Kaz Hirai (SCEA) Interview - 1up/EGM

[Bobbler]

It just seems wierd to me that people slam x360 saying it doesn't have "true" HD , while ignoring the fact ps3 has no established standard. The 360 is the only system where EVERY game will be HD.

Why does this matter though?

And why would you assume the developers on the PS3 will choose anything lower than 720p just because there is no minimum? (as I said in my previous post, which I'm not sure you read) There is no reason for any developer to choose 480p when 720p is pretty much 'free'. It would be pretty hard to stress the system enough that using a 480p res is pretty much required, so why would they support 480p? It doesn't make sense. Some of you seem confused as to why a resolution is chosen.

(I agree that slamming the Xbox360 for not having the option is kind of silly, but from what I've seen that hasn't been happening)

 

[Edge]

Since when does a good looking game = complex shaders?

Yes Half-Life 2 is a perfect example of a game that does not use complex shaders, but looks great, and a perfect game for the next generation. You don't need hundreds of characters on the screen also for a good looking game. Since when does every next generation game is suited to have hundreds of characters on the screen?

I have no doubt Gran Turismo will be able to do 1080p, since these are the guys who pulled off amazing 1080i for the PS2. Gran Turismo is a huge game, so huge, that it could even drive 1080p set sales.

It takes one big game like that, or an other killer franchise at 1080p, to make 1080p worthwhile, and help drive marketing against the lesser Xbox 360. If Halo 2 is considered 'killer' enough to drive online game, why can't any 'killer' franchise on the PS3 drive 1080p gaming?

 

[scooby_dooby]

I think that is possibly the silliest thing I've read in a long time. Did you actually read it after you typed it?.

How is it silly?

If every PS3 gasme was goin g to be at least 1080i or 720 why didn'y sony make it standard?

Answer that question honestly and you will see it's obvious there will be some games below that, i.e. 480p.

Did I say there will be NO 1080p games? No. I said there won't be many, which is based on FACTS from the last gen. What are you basing your prediections on? Hope? And I'm silly?

Fact is last gen nearly ALL the games that really pushed the system were outputted at the lowest resolution, i.e. Halo, Jade Empire, Conker all 480p. The only 720p games were the graphically simple games like MVP BAseball 2005, and Dragon's Lair. GT4 was not a real 1080i output, and looks like crap on a big screen because of it.

You entire premise is the PS3 will never be pushed to it's limits and will always be powerful enough to simply "use up that extra power" and output at 1080p. The reality I think is as Dev's try and cope with a new programming model, and upcoming deadlines they will reach the limits of teh hardware and will need to make hard decision about resolution VS. performance.

It's not silly at all, a STANDARD that hits 99.9% of people is better than no standard with the "capability" to hit 100% of the people.

 

[Bobbler]

I think that is possibly the silliest thing I've read in a long time. Did you actually read it after you typed it?.

How is it silly?

If every PS3 gasme was goin g to be at least 1080i or 720 why didn'y sony make it standard?

Answer that question honestly and you will see it's obvious there will be some games below that, i.e. 480p.

Did I say there will be NO 1080p games? No. I said there won't be many, which is based on FACTS from the last gen. What are you basing your prediections on? Hope? And I'm silly?

Fact is last gen ALL the games that really pushed the system were outputted at the lowest resolution, i.e. Halo, Jade Empire, Conker all 480p. The only 720p games were the graphically simple games like MVP BAseball 2005, and Dragon's Lair.

You entire premise is the PS3 will never be pushed to it's limits and will always be powerful enough to simply "use up that extra power" and output at 1080p. The reality I think is as Dev's try and cope with a new programming model, and upcoming deadlines they will reach the limits of teh hardware and will need to make hard decision about resolution VS. performance.

It's not silly at all, a STANDARD that hits 99% of people is better than no standard with the "capability" to hit 100% of the people.

You don't seem to get it. 720p is essentially free on both Xbox360 and PS3 -- they are made with that res in mind. I really don't think you could feasibly make a game at 480p that could really push a PS3 or Xbox360 to its limits. So why does a standard even need to be in place? That is like saying every PS2/Xbox/GC game would be in 320x240 because there was no minimum resolution -- How many 320x240 games can you name from this last generation?

In addition, comparing previous generations, saying that they were 480p doesn't even make sense -- 480p/i was the nominal resolution for that era. HD resolutions are the nominal for this era... why would any developer backtrack? It doesn't make sense, no matter how you spin it -- there is no reason to use 480p, the systems have more than enough power to do 720p and shaders galore.

The only coneivable way to stress the system so bad it would require 480p would make it inherently pointless because you couldn't really see what was going on to begin with. Thus defeating the purpose.

Also, my entire premise had nothing to do with that -- I said IF the game didn't manage to push the system fully at 720p, there would be another resolution to jump up to. I said pretty much the opposite of what you seemed to think I said. It would be 'easier' to take full advantage of the system because if the game isn't as shader complex then they could up the resolution and push it to its limits -- I didn't say this would be the case on every game.

A standard is, for all intents and purposes, a restriction. Restrictions are bad. You can spin it all you want, but having more options and freedom is what devs need and want. There is a reason quite a few developers weren't too happy with the HD Era that Microsoft portrayed (GDC rants, anyone?).

 

[jvd]

You don't seem to get it. 720p is essentially free on both Xbox360 and PS3 -- they are made with that res in mind. I really don't think you could feasibly make a game at 480p that could really push a PS3 or Xbox360 to its limits. So why does a standard even need to be in place? That is like saying every PS2/Xbox/GC game would be in 320x240 because there was no minimum resolution -- How many 320x240 games can you name from this last generation?

No its not . you could do much more work per pixel at 480p and you could do 4x fsaa in in 1 tile on thexenos to boot .


So there are trade offs

 

[Bobbler]

You don't seem to get it. 720p is essentially free on both Xbox360 and PS3 -- they are made with that res in mind. I really don't think you could feasibly make a game at 480p that could really push a PS3 or Xbox360 to its limits. So why does a standard even need to be in place? That is like saying every PS2/Xbox/GC game would be in 320x240 because there was no minimum resolution -- How many 320x240 games can you name from this last generation?

No its not . you could do much more work per pixel at 480p and you could do 4x fsaa in in 1 tile on thexenos to boot .


So there are trade offs

Ok, granted, it is possible (thanks for splitting hairs!) -- but how long and complex do you need the shaders to be to hit the limit on 1/3 the pixels of 720p. Those shaders are going to be useless because you can't see them, so you defeat the purpose of creating them.

300k pixels vs 1million pixels. You'd have to do a ridiculous amount of things to cause 300k pixels to bog down a next generation system, it is absurd to think it will limit the console in a way that a developer would see a reason to use 480p over 720p and "reduced" quality shaders/etc. Thus no standard even needs to be in place -- the off chance that someone wants to use 480p is fine, if they can make a fun game at 480p, more power to them.

The argument holds absolutely no water in reality -- sure it might exist in planet crazy, but no developer would choose it.

Like I said previously... It is equivalent to saying that the PS2/Xbox/GC are going to use 320x240 because they can and they could do more effects at 320x240 because it requires less pixels. PS1 used that resolution and the best games of that era were that resolution! Every generation the resolution has increased (somewhat) and developers haven't looked back -- there is no need for a standard or an assumption that developers will, unprecidentedly, choose a resolution below that of the systems nominal resolution.

 

[jvd]

Ok, granted, it is possible (thanks for splitting hairs!) -- but how long and complex do you need the shaders to be to hit the limit on 1/3 the pixels of 720p. Those shaders are going to be useless because you can't see them, so you defeat the purpose of creating them.

the point is you can allways do more work per pixel than rasing the res . on the pc side it allways made sense to drive up the res because the crts were all capable of more than what they were being used for .

480p would be ideal as its not much more pixels than 480i and most tvs use that res now . Don't forget that the less bandwidth you use for the hgiher res framebuffers the more bandwidth there is for textures an the more ram there is for textures . fp 32 hdr would most likely be possible at 480p with no performance hit on the g70

300k pixels vs 1million pixels. You'd have to do a ridiculous amount of things to cause 300k pixels to bog down a next generation system, it is absurd to think it will limit the console in a way that a developer would see a reason to use 480p over 720p and "reduced" quality shaders/etc. Thus no standard even needs to be in place -- the off chance that someone wants to use 480p is fine, if they can make a fun game at 480p, more power to them.

Thats the point isn't it though ? Ridiculous graphics ?

oh and by off chance u mean the majority of users for the next 4-5 years ? More people will play these consoles in 480i/p than 720p , 1080i , 1080p combined for the large marjoity of thier lives

It is equivalent to saying that the PS2/Xbox/GC are going to use 320x240 because they can and they could do more effects at 320x240 because it requires less pixels

Except everyone owned a 480i tv set .

It be more like saying all ps2 / xbox / gc users are going to use 320x240 because 85% of the tvs use that res (which never happened but we are using it for an example )support that where only that small percentage support 480i /p

 

[scooby_dooby]

It holds alot of water because Sony has not made 720p the minimum standard

If 720p were free Sony would have made it a minimum and trumpet it as a feature of their new console. They haven't.

That speaks for itself. And no amount of rationalizing can change the fact the didn't make it a standard for a GOOD REASON.

Who are you to say 720p is free? What if they want to do 4xAA at 720p? Still free? Maybe on current gen games, but what about next gen games? We've seen 30%+ performance hits for current gen games with 4xAA on at resolutions slightly higher than 720p.

Is it really so hard to consider a situation where a Dev will want to avoid a large performance hit at 720p?

MS can get away with requiring 720p because they've built a GPU that negates the performance hit associated with AA, with the PS3 AA at 720p resolutions may have a large impact on performance and dev's may very well be forced to render at lower resolutions.

The end result of this is that not all games will be HD, which to me is much more of negative than the fact the X360 doesn't output to 1080p. 1080p output is next to useles(both systems can render internally at 1080p, so both get the so called "free AA" if they want), 100% HD support is much more important in my opinion.

I do hope your right though, hopefully the vast majority of games will be 720p or higher, I just wish it was 100% because judging frm last gen you know there will be cases where Dev's opt for the lower resolution.

These also usually tend to be the best games visually(i.e. ones that really push the system), and as an HD-TV owner I think that kinda sucks.

 

[Tap In]

......

I'm rather skeptical as to what sacrifices have to be made to support 1080p vs. 720p. What difference will be noticeable in the shaders or poly counts? And we don't know how well PS3 handles 1080p in the first place! For all we know, 1080p on PS3 looks 10x better than 720p on XB360!

If PS3 stutters along at 1080p, with low quality, boring shaders, I'll agree. If 720p on PS3 looks weak compared to XB360, because the devs are writing to 1080p instead of 720p, I'll agree. If games written for 720p on PS3 look much better than games written for 1080p but displayed at 720p, I'll agree. Until then, I say good for Sony in providing options for devs to choose from.


....I don't know if anyone thinks there's gonna be lots. The argument here is 'what's wrong with including it as an option for devs to decide whether or not to use it?'.....

I agree with you completely Shifty, we will find out eventually.

The ONLY reason that I even piped up in this thread is because Sony has stated publicly, 1080P will be the "standard output of PS3", not just an option.

Now based on all of the uncertainty about whether it is even feasible on this machine yet, I was just calling them on their PR statement which will be repeated in every store across the land by sales people.

That's why I can say in one breath it is a nice option and in another say if you are touting it as PS3's "standard output" when it seems uncertain then who's buffalo-ing whom?

We won't know until the games are done. That's why earlier I suggested, if they are so sure that 1080P is going to be a standard, than make an edict to Devs as MS has at 720. I was not really suggesting it to be done, but would have given me proof that the "1080P standard output" wasn't just rhetoric.

As I've said, if this machine is powerful enough to pull off 1080p in games with a minimal hit and look as good as 720P on PS3 or x360 (and used often enough to be called a "standard") then I will apologize for my doubting them.

 

[scooby_dooby]

It's just clever wording.

Standard output. Many people wil take it as a requirement, as soon as they hear the word "standard"

However it could also be interpreted as standard equipment meaning than it's included out of the box, and doesn't require an add-on pack.

That's a much more logical guess IMO.

 

[Npl]

Now lets discuss what MS meant with "720p as minimum". If a game would use a 320x200 Backbuffer for the scene and then scale it to 720p it would certainly fit that criteria. If 720p means unscaled Output, then how about using the backbuffer as texture and use a bicubic shader for "rendering" that texture? (Its still scaling, but since half the thread is discussing semantics, why not )
If a Game really wont run at 720p, but only on 480p, will the Game be simply be limited to 1/3 the framerate? Did MS state a minimum FPS?

Does 480p + 4xFSAA count as 4 times the resolution?

Sony and MS dint require Games to have Sound, did they? Yet all Games on current Consoles use it.

Its possible that PS3-Games will be restricted to 480p/i, but this s the same pathological Case as a Game not having Sound, purposely destroying your Console, sending out inaudible commands to your dog to eat your children and whatever else.
Similar those "minimum Standards" can be bend either way

 

[Tap In]

It's just clever wording.

Standard output. Many people wil take it as a requirement, as soon as they hear the word "standard"

However it could also be interpreted as standard equipment meaning than it's included out of the box, and doesn't require an add-on pack.

That's a much more logical guess IMO.

I heard more than one summary report by tech reporters at E3, boil it down to "360 will output its games at 720p and PS3 at the higher 1080P". Period. end of story.

 

[Tap In]

Now lets discuss whats meant with "720p as minimum". If a game would use a 320x200 Backbuffer for the scene and then scale it to 720p it would certainly fit that criteria. If 720p means unscaled Output, then how about using the backbuffer as texture and use a bicubic shader for "rendering" that texture? (Its still scaling, but since half the thread is discussing semantics, why not )

Does 480p + 4xFSAA count as 4 times the resolution?

Sony and MS dint require Games to have Sound, did they? Yet all Games on current Consoles use it.

Its possible that PS3-Games will be restricted to 480p/i, but this s the same pathological Case as a Game not having Sound, purposely destroying your Console, sending out inaudible commands to your dog to eat your children and whatever else.

 

[Bobbler]

It holds alot of water because Sony has not made 720p the minimum standard

If 720p were free Sony would have made it a minimum and trumpet it as a feature of their new console. They haven't.

That speaks for itself. And no amount of rationalizing can change the fact the didn't make it a standard for a GOOD REASON.

Who are you to say 720p is free? What if they want to do 4xAA at 720p? Still free? Maybe on current gen games, but what about next gen games? We've seen 30%+ performance hits for current gen games with 4xAA on at resolutions slightly higher than 720p.

Is it really so hard to consider a situation where a Dev will want to avoid a large performance hit at 720p?

MS can get away with requiring 720p because they've built a GPU that negates the performance hit associated with AA, with the PS3 AA at 720p resolutions may have a large impact on performance and dev's may very well be forced to render at lower resolutions.

...

...

These also usually tend to be the best games visually(i.e. ones that really push the system), and as an HD-TV owner I think that kinda sucks.

But why do they need to make a minimum standard? Consoles have never needed it before and developers have always stuck with the resolution of the era (320x240 for ps1/n64/etc, 480i/p for ps2/xbox/gc era, etc). It would be unprecidented if this generation developers decided to still use 480p when 720p is the defacto standard (regardless of if a company pastes the word standard on it). There isn't a good reason to. Standards are not necessary, they haven't been for 20 years and just because MS makes one doesn't mean that without one all hell breaks loose and developers start making bad decisions.

You honestly think that any developer is going to use 480p? What would be the point? To make ridiculously complex pixel shaders, etc, etc? Who is going to be able to see what those pixel shaders are really doing at 480p? 720p and above is the resolution these consoles were made to run at (what I mean by free)* -- no developer is going to concede to using 480p over 720p because they want to use a ridiculous amount of shiny stuff. It is just as dumb as getting a x800/6800 and playing games current gen games in 640x480 because there is no standard resolution you should be using.

In addition: Why does the possibility that there could be a game that comes out at 480p (out of several hundred during the lifetime of the system) make the system any less 'good'?

*Any game running on the console is probably not going to need the extra FPS that lowering the resolution gives -- if they aren't getting good enough FPS at 720p, they'll start cutting stuff instead of going 480p. It is (I know I've used this example a couple times now, but you guys don't seem to get it) the same as a developer on PS2/Xbox/GC reducing the res to 320x240 because they couldn't get the game running good enough at 480p/i with all the shiny stuff they wanted. 480p/i was the min resolution of last generation (I'd love for anyone to find a game lower than 480i this current generation) -- did MS/Sony/Nintendo tout a standard resolution anywhere? Maybe free wasn't the right word.

MS can get away with requiring 720p because they've built a GPU that negates the performance hit associated with AA, with the PS3 AA at 720p resolutions may have a large impact on performance and dev's may very well be forced to render at lower resolutions.

Here is some gold -- the root of your opinion comes in the fact that you think Xbox360 will be more powerful in a way such that 720p on PS3 just isn't going to be practical. There's a gem.

Why didn't you just say this from the start? I could have ignored your silliness and not bothered wasting my time trying to explain to your, seemingly, deaf ears why that logic is just bad.

I just wish it was 100% because judging frm last gen you know there will be cases where Dev's opt for the lower resolution.

The problem with that thinking is this generation the resolution was, for all intents and purposes, 480i/p as the defacto standard. This next generation is HD -- whether you have the word standard pasted on it or not. No developer went with 320x240, so they didn't opt for lower resolution -- they opted for the 'standard' resolution of the generation.

 

[PC-Engine]

Yes Half-Life 2 is a perfect example of a game that does not use complex shaders, but looks great, and a perfect game for the next generation.

Sorry but HL2 level graphics are so last year...

If that's the kind of graphics coming out for PS3's 1080p games then you can have it.

 

[Shifty Geezer]

I heard more than one summary report by tech reporters at E3, boil it down to "360 will output its games at 720p and PS3 at the higher 1080P". Period. end of story.

Mmmmm, tech reporters. Smart as paint, the lot of 'em.

Anyway, all this HDTV is making me laugh again. Summed up with a response to NucNavST3 saying I should view an HDTV broadcast on SDTV. I can't. In the UK, I don't think there's any HD material at all. None. Zip. Nada. People who own HDTVs do so because large screen rear-projection, plasma and LCDs come with HDTV electronics, and not because they wanted to watch High definition pictures, because there aren't any. I am looking forward to HDTV, and would love to see the improvement in HD broadcasts, but that ain't gonna happen any time soon (soon being maybe even a generation of consoles!). For me, interlaced PAL is as good as it's gonna get until HD consoles appear.

 

[cthellis42]

The ONLY reason that I even piped up in this thread is because Sony has stated publicly, 1080P will be the "standard output of PS3", not just an option.

Blu-Ray is "standard" on the PS3 as well, but that doesn't mean developers won't be using DVD for their games as well. There has been no confirmed minimum specs yet, which is the key point.

On the whole, though, I certainly don't see a reason to say "you must do XXX or else!" It especially doesn't make sense for Sony to announce it, as they were the lead and the common crossover point for most games last gen (ARE there any GameCube/Xbox-only games? Even PSO, I think, were different versions or something--not just ports--right?) If Nintendo indeed sticks to "no HD next gen," then there WILL be developers who want to be able to easily port from and to Revolution and from and to the 360, and if the PS3 is flexible enough to allow both (and another level above), it will remove more barriers for porting, and being "the core system" is always a good thing. It may not be precisely a bear for developers to make a Revolution game and kick it up to the 360 (or a complex process going vice-versa), but if you don't have to worry about that alteration...?

As well, like I thought "broadband only" online was needlessly foolish this gen, I think "HD-only" to be a foolish requirement for next gen. TV resolutions have remained static for a LOOONG time, but it's finally hit a true tier and developers are honestly going to have to support both. Standard TV's are also MUUUCH more numerous and will continue outselling HDTV's for years yet, so why restrict yourself? Why limit yourself to downsampling, of that's all you'd to to a 720p minimum?

Yes, I know developers are very much used to a static machine and worrying about only one resolution, but they've started to make the switch to supporting more resolutions in more ways... Just how hard would it be for them to make 480p "enhanced"--with added/altered affects, AA, or even just framerate--instead of a down conversion from 720p? (Or 1080p for that matter.) I can't speak for the developers, but it seems to me if the tools are there and the changes are easy enough, they'd be able to support games that will look great on HDTV's, and also provide the best experience possible for us poor blokes still putzing about on standard sets. Isn't that ultimately what's best for the consumer base?


...on 1080p itself, I like seeing it there, but it indeed might be as ignored as 720p/1080i is on the Xbox. Available, but mainly ignored as inconvenient, and embraced by a few games that don't really matter anyway. And amusingly, while people have mainly been talking about the visual and quality sacrifices you might have to make between 1080p and 720p, I think few have brought up what I'd say is the PRIME consideration (can't say for sure, as I've skimmed somewhat)--why would you use excess headroom to go to 1080p when you can use it to make your 720p game simply run faster and better? As much as Microsoft announced 720p as their minimum resolution, what I note to my irritation is that no one is talking about the minimum framerate. In many ways, I'd rather see a rock-solid 60FPS in all games (the ones where it's not really needed tend to not be graphics-hogs anyway) be the first standard to aim for, and then target your resolution next. As such, I have no confidence that we actually WILL break the "30 FPS barrier" for most games yet this gen. Do we think the PS3 and 360 will be delivering next gen's games at 720p/rocksolid-60FPS easily AND have more room to go...?

<shrugs> Frankly, I wish people would stop making such determined statements about things we have NO real examples of, and have a few scattered developer comments to go off right now. We barely have the ability to judge 1st gen games yet, and since the end of a console lifespan tends to look very different from the beginning... We really have no idea what kind of effect levels, texture levels, AA/AF, shader complexity, et al that most developers will settle on, what they'll be capable of, how prevalent 1080p might be, and what kind of performance considerations will really be at play.

Right now we're not even at the stage of arguing whether the PS2 or Xbox will hit their stated performance numbers. I can't tell you how many 66-150 million poly/sec games I've enjoyed this gen!

 

[scooby_dooby]

But why do they need to make a minimum standard? Consoles have never needed it before and developers have always stuck with the resolution of the era (320x240 for ps1/n64/etc, 480i/p for ps2/xbox/gc era, etc). It would be unprecidented if this generation developers decided to still use 480p when 720p is the defacto standard (regardless of if a company pastes the word standard on it).

Who says it's the defacto standard, you? 95% of the world are using 480i displays. Some great logic, 720p is the "defacto standard" becaue bobbler says so, therefore there is no need to have a standard because every game will simply be 720p or higher. Pretty convenient.

I guess the fact PS3 has no HD standard is completely meaningless!! Wow, that's a great excuse...err..i mean logical argument.

Here is some gold -- the root of your opinion comes in the fact that you think Xbox360 will be more powerful in a way such that 720p on PS3 just isn't going to be practical. There's a gem.

Why didn't you just say this from the start? I could have ignored your silliness and not bothered wasting my time trying to explain to your, seemingly, deaf ears why that logic is just bad.

No, that's just your own assumptions of my position.

I said the reason MS can "get away with" this is becaue they aren't FORCING dev's to take a performance hit to meet some standards, potentially driving away Dev's. The RSX WILL take signifigant hits with AA on some games at 720p, therefore Sony didn't want to force this onto Dev's. MS engineered a chip that removed this performance hit, therefore ALLOWING them to force dev's to support the standard. Now do you understand?

At no point did I ever say the X360 will be more powerful. But it's a simple fact that the EDRAM affords it some advantages, one of which is allowing x360 to demand 720p as it won't take huge performance hits with AA turned on.

The problem with that thinking is this generation the resolution was, for all intents and purposes, 480i/p as the defacto standard. This next generation is HD -- whether you have the word standard pasted on it or not. No developer went with 320x240, so they didn't opt for lower resolution -- they opted for the 'standard' resolution of the generation

The problem with your thinking is 720p is not the "standard", 95% of the world has Tv's only capable of 480i, you're making a statement that is nothing more than your own opinion "This next generation is HD" says who? you?

Game Developers wil be the ones to decide what reolutions target the greatest portion of their desired demographoics, weigh that against expenses required and potential revenues, and then make the decision on which to support.

Consumers will decide whether high-def resolutions end up selling games, and develoipers will use that information to make future decisions. If supporting 720p or higher shows little to no impact on bottom line sales, why would Dev's support it if they don't have to? Simple to LOSE money? I don't think so.

Developers have a bottom line, they are running a business, if a 480p game requires less work, less resources, has a shorter timeline and looks good on 95% of their customers TV sets, who are you to say they will support 720p because it's some sort of psuedo-standard for next-gen gaming?

 

[Oda]

And yet Half-Life 2 looks 5x better than any 360 launch title we've seen...

 

[PC-Engine]

And yet Half-Life 2 looks 5x better than any 360 launch title we've seen...

Is that a fact?