Is OBLIVION Possible on the PS3 without a HDD?

[Freak'n Big Panda]

Well, I don't recall the 'blocks-to-memory' conversions, but most Morrowind save files were around 200-250 blocks. They could technically, but not practically, be larger than that. For some reason, if your save file was over 250 blocks, the game would crash/freeze frequently. At least, this was the case with the original DVD. Don't know if they fixed it for the GOTY edition.

And...
Quote:
In morrowind you could drop an item and come back months later and it would still be there (IIRC).

This isn't exactly true. Items dropped 'in the wild' would eventually disappear. Only items stored in chests would stay permanently.

Not true. All items dropped anywhere would stay there forever. I know this for a fact, I had a stash of rare items and weapons (the vast majority of which were not in chests or crates or w/e) and none of them ever disappeared. And morrowind saves gradually got bigger and bigger the more you played. My 300+ hour save file was around 12MB.

 

[MechanizedDeath]

Wish I hadn't uninstalled the game from my PC in the Spring. I don't remember my Morrowind save files being particularly huge. I see no reason why you can't use a memory card. Just like current games, the requirements on the box will just set a lower bound for the memory size. So if you're a caveman still toting around 16MB of storage, then you'll be SOL if the game sets the minimum at 100MB. I don't even see this as a problem. Doesn't the PSP value pack have a 32MB memory stick? And that's paltry. My digicam came with a pathetic 32MB card, and I had an extra 16MB car lying around. I bought a 256MB CF card last year for $30. It can't be that hard to find 512MB or more for about the same. And before anyone overreacts, that was the going rate on a Sony 8MB memory card for the first couple years of the PS2's life. So whatever size you can get for $30 next year should be your average memory card size.

I think Oblivion should be totally feasible. Will it ever come to the PS3? I don't know, and don't really care. I think other factors might be at play here. There are some benefits to exclusivity, like lack of competition. And the Xbox demographic might be much better suited to this style of game. Food for thought. PEACE.

 

[3roxor]

I don't remember my Morrowind save files being particularly huge.

Of all my Morrowind saves (42) the biggest is: 4.298 kb ..so they aren't that big at all.

 

[Titanio]

When you're dealing with static data (the player cannot introduce new data into the world, but is modifying and interacting with what's there), the evolution of a persistant world and the modification of that world can be captured fairly readily in a small amount of space. All you need is references, add in some compression..

If you wanted to be really inefficient about it, a HD might be useful.

 

[reptile]

Having a hdd to cache game content is advantageous for a number of reasons. One obvious reason that it's faster, but it's not just that. Streaming from a dvd requires multiple streams to be interleaved, which means there will be a lot of redundant data on the disc. It also puts the drive under heavy stress if a somewhat random access is needed - and the bigger chunks you have (to minimize random access) the more overhead you'll suffer content-wise.

Even action games benefit from it, think of Halo2's often-critisized cutscenes, that served the purpose of hiding the cache-to-hdd time.

 

[jvd]

Perhaps its not just hte hardrive but the fact that game informer is reporting the dev kits only have a 1x bluray drive . Perhaps this will be true of the final hardware ? That may not be enough to constantly stream off of

 

[ShootMyMonkey]

Perhaps its not just hte hardrive but the fact that game informer is reporting the dev kits only have a 1x bluray drive . Perhaps this will be true of the final hardware ? That may not be enough to constantly stream off of

...In which case, precaching to a hard drive and streaming off of that would be rather valuable. Actually, if the content is sufficiently large, streaming off of a 12X DVD would also be annoyingly slow, but at least 360 will have an HDD.

 

[Titanio]

Perhaps its not just hte hardrive but the fact that game informer is reporting the dev kits only have a 1x bluray drive . Perhaps this will be true of the final hardware ? That may not be enough to constantly stream off of

I'm surprised there's a Bluray drive there at all - the pic we had of the dev kit, from the front anyway, made it look like there was no drives.

Anyway, Oblivion's streaming system presumably has to work in the absence of a HD, so whilst it may make it easier/faster with it, it should not present an obstacle to making it work on a system without a HD (and thus, wouldn't be a technical obstacle to any PS3 port..although this is a highly theoretical discussion, and I wouldn't expect Oblivion on PS3. But not for tech reasons).

 

[Sean*O]

If there were a feasible way to bring it to PS3, would it not be reasonable to assume that the developers, who could potentially stand to gain million$ from accomplishing that feat, would have done so?

 

[Titanio]

If there were a feasible way to bring it to PS3, would it not be reasonable to assume that the developers, who could potentially stand to gain million$ from accomplishing that feat, would have done so?

Plenty of third party games do not end up on a particular system for one reason or another, despite that being technically feasible.

PS3 doesn't release til next year, Oblivion could be up to a year old by the time PS3 has released in America. Interest in it may not exactly be at an all-time high by that time. Anyway, if any port were to happen, I certainly don't think you'd hear about it till next year - they would not want to even potentially compromise sales of the PC or X360 versions in the short term. Exclusivity to a system, or the perception of exclusivity, can bring a lot of benefit to a game, especially in a system's early days.

Again, though, I would not hold my breath for a PS3 version. Oblivion has the chance to be the star of X360's launch, but with PS3's, it'd be "old" by then, a port, and up against new exclusives (and as above, exclusives tend to overwhelmingly attract the attention of early adopters - the benefit for oblivion could be rather small in comparison to its x360 experience. perhaps a "gold" version a little later on would make more sense).

Basically, whether a game appears on a particular system or not is usually a function of a lot more than just technicalities. Sometimes it can be purely tech related, but more often it's a much more subtle mix of marketing, sales, userbase, demographics, timing etc. etc.

 

[Hardknock]

Why must some people damage control everything Sony? If the developer came and flat out said it to your face, you still wouldn't believe it. Not having an HDD will mean you won't be able to play some types of games. Deal with it.

 

[Almasy]

I doubt it has anything to do with the HDD. If the problem was "guaranteed storage" then slap a big "REQUIRES 26 MB of STORAGE SPACE" and BOOM you´re set.

 

[Gholbine]

So it might take 4mb on your memory card... so what? Some PS2 games took 4mb out of an 8mb memory card :-\ It's really not a problem in that sense.

If GTA can be done without a HDD, then so can Oblivion.

 

[Titanio]

Why must some people damage control everything Sony? If the developer came and flat out said it to your face, you still wouldn't believe it. Not having an HDD will mean you won't be able to play some types of games. Deal with it.

This is not a game that requires a HDD, or should require one. At least from what I know of it thusfar.

How much space do you think is required to record the type of things people are talking about?

I mean, roughly speaking..

For transactions, to record the buyer/seller (16bit ID), the goods traded (16bit ID), the quantity (16bit ID) and a timestamp (8bit ID), you may require maybe 7 bytes. You could store 2500 transactions for 500 traders in less than 9MB.

For conversations, you could store the person the conversation is with (16bit ID), and each chosen line of the conversation (32bit ID, for over 4bn unique lines of conversation). If you take a 50 line average for each conversation, you could store 2000 conversations in just over 300KB.

For object scattering in the world, or killing objects and leaving them there or whatever, you could store the item (24bit ID, for over 16m unique objects), the position (I dunno, conservatively lets give it 128bits), so for each item-position pair, that's 19 bytes. You could record positions of 5000 items then in 95KB.

I think I've been pretty liberal with some of my figures above. You probably wouldn't be recording nearly as much as that (i.e. the trader figures look crazy to me, and I doubt you'd be having too many 50-line conversations).

This may not even be the smartest way to go about it. And add in some compression..

Obviously there are other things, but basically with static predefined data all you should need to do is index. You should not need a HD for that kind of thing. Are there other issues in terms of recording player actions and world actions and soforth that you think would require a lot more?

 

[Sean*O]

Plenty of third party games do not end up on a particular system for one reason or another, despite that being technically feasible.

Given that the reason has been stated as to why the PS3 version was abandoned by the developer, and judging by your responses on the subject, I take it you believe Bethesda are either:

A. Lying about the reasons the PS3 version was abandoned? or,

B. Lacking the knowledge to make it work? or,

C. Lying about it being abandoned at all, still planning to bring it to PS3 but do not want it to cut into the X-360 sales of the game in the meantime, and will announce a PS3 version in the future?

 

[Inane_Dork]

I have no experience on the topic, but I imagine that if it were as easy as Titanio is claiming, everyone would have this already. It seems reasonable that it's more complicated than that in practice.

 

[Titanio]

I'll note that I leave it as an open question..and I'm basing my thoughts on what I know sofar, as mentioned above.

The issues people have raised here, I don't see how they'd require a HD.

The system Bethesda is using may require a HDD - if they've assumed a HDD from the start, their data storage may not have been designed with space considerations in mind, but perhaps readability or whatever - but to do such things absolutely, I doubt a HDD is needed. In fact it would seem to just make sense with a game like that.

Managing large amounts of data is never trivial..developing an indexing scheme, a positioning system for your gameworld etc. isn't necessarily going to be as easy as chewing through MBs. But with consideration of that from the start, I don't see how it has to be needlessly difficult either.

The morrowind save file sizes also would apparently not contradict this.

Did Bethesda explicitly say there'd be no PS3 version because of no standard HDD?

 

[RawSmackdown]

I'll note that I leave it as an open question..and I'm basing my thoughts on what I know sofar, as mentioned above.

The issues people have raised here, I don't see how they'd require a HD.

The system Bethesda is using may require a HDD - if they've assumed a HDD from the start, their data storage may not have been designed with space considerations in mind, but perhaps readability or whatever - but to do such things absolutely, I doubt a HDD is needed. In fact it would seem to just make sense with a game like that.

Managing large amounts of data is never trivial..developing an indexing scheme, a positioning system for your gameworld etc. isn't necessarily going to be as easy as chewing through MBs. But with consideration of that from the start, I don't see how it has to be needlessly difficult either.

The morrowind save file sizes also would apparently not contradict this.

Did Bethesda explicitly say there'd be no PS3 version because of no standard HDD?

If the game requires a HDD, then they're doing it exclusively for the use of a HDD for a reason, if not many reasons. You're trying too hard to rationalize excuses for the PS3 should the HDD reasons be the actual reasons why it's not showing up for PS3. If this is in fact the case, face it, no HDD, can't run on PS3. It's still a technical limitation.

If the game of their design could be built without the need of a HDD to be able to be ported to more systems capable of running it, I am sure the option would be open to do so. However the HDD will offer some extra benefits for this type of game, especially if it's set for receiving downloadable content via the internet.

 

[gb25]

Maybe part of the reason that they do require the hd (if they actually do) is because of user moddable content.

http://xbox.gamespy.com/xbox-360/the-elder-scrolls-iv-oblivion/633042p1.html

After reading that, it seems that they intend for user modded stuff to be a pretty big draw of the game. Also, after reading "We're definitely planning on doing downloads to Marketplace" that seems like another thing that's suited pretty well to a hard drive. While some of the marketplace stuff will obviously be able to fit on memory cards, it doesn't really seem ideal to do it that way. Also, I can't imagine that user modded stuff would work very well without a hard drive.

If they made the game for the ps3, then left out the user modded content, people would be complaining about "why can't i use the modded stuff." And if they did allow for user modded stuff on the ps3, what about people that didn't have the hard drive (assuming one doesn't ship with ps3)? Where will they store it all? Also, how is the user modded content going to be distributed on the ps3? Is there going to be an equivalent to xbox live on the ps3, or will bethesda have to handle all the distribution/marketplace stuff themselves?

 

[MechanizedDeath]

Plenty of third party games do not end up on a particular system for one reason or another, despite that being technically feasible.

Given that the reason has been stated as to why the PS3 version was abandoned by the developer, and judging by your responses on the subject, I take it you believe Bethesda are either:

A. Lying about the reasons the PS3 version was abandoned? or,

B. Lacking the knowledge to make it work? or,

C. Lying about it being abandoned at all, still planning to bring it to PS3 but do not want it to cut into the X-360 sales of the game in the meantime, and will announce a PS3 version in the future?

Problem is, the dev hasn't explicitly said that there was a PS3 version in the first place. And thus, they haven't made any comment about why it might not be feasible on the PS3. This is all assumption based on what is now a baseless rumor. Take that how you will.

HK: There's no damage-control in here at all. I think most people accept that the game won't be on the PS3. I don't think anyone who's really into the game is gonna wait around in hopes of getting a PS3 version. Read the title of the thread again. If discussing the topic of the thread is damage-control, then so be it. I think people with the PC version of Morrowind (myself included) find it particularly puzzling that a game with game save files well within the bounds of current-gen memory cards would have to have a HDD. PEACE.