IGN.com interview with MS, j. Allard: Compression problems...

no, I think I got it.



you're just wrong

Xbox LIVE and the interface of 360 blows away anything ever seen before in this regard.

 

Lol. And all the developers are saying: "No high-capacity media? Pretty sloppy, MS. Pretty damn sloppy."

 

Where was the ethernet or rj11 jack on the ps2? Last generation, the xbox had the the most forward thinking idea, driving the console gamer online and to a gaming 'community'.

Putting a DVD drive in the PS2 was a no-brainer, it wason its way to being the de-facto optical disc format standard. The eye toy was nothing more than a novelty imo.

Sorry titanio i usually agree with everything you say... :/

 

The DVD kind of worries me to tell the truth.Compression may be improved in later generations of games, but the games will advance as well and they might need more storage than the DVD can handle.Some games almost filled the DVD during the last generation.
So I wonder if the DVD's storage will be efficient enough later.
It's up to the developer if that will be a problem.The gamer ofcourse I believe wont care to switch 2 DVDs though.Resi4 on the GC I think had 2 discs but didnt take anything away from the experience.

 

I think Allard is really downplaying the storage issue with the DVD's. He sounds like he's shifting the (maybe) genuine complaints that dev's have of storage, and making it sound like the dev's ain't doing their jobs properly, and "they're not applying all their talents" and "being a little sloppy"...whether he's right or wrong, he really shouldn't bag 'em like this on a public stage.

They are launching in a few weeks. The last thing he should be saying is that the dev's are rushing their games. M$ needs to try and sell as many systems as they can before the other two consoles arrive, and telling people the first wave of titles are gonna be rushed...well, that's not very clever.

Twist the truth. Do what other PR people do. You've gotta be in it to win. Whether you admire his honesty or not, he really should be painting a better picture of the launch...at least better than he's doing here.

 

I dunno, I think Allard was kinda stuck between a rock and a hard place with that question.

A) Yes, the DVD format is proving to be confining. A larger format would be better.

Instantaneously, you'd have people across the net and developers saying PS3 games will be better because of storage the BD Drive gives Sony +10 fun and is the POWAH!! Simply put it would hurt XBox360's image as a next gen console, by showing the current gen drive really isn't enough, which sort of harkens back to DC and MS wants not a living sole thinking that.

B) Nah, the devs just ain't cutting the mustard, 'cause they're working really hard.

Yeah, it hurts the launch and people run around saying the 360 launch is "teh suxxorz!!!" and perhaps anger the devs (though I bet most understand), but in return MS gets to show a few way off games that look gorgeous and people say Xbox360 is next gen it's just on a tight schedule and can't preform as well as it would, and that's something anyone who's been rushed can understand.

To me B) seem like the lesser of 2 evils. Granted there's always secret option C) "you've been talking to the wrong devs", or whatever, but... ... mah, yeah, he was being kinda dumb there wasn't he...

I'm not wasting this post, darn it! Submit!

 

I agree i think it is something that will need to be solved in some way and compression is not the answer.

However, as long as developers can have the RPGs designed in such a way where a gamer will just 'move on' to disc 2 and then never have to switch back, i think theyll be ok with that. Plus if the DVD will in fact provide faster load times (the games ive seen on video have been loading quite fast) then i think most would choose faster overall load times with 1 swap instead of slower load times overall with 0 swaps.

 

i gotta give sony props for their still stellar marketing efforts ; their marketing department was much better than their competition back in 1995, the year is 2005 and they are still waay ahead their competition.They are simply the masters when it comes to creating hype,mesmerising people with their presentations (that usually include tons of exciting impressive ideas and product concepts that ararely materialize) and making their products look "cool" and "sexy".

I also accept that they have saved console gaming as we know it back in 1995 when our other options were limited to a $400 machine which could not deliver true 3-d gaming, and a cartridge based system (with limited its technical abilities) which lost its key software support from 3rd parties thanks to arrogant nintendo execs' decision making but....that's about it.

Sony is the leader of videogame industry not because they were visionaries or they dared to do what other couldnt, they are at the top because they did a good solid job when their competiton was comitting suicide. Lets be honest here ;they would not dream of the sucess that they had with ps1 if sega and nintendo did such lousy jobs with saturn and nintendo 64. Don't get me wrong its not like they were just lucky; they had a good plan, good hardware and excellent marketing during ps1 era but their competiton offering them market leadersip on a silver plate (with their bad management and stupid desicion making)was a once in a lifetime chance that they took fully advantage of .

 

I don't see anything wrong with what he is saying. To exploit a console, takes time, and you not going to get that on the first generation. Maybe sloppy is not the best word, but it's hardly an insult towards his developers.

It takes time to figure how to align you assets, figure out interesting ways to store data, and if they are rushing to be a launch title, you don't have the luxury for that.

 

That was pointed out in another thread and someone made the point that this is the side with the BR drive. There are no ventilation holes where the cell and RSX and mem will be. Maybe allard hasnt seen this picture, or he has but is disregarding it as a mockup since there clearly doesnt seem to be any ventialtion where the unit should need it. Overall, the spirit is there in how are they going to cool those chips? MS has already solved that problem so i'm sure they know what a bitch it can be.

 

yep

he was basically saying that they (Sony) are still "all concept" right now as far as a true retail solution with quite a ways to go to get where MS is now in this next gen.

 

Obviously J knows there are LITERALLY ventilation holes, he's seen the same pictures we have I'm sure.

What he means is it doesn't have hardly enough vents, especially if it's supposed to be standing like show in that pictures, the final product will HAVE to have more vents. And his point is, there isn't even a final prototype yet and he has a game machine on the market in just over a month.

Tatanio, what makes the PS3 'more original'? Blu-Ray? I'm with tap-in, blu-ray is great as a technical feature...original? Try again. MS's commitment to XBOX Live and XB Arcade are much more 'original' seeing as they offer things that have never been done before...

 

I don't know - I've read a lot of Allard interviews and to me he's always seemed every bit the hypester as the rest of them; he just has a different style. The way he subtlely knocks competitors reminds me of a friend of mine (I was in marketing for a while, and he still is), and it drives me up a wall. It's always a kind of: 'we totally respect what our competitors are doing, it's just we think they've missed the boat on a, b, and c...' And it'd be ok if he didn;t seem so wholly insincere about it all the time.

BUT, I understand there are a lot of Allard and Moore fans out there, so people must see something I don't. I'll be honest and say that I like Kutaragi's style, and I know a lot (most?) people don't. For some reason I'm drawn to the whole unbridled arrogance thing.

Ah well, as far as this interview goes, again I think the question could have been fielded a lot better, but to be fair *everyone* has an off day, and I'm sure Allard's been under a lot of stress lately with the launch looming.

Whether I like him or not, Allard's been quite successful as a mouthpiece for the XBox division, and in that sense overall he does his job well.

 

I view the 360 as more a well thought out evolutionary jump from Xbox, than some kind of generic cookie-cutter. Personally, I would rather have that than some "innovation for innovation's sake" creedo, which usually produces a fun short-lived gimmick.

For all the talk of innovation this gen, GTA3 came out of left-field to provide the biggest, most compelling, widely accepted new(ish) gameplay, and it didn't involve motion-sensors, or even some overly-pretenious company wide motto.

Innovation (IMO) comes from smaller well thought out steps, and less from grandiose huge leaps.

And honestly, innovation and fun compelling gameplay aren't always the same thing, especially where the masses are concerned.


*This is not a slam against Nintendo/Sony/DS/EyeToy/etc, all those products rock my socks*

*Also, this isn't a "Xbox-4-evar!" thing either*

 

<Christopher Walken voice> It needs... more vents.

THE GAF COMETH!!

 

I would actually think that the PS3 WOULD benifit from more cowbells (vents to), but thats would add another function that KK would probably whore about to everyone

EDIT: Some of you may be thinking, how can you add MORE cowbells, when theres none to begin with...well...you will find out soon enough

 

Agreed.

Allard just evaded the question about the DVD restriction. Now the real question is if devs are not sloppy like in the launch timeframe, is DVD enough for a next-gen game? By interpreting what he said inversely he seemed to answer 'yes'. But we know traditional compression technique doesn't progress in a year. Procedural synthesis won't either. They already exercise all kinds of compression in the last generation of games for current game consoles, how could they be suddenly 'sloppy' in this aspect? If they hadn't set too ambitious goals there wouldn't have been any problem.

If you want to improve compression toward smaller size in a year, you have to accept tradeoffs such as dedicating more processing power to compression with more latency and in the case of procedural synthesis poor results for complex objects. It seems 'Crackdown' uses simple procedural synthesis for buildings but it remains to be seen how it's useful to reduce the data size to keep it in a DVD without spoiling game experience. Consuming most of the additonal power of the next-gen console for decompression is not fun, I assume.

 

I think sacrafices will be made in the name of video as the first and formost. It's the simplest and fastest way. A bit of a pain, but I think that'll be the most economical way to save space. Well, maybe not... then you'd have to script the animations and maybe new LOD models for the scenes and takes away time from programmers and artists... bah... it's gonna be a pain. You could argue that these consoles are powerful enough to not need CG... I'd darn well believe it after the FFVII demo, but CG is CG... I can't imagine a game without at least a few scenes...

 

Come on your not actually trying to spin that sentence are you? My god the guy obviuosly shouldn't have said it. Why go on about vents? Vents for god sake. J Allard may end up with a foot in his mouth if he keeps saying things like that about Sony.