Ghostbuster discussion - PS3's low quality and why Sony are publishing it.

[Scott_Arm]

I think this company just screwed up their PS3 work. There isn't really a gap in the two systems. There are different compromises for each, but that is by far the biggest gap we've seen on a multiplatform title. I can't imagine the gap in one title being that big without doing a plain piss poor job on the PS3.

The weird part of the story is why would Sony pick this title, of all titles, to use as a timed exclusive?

 

[Silent_Buddha]

Again, I think a lot of people are just assuming entirely too much when they say "lead platform", etc.

Except that it was Terminal Reality that stated...

“We’ve found that writing for the PS3 first and then porting to the 360 and PC is a much simpler and more efficient procedure,” he concluded.

I mean you can't get more direct confirmation than that.

However, I'm going to go out on a limb and guess that while they started off that way. Reality set in at some point during developement and they switched development to the X360 as lead platform.

That's the only explanation I can think of for the PS3 having lower resolution and lower quality textures.

Regards,
SB

 

[2real4tv]

This line made me chuckle

Instead of leaving it up to internet Matlocks, we asked Terminal Reality to comment on the controversy. A spokesperson for the developer told us, "For the record, the PS3 version [of Ghostbusters] is softer due to the 'quincunx' antialiasing filter and the fact we render at about 75% the resolution of the 360 version. So you cannot directly compare a screen shot of one to the other unless you scale them properly. The PS3 does have less available RAM than the 360 – but we managed to squeeze 3 out of 4 textures as full size on the PS3."

 

[2real4tv]

Also isn't the Ghostbusters IP owned by SONY?

 

[obonicus]

Gametrailers is way ahead of the curve there.

 

[obonicus]

Also isn't the Ghostbusters IP owned by SONY?

Sony Pictures. Elsewhere I think deepbrown speculated that the only reason they had this whole 'PS3 lead blah blah' talk is because of pressure from Sony Pictures. Also, I believe, the reason Sony picked this up in Europe. Atari's actually selling its European operations to Namco-Bandai, last I heard.

 

[Silent_Buddha]

Terminal Reality isn't a particularly good dev; the only reason anyone was even interested in this game is the IP attached to it. You can point to a whole bunch of PS3 versions that are worse off than the 360 version, even today, but nothing like this. I'd chalk it up to a dev not being up to the task of creating a multiplatform game. If you actually wanted to compare their relative potential rather than stoke the fire, you'd be better-off looking at an actually technically-impressive game, like RE5. Note: let's not talk about RE5 in this thread.

Agreed on them not being particularly good as other 3rd party devs have been able to at least make the PS3 port respectable compared to the X360 port even when they had a hard time coming to grasp with the console.

And the good 3rd party devs are able to extract the same performance and sometimes better preformance on the PS3.

However, on the original point. I think probably the bigger part of this fascination with this particular game is that Sony ponied up cash for an exclusive that is clearly inferior on PS3 (graphically) compared to X360.

I'm not sure Ghostbuster's is even as relevant as a Transformers/Terminator game to the majority of casual gamers that would buy a movie licenced game.

I can only think that maybe Sony were shown a build running on X360 or PC and were lead to believe that the PS3 version would be similar?

Regards,
SB

 

[tha_con]

Except that it was Terminal Reality that stated...



I mean you can't get more direct confirmation than that.

However, I'm going to go out on a limb and guess that while they started off that way. Reality set in at some point during developement and they switched development to the X360 as lead platform.

That's the only explanation I can think of for the PS3 having lower resolution and lower quality textures.

Regards,
SB

Sigh...you too are missing my point. You haven't been reading my posts...whatever.

 

[obonicus]

However, on the original point. I think probably the bigger part of this fascination with this particular game is that Sony ponied up cash for an exclusive that is clearly inferior on PS3 (graphically) compared to X360.

(...)

I can only think that maybe Sony were shown a build running on X360 or PC and were lead to believe that the PS3 version would be similar?

I wonder if it would have mattered. I suspect it went like this:

[dramatization]
Sony Pictures: Hey, Atari. How's it going?
A: Hey! Not bad.
SP: You know, it's really important that the Ghostbusters game launches together with the Blu-Ray, on the anniversary. How's that going?
A: We're fine for NA! But having a few hitches in Europe, we're sorta liquidating our holdings, not sure we'll make it...
SP: Really? That sucks. Tell you what: since I own the IP, I'll get my sister subsidiary to publish the game for you, so we meet the deadline.
A: Great! All versions?
SP: We're only going to publish the Playstation versions. You can hold onto the rights for the other ones.
A: Well, better than nothing. Okay.
[/dramatization]

I imagine that there may have been some contract-waving and legal posturing as well. Of course, if we believe in moneyhats, it goes:

[dramatization]
Sony Pictures: Hey Atari, how's it going?
Atari: Hey! Not bad.
SP: Your Ghostbusters game is a couple of months away from release, right?
A: Yeah...
SP: I was thinking... maybe we should make it an exclusive. My sister subsidiary will publish it for you. Don't worry, though: we'll pay.
A: E-exclusive? But--
SP: Well, timed exclusive. How much would that be?
A: <number>
SP: *checks pockets* Dammit, I don't have that much on me. How much just for Europe?
A: <number>
SP: I'll take it!
[/dramatization]

Or maybe Sony went up to Atari and asked specifically for exclusivity in Europe.

 

[Iron Tiger]

I think this company just screwed up their PS3 work. There isn't really a gap in the two systems. There are different compromises for each, but that is by far the biggest gap we've seen on a multiplatform title. I can't imagine the gap in one title being that big without doing a plain piss poor job on the PS3.

I dunno, NFS: Prostreet looked like a generation apart between platforms, to my eyes. I'd love to see an analysis of it. The PS3 version looked too ugly to play, while I much preferred its controls to the Xbox versions. That's why I ended up getting the PC version.

NFS: Shift seems similarly different, though the differences could be chalked up (at least somewhat) to marketing-influenced artistic choices. There's more saturation and contrast on the Xbox version (a la Forza) and more subdued lighting on the PS3 (a la GT).

 

[Silent_Buddha]

Sigh...you too are missing my point. You haven't been reading my posts...whatever.

I have but I'm not sure where you get the idea that lead platform/the platform the game is developed on/the platform art assets are created for... Will somehow be significantly (not just a little bit) worse than what they get after porting that game to the other platform. And with lower art assets considering those are generally done for the lead platform, especially when the dev thinks and boasts that they are doing this because the PS3 Version will be significantly better than the X360 version.

I can only imagine they sat there thinking...

/dramatization
You know, even though WE know the PS3 version is going to run much better than the X360 version we'll just arbitrarily create higher quality art assets that we know we won't use...

And then when they started porting to X360 suddenly discovered. Oh boy, you know our port to X360 is going to end up WAY better than the orginal PS3 work we did, it's a good thing we created high quality art assets that we thought we'd never have to use.
/dramatization off (yes I blatantly palgiarized this from obonicus )

Either way yeah, perhaps I just don't understand your point of view and just think it's more likely that they originally started PS3 as lead platform. Initially thought they could get much better results from PS3 as lead platform. And then reality hit and they realized that PS3 developement was a lot harder than they thought. And switched mid-project to the X360 as lead platform.

Perhaps that reality hit was their publishers coming up to them and saying, you're taking too long. Or perhaps they just realized they didn't have a good enough grasp of the PS3 to realize their dreams and backup their claims...

Regards,
SB

 

[obonicus]

I dunno, NFS: Prostreet looked like a generation apart between platforms, to my eyes. I'd love to see an analysis of it. The PS3 version looked too ugly to play, while I much preferred its controls to the Xbox versions. That's why I ended up getting the PC version.

Wasn't EA's early support of the PS3 terrible in general? This may be the worst PS3 port since those dark times, though.

NFS: Shift seems similarly different, though the differences could be chalked up (at least somewhat) to marketing-influenced artistic choices. There's more saturation and contrast on the Xbox version (a la Forza) and more subdued lighting on the PS3 (a la GT).

It's possible. It'd make grandmaster's life harder... they may be pulling a GTA4 and trying to mask a lack of AA or resolution with 'more cinematic lighting'.

 

[NRP]

Gah! Those screens posted by Robert really show how utterly terrible "quincux AA" looks. I would rather have a jaggie fest than have textures that look smeared. Jeezus, how did Sony even let this one see the light of day?

 

[TrungGap]

Initially thought they could get much better results from PS3 as lead platform. And then reality hit and they realized that PS3 developement was a lot harder than they thought. And switched mid-project to the X360 as lead platform.

I'm not a game developer, however if you're writing a multi-platform code, it doesn't mean the content, code and what not are developed on the lead platform first and then rework on the other platforms. Usually, all it means is that most of your devs have the lead platform and/or coding started on that platform first, however, development of the code is still in a very agnostic way. Yes, there are some advantage to lead platform, but not as much as what we're seeing here.

There must have been some miscalculation of what each systems could do. Since, the Xenos is better at balancing the load, this is where they ended up.

 

[obonicus]

Gah! Those screens posted by Robert really show how utterly terrible "quincux AA" looks. I would rather have a jaggie fest than have textures that look smeared. Jeezus, how did Sony even let this one see the light of day?

Quincunx isn't the biggest problem there. It's probably safer to blame most of the blurriness on the resolution.

 

[Neb]

Maybe the jucie wasn't enough for them to maintain same res of 360. Say might it contain better effects or such?

What about all that GI, physics stuff?

 

[obonicus]

Maybe the jucie wasn't enough for them to maintain same res of 360. Say might it contain better effects or such?

I don't think it does. In fact, it seems like it has worse effects.

 

[Gitaroo]

from those crappy GT comparison video, the water effects seems to runs choppier on 360. You can clearly tell even for the crappy compression. Overally this kind of port quality is unacceptable for a 60 dollar game.

 

[thatdude90210]

Agreed on them not being particularly good as other 3rd party devs have been able to at least make the PS3 port respectable compared to the X360 port even when they had a hard time coming to grasp with the console.

Could be that lately, 3rd party devs have gotten better at gimping their 360 ports to avoid this exact controversy. There were lots of these discussions when the PS3 first came out.

 

[RobertR1]

Could be that lately, 3rd party devs have gotten better at gimping their 360 ports to avoid this exact controversy. There were lots of these discussions when the PS3 first came out.

I had this thought earlier also. The last big fiasco I recall was GTA4 which looked poor on the PS3. However, the producer deflected it well by saying they preferred the PS3's version color palette more and as is such, the fanbase clinged to that and gave it a free pass. That was a prime example of good PR handling. This is quite the opposite.