Josh Robinson's blog on PS3/XBOX360

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ROG27

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Stolen from GAF (Xrenity's post)

"Sony artist Josh Robinson on PS3 "Where is it!?" & "360 is better." #1
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This isn't old (searched for Josh Robinson)?
http://www.downinfront.tv/Game_Revi...Console_Review/

Quote:
I’ve spent some time the past year developing for the PS3. Actually it was a cinematic demo to be shown at e3 in 2005 at a closed door viewing.

http://media.ps3.ign.com/articles/6...091/vids_1.html

I was one of the few artists selected to work on it for the demo. My job was primarily asset creation. I was creating assets to populate the path where our camera would be flying during the demo. The company I work for is also working on a launch title that I am quite familiar with. In short, I’ve spent some time around the PS3 and or the teams developing for it.

I’ve really had to sit here and think for a long time about what my first comment about the PS3 would be. Will I say, its GREAT or will I give it two thumbs down. Well my immediate impression of the PS3 is…where is it? Seriously, where is it? They have a case, a controller and a dev kit. But the system still doesn’t even exist. So what is there to say? We received one of 5 PS3 dev kits in the United States some time ago. Several companies in the US as well as companies over seas were given the daunting task of creating a demo in less than 9 weeks on a first generation dev kit. Now I’ll be honest with you. What most companies do is fake the entire demo. I mean they come up with some great visuals and neat tricks and scripted events. In the end however, its not a real time demo and its not running ON the actual box. We were the only company to my knowledge that showed something that ran it live on the box. Even then it was a scripted event. You could not pause the camera and fly around the scene. So if you saw the demo once, you saw it again the exact same way the second time. Also this was on a brutally early dev box. You could always tell where the PS3 dev box was because it’s the room that had the f-bomb coming out of it half the day.

Lots of time has passed since that demo and the dev box has gone from a totally jimmy rigged computer and box of parts about the size of a small child, to a much more realistic size. Although its still the size of a normal pc. I have been pretty excited about the whole cell processing thing. I am not a very technical person but my understanding of it was pretty clear. (Multiple processors to handle individual events in parallel). Sounds pretty good to me! To hear people talk, you’d thing that a processor revolution was about to happen. So I’ve been pretty excited to say the least. Now in my opinion it doesn’t matter how good the PS3 is. If the XBOX 360 is better, then it doesn’t really matter how the cell processors work or how good they say it is. Realistically one of them will be better over all. Now I’ve spoken with people who are on the technical side of the PS3. I’ve also talked with people on the technical side of the XBOX 360. The consistent comment I am hearing from people on my end is, “The XBOX 360 is betterâ€. They are saying that it is capable of just doing more. (shrugs) Now take that for what its worth. If you watch all the videos on the PS3 they will say how much more powerful it is than the XBOX and vice versa. Im just telling you what I am hearing. They proceeded to go into a lot of technical info that I don’t understand. So I just nod.

The game that we are creating for a launch title is a “just get it out†title in my opinion. It doesn’t look next generation. I don’t see how anyone could debate otherwise. It looks good. But it looks good for a game that has come out in the last couple years or so. I mean we are talking about a box that will be with us for the next 5+ years! In 5 years will the games we are making today look good? The only way for that to be possible is if the new games coming out for the PS3 are drastically improved. So good that they can stand the test of time until the next system comes out. We’ve all seen Gears of War for the xbox 360. If that even looks half as good when it comes out then I’ll be floored! The game we are making isn’t even in the same league as Gears of War. In fact there are many current games out that look just as good and are using the exact same specs. So, on our end we are either not pushing the bar or were just trying to “get a title outâ€. To be fair, this is a business. Sometimes you have to treat it as a business and not make the best title you can. The best title you can make usually costs 20-40million dollars/3 start overs and 4 years of your life. You just cant do that every time out. Its impossible. Our game just keeps getting moved back….and back…..and back…..and back. Again, where is the box? Where is the final system? When is it coming out? No one knows and in the mean time people in the industry are starting to get just a little salty. I mean I was at e3 2005 and PS3 was almost no where to be seen.

In closing, I started of VERY excited about the PS3. I was very confident that it was going to just destroy the XBOX 360 just on the name SONY alone. The more time that goes by the more I am becoming doubtful. Everything I’ve developed or seen developed has yet to be “next genâ€. The poly counts are not really any higher, im not seeing sub surface scattering, im not seeing much HDR lighting. (or they are faking it and not really doing it), I’m not seeing next gen fluid dynamics or object dynamics. I suspect that you’ll be able to have more dynamic objects in a scene than before. But im not seeing games doing this yet. We dont have a controller, there is no network code and there is no box. Its still the size of a normal PC. Oh well, at least they have normal maps. Although I’m over the normal maps fad ok everyone!

I’m confident that the PS3 will have a few “crazy†games that show it off to its potential. But I would expect the full capabilities of the box to not show up until the system has been released PUBLICALLY for over a year. This is the extra time the developers will need with a FINAL system to truly make next gen games.


This from somewhere else, should confirm it's legit:

Quote:
These comments are truly shocking in my opinion. Especially so, since this developer is employed by Sony. And he really is who he claims to be. His profile can be viewed on Sony Online Entertainment´s Station.com. "


If that guy really is employed by Sony and I were him, I would be scared about job security right about now. Thoughts?
 
Well i also thought that if he were a real Sony developer, he'd be breaking so many NDA's with that blog that come tomorrow morning he will be unemployed. At least seen how little DeanoC and nAo can say because of NDA's, that's the first thing that came to my mind...
 
ROG27 said:
We were the only company to my knowledge that showed something that ran it live on the box.
This seems to contradict what DeanA wrote about things like Alfred Molina demo?
 
The guy has lots of vagueness would could be legit though. 'To the best of my knowledge' type qualifiers. As he says the technical side is lost on him. What he is saying is that, if what he says is true, PS3's launch will be similar ot XB360s - little really tazing the system until a good while after the hardware has been released. I question things like polycounts though. The most primitive engine in the world should be able to handle considerably more polys than current gen. There's no reason to limit that side of things.
 
I believe the guy... we've been discussing this at PSINext since last night.

Here's another post of his that adds context:

dp489 wrote:

Hello, Josh. I registered just to ask the following questions:

Who are you?

Why should anyone believe a word that you say?

Why do you sound precisely like every other rumor-mongering semi-literate 'journalist' on your typical videogame forum?

Thanks in advance.

Apologies for reviving a month-old thread.

HELLO DP489!

Well lets see here. I'm not sure if your ACTUALLY curious about my answer. But I'll certainly answer any questions you have to the best of my abilities.

Why should anyone believe a word that I say? Well i guess no one has to believe me. I guess anyone can flat out LIE about anything. For what its worth however, I am qualified to have an opinion. ( Unlike MOST the rumor mongering journalists your talking about). I have been in the gaming business as a professional 3D artist for the better part of 10 years. I am a published author on a major 3D package due out in the next 8 weeks. I have developed on the PS1, PS2, PS3, PSP, and PC. I currently work for SONY and have spent almost my entire career developing on their platforms. I was one of the very very few artists in the United States lucky enough to work on a demo to be shown at a closed door viewing for e32005. Mr. Ken Kutaragi (founder of the Playstation and the president of Sony Computer Entertainment) Was the one giving the initial speach and tech specs for the demos at the viewing. It was almost 2 hours in length. The video may still be out there somewhere. I think you could actually watch the whole demo via gamespot at one time. i have copy of the demo on my pc. You could probably find it if you searched for it.

Sony Online Entertainment (the company i work for) is also creating a launch title for the PS3. We are also doing the Network Code that doesnt exist for the system yet. Also I've played the game that will be launching on the PS3. I see it every single day of my life. All these reasons (hopefully) add up to me being able to give a pretty accurate opinion of the PS3. I mean i just sat down and played it not 5 hours ago.

Im VERY excited aobut the ps3. dont get me wrong. But the delays that we have experienced during the production have been substantial. What most developers are doing are just making a PC game. Then when they get the final system they'll put it on the ps3. Thats it. No big crazy secrets there. ALSO, let me just say that this is very normal for a system launch. I am not bashing it by saying this. It was the same when the PS2 came out. You make a game then port it when you get the final hardware. There is no other way to do it because there is no system yet. Imagine the launch titles for the ps2 and compare them NOW to games like Metal Gear Solid 3! Its astonishing that it was done on the SAME system! It looks light years ahead of anything that was done 3 years earlier on the exact same hardware. This is all normal for a system launch. XBOX 360 doesnt have any crazy game out. i mean they look good but, they are all basically ports or sequals. the CRAZY games like gears of war will be out later when they have time to customize the shaders/network code specifically for the hardware.

I expect the first wave to be pretty standard PC quality games. (high quality, but nothing weve never seen). This is why i said that the REALLY good games will come out a year or so after the final launch of the title. It'll give the developers the time they need to properly use the cells for the betterment of the system. Then we'll start to see some crazy stuff. (crosses fingers)

But for now all im seeing on the system is the pretty standard 8000 poly characters with normal maps. (or faking normal maps doing paralax mapping). Im not really seeing good soft shadows yet. No sub surface scattering, etc... you'll definately get some games using HDR lighting, not much else is going on however that we've never seen.

Half Life 2 still looks better than anything ive EVER seen before. On the xbox 360 or the ps3. Especially their new lost coast level using HDR lighting entirely. And that game came out a year ago.

I expect a pretty late ship now. They will also most likely time it with e3 2006 and christmas. Thats where they will most likely make their big push. Shipping BEFORE e3 doesnt make any sense and shipping AFTER christmas would be...well something really bad would have to happen for them to intentionally miss the christmas sales.

I hope that answers any of your questions. WELCOME to DIF. I hope you stick around and check back from time to time when looking for game/movie reviews.

if you have any questions i'd be happy to answer any of them.

Josh

And to quote myself on the matter:

Interesting. The guy seems very cynical, but that's ok.

Honestly if he really works for Sony Online Entertainment though - which is *not* the same as Sony Computer Entertainment - the big thing I'm taking away from this is that Sony will probably have a first-party (or second-party depending on how you look at it) MMORPG available near launch. I don't expect these guys at SOE, who really are PC devs (EverQuest, Star Wars Galaxies), to bring the most out of the system first-gen. But as overall glum as his opinion reads, it's the fact that he's working on the online part of things that tweaks my interest.

Oh well, we'll see what's up in Feb.

I want to reemphasize that he works for SOE, not SCE, and it seems that he's working on a game SOE will be porting over to the PS3 side of things. So basically a PC MMORPG port.

Credit to TEEDA for bringing us the info from his later post.
 
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one said:
This seems to contradict what DeanA wrote about things like Alfred Molina demo?

It contradicts lots of other demos ;) And the whole thing generally contradicts lots of other things too!

The "qualified opinion" bit is a bit of a larf given that he readily admits he doesn't understand some of the particular stuff he's passing along..:p

scooby_dooby said:
So what's the game?

Closed door demo at E3? 1st party title? Can't be too many of those....

There was a demo from SOE there, a "landscape coming to life" demo. It was IMO one of the least impressive demos shown. I'd probably be a bit pissed too if that's the best my team was getting out of it.
 
scooby_dooby said:
So what's the game?

Closed door demo at E3? 1st party title? Can't be too many of those....

I honestly don't know if you would consider an SOE developed title for SCE to be first-party or not, kind of a weird grey area. Maybe exclusive third/second-party? ;)
 
london-boy said:
Well i also thought that if he were a real Sony developer, he'd be breaking so many NDA's with that blog that come tomorrow morning he will be unemployed. At least seen how little DeanoC and nAo can say because of NDA's, that's the first thing that came to my mind...

That was my first reaction as well. But people over there (GAF) seem to think he really posted that. Regardless...I'm not really sure on the posting date of this blog...it could be incredibly old, and thus inaccurate. It may have just surfaced now. I don't want anyone to break any NDA's...but from the way "Josh" describes the PS3...it sounds downright disturbing...it would be nice to know if the blog is a bit extreme (if it indeed were real).

I like IPs on every console, many of which are on Sony consoles. It would be disappointing to say the least if they were severly limited from a technical standpoint.
 
Huxley is a PC mmo-port and it doesn't look half-bad, bout on par with UT2007 from what I see. Sounds like this guy is exagerating a little bit.

Although, the coments about dev kits are interesting, so Dev's now have a newer dev kit, that is smaller, but they still don't have the final 'reference tool'?
 
here is my original post from gaf:

well okay here is some data from my research(took 5 long minutes by the way) on the web that i made about this guy, you are feee to make any kinda conclusions that you want:

1- Several online bookstores lists a Essential 3ds Max 7 book written by Josh Robinson so i'd say there is a guy named josh robinson out there who know one or two about 3-d modelling.

2-Sony's own website list a 3-d modeller who worked on games like planetscape,march madness, etc so most probabaly there is a guy named josh robinson who has worked (and probably stilll ) working on games with sony. http://planetside.station.sony.com/community/team_profiles.vm


3-All the info he has given about himself and his work on his website (and as a link to his posts) matches up with several different sources .
 
Yeah I really don't think his credibility needs to be questioned in the least; the guy is legit, and I respect his opinion.

To add on to my above self-quoted comments though, I think it's just his vantage point that needs to be understood so everything is placed within context. He's a PC dev (though he has worked on Sony architectures in th epast), and he's working on a PS3 title of some sort originating in SOE - a divison known for their MMORPGs. In addition, he's in some way linked to the team doing the network code for PS3, or maybe he's just refering to SOE with that (something I've heard elsewhere as well).

In addition, he states that *all* PS3 launch games will essentially be PC ports of one sort or another - as in they are all being developed in a PC context (in this case probably single-threaded Cell + G70) and will be ported over last-minute.

This sounds plenty believable to me. Granted I think actually *being* a PC dev and working on perhaps a concurrent PC release title, his group might be prone to not mastering Cell or whatever, so I expect more out of Japanese devs and Ninja Theory at launch, etc... but still what he's saying makes total sense.

It's one devs opinion, and it's as valid as any PS3 cheerleader's - but just remember this is a guy that considers Half-Life 2 to be the best looking game to date. Some agree, some do not. :)

Also, he's probably working with a different set of NDA's being within SOE than the SCE boys are working with, that's just a guess but he seems more at ease discussing things than I would ever expect someone in SCE to be.
 
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Talk of writing a PC game to port to Cell when they finally get it seems a bit off. Anyone working on a launch title should have had Cell months ago. So unless this was an old blog (5 months ago? that'd make sense). And an MMO from SOE would imply low poly counts etc anyway, because of both the nature of MMOs and SOE's previous games. Perhaps 8000 poly's per character makes sense when you have 500 players in view? The only obvious concern is himsaying 'I've seen nothing great on PS3'. How much does he see other PS3 titles? I dunno.
 
OK so this is what Robinson had to say (on his forum?)
http://www.downinfront.tv/option,co...nc,view/id,20/catid,9/limit,10/limitstart,20/
and this is his web site.
http://www.joshrobinson.com/

Titanio said:
There was a demo from SOE there, a "landscape coming to life" demo. It was IMO one of the least impressive demos shown. I'd probably be a bit pissed too if that's the best my team was getting out of it.
As he's writing "closed-door" I was not sure about it, but if it's that demo, then I concur, between other demos it clearly had the 'PC' vibe in it that you get when you do spectator in a PC FPS game and Phil Harrison sounded a bit hasty to move to the next demo ;)
 
xbdestroya said:
In addition, he states that *all* PS3 launch games will essentially be PC ports of one sort or another - as in they are all being developed in a PC context (in this case probably single-threaded Cell + G70) and will be ported over last-minute.

This sounds plenty believable to me. Granted I think actually *being* a PC dev and working on perhaps a concurrent PC title, his group might be prone to not mastering Cell or whatever, so I expect more out of Japan and Ninja Theory, etc... but still what he's saying makes total sense.

I don't know. I think you're stretching a little here to make sense of what he's saying. A PC port does not suggested a game developed for PS3 as if it were in a PC environment. That's not what that says on the face of it. A game devved on the PPE and RSX is not a PC port. You know what I mean?

I think the problem with what he is saying is that he's taking the experience and insight he's getting at his company, and thinking it's the general case. Or perhaps wants it to be the general case in order to make himself feel better, given the suggestion of unhappiness with what his own team is producing. Comments like this "But for now all im seeing on the system is the pretty standard 8000 poly characters with normal maps. (or faking normal maps doing paralax mapping). Im not really seeing good soft shadows yet. No sub surface scattering, etc... you'll definately get some games using HDR lighting, not much else is going on however that we've never seen." simply must relate to their own development work, as we know this is not the case in a lot of PS3 games we've seen to date. So I just wonder how far beyond his own studio's work he is looking (as he wouldn't need to look very far to find examples to contradict comments like this).
 
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This guys expectations of when dev kits should be out seem a bit strange.

If we should believe that PS3 is to launch in ~may, then that still leaves at least another month before they can get final kits out and still be on par with MS' dev kit situation (better in the hardware aspect, it seems). He was at E32005 and was mad there was no PS3 there? He sounds rather clueless (in some respects at least) for someone in his position and claiming to have done so much stuff.

I'd also wonder the kind of NDAs hes breaking. SOE is owned by Sony Pictures, but since they are developing a PS3 game they are likely under the same strict as hell NDAs. He's either going to be in a hunk of trouble or his NDA is, oddly, a lot more relaxed.

There is a few inconsistancies and weird expectations on his part. Some of his comments are a bit strange too (poly count, x360 is better, no effects, faking normal maps, etc). Not sure though, if hes real it seems like he'd be out of a job (if only for saying that the game hes working on doesn't look good and saying its essentially shovelware -- those may be true, but what the hell kind of employee says that about their own project?), but who knows?
 
Did this guy see the MGS4 demo?

Just because his developers on his team is developing a mediocre looking game doesn't mean others cannot do much better.

The other thing too is his game seems to be a MMOG, which needs to be careful about the graphical assets it has on screen at the same time.

6 weeks till we get more info...

Speng.
 
Titanio said:
I don't know. I think you're stretching a little here to make sense of what he's saying. A PC port does not suggested a game developed for PS3 as if it were in a PC environment. That's not what that says on the face of it. A game devved on the PPE and RSX is not a PC port. You know what I mean?

I think the problem with what he is saying is that he's taking the experience and insight he's getting at his company, and thinking it's the general case. Comments like this "But for now all im seeing on the system is the pretty standard 8000 poly characters with normal maps. (or faking normal maps doing paralax mapping). Im not really seeing good soft shadows yet. No sub surface scattering, etc... you'll definately get some games using HDR lighting, not much else is going on however that we've never seen." simply must relate to their own development work, as we know this is not the case in a lot of PS3 games we've seen to date. So I just wonder how far beyond his own studios work he is looking (as he wouldn't need to look very far to find examples to contradict comments like this).

Sure that's fine - all I'm saying is this guy is not saying anything outandish and inflammatory. In fact, I like his laid-back style on that forum One linked to in contrast to that DP489 guy, who seems hellbent on exposing some secret agenda.

I'm just saying - 'this guy's a PC dev, take it in context.' Context context context.

I think too many people on too many forums are in panic mode over this. I'm still expecting an awesome system, I'm still expecting great visuals. I base my expectations and decisions on all the information available to me. And yet at the same time... I don't doubt this guy whatsoever! So I'm just trying to let all the cocaine-addicted fan-persons out there know that yes indeed this guy can be telling the 'truth,' yet at the same time your security not feel threatened that PS3 will now 'suck.' ;)
 
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