another interview with Waga

http://arstechnica.com/gaming/news/...rs-interviews-square-enix-ceo-yoichi-wada.ars