Madden 07 on PS3 far behind?

[TheChefO]

EA had both versions in their booth, one on each side of the main entrance. I spent about 15 minutes going back and forth between them to compare.

The 360 version was substantially superior.

- better framerate on 360 (though the framerate on both was not that great).
- PS3 version had circle shadows on the players, 360 had full soft shadowed players
- PS3 version missing DOF, blur
- PS3 version missing some lighting effects
- PS3 version had 2D sprite spectators, 360 had 3D spectators.

Obviously the PS3 team has a lot of work ahead of it to get on par with the 360 version.

Are you sure about this? I was under the impression ps3 devs in general would be the "best of the best" so to speak because it was generally percieved to be the dominant player next gen. Did they get dev kits really late? I mean this is EA. It doesn't seem logical that a big publisher/developer would be so far behind the curve of every other ps3 dev. Do you have a link or is this personal observation? If so, when was this observation made?

 

[London Geezer]

Are you sure about this? I was under the impression ps3 devs in general would be the "best of the best" so to speak because it was generally percieved to be the dominant player next gen. Did they get dev kits really late? I mean this is EA. It doesn't seem logical that a big publisher/developer would be so far behind the curve of every other ps3 dev. Do you have a link or is this personal observation? If so, when was this observation made?

I think the main point here is that the 360 version was much more completed than the PS3 version (30% to 60% is a big gap, whatever way they got those percentages from). Obviously in time the PS3 will get 3D crowds (don't see why it wouldn't) and all other bells and whistles...
It's quite obvious that the PS3 looked like that for development time reasons and not technical reasons.

 

[Bad_Boy]

doh. I hope madden gets rid of those annoying pauses in the game when switching plays and going back to the gameplay.

 

[TheChefO]

I think the main point here is that the 360 version was much more completed than the PS3 version (30% to 60% is a big gap, whatever way they got those percentages from). Obviously in time the PS3 will get 3D crowds (don't see why it wouldn't) and all other bells and whistles...
It's quite obvious that the PS3 looked like that for development time reasons and not technical reasons.

I understand it isn't a technical issue. My surprise is from a development standpoint. As I stated above, I was under the impression that "the best of the best" would be developing for ps3. Combine that with early ps3 dev kits that were much closer to final spec than 360 kits were last e3 and color me surprised that ps3 madden at this point is this far behind other efforts already demonstrated on ps3, regardless of how it compares to 360.

True, they still have time, but I would have thought they would be much further along at this point.

 

[expletive]

I understand it isn't a technical issue. My surprise is from a development standpoint. As I stated above, I was under the impression that "the best of the best" would be developing for ps3. Combine that with early ps3 dev kits that were much closer to final spec than 360 kits were last e3 and color me surprised that ps3 madden at this point is this far behind other efforts already demonstrated on ps3, regardless of how it compares to 360.

True, they still have time, but I would have thought they would be much further along at this point.

"Best of the best" does not imply immunity from the general laws of time and space though, at least thats not the way I took it.

 

[TheChefO]

"Best of the best" does not imply immunity from the general laws of time and space though, at least thats not the way I took it.

True but as I said, Time shouldn't have been an issue with ps3 dev kits being closer to final than 360 kits over a year ago.

Combine this with Sony's intention to launch in spring and one would assume that EA would have been much further along on madden ps3.

 

[expletive]

True but as I said, Time shouldn't have been an issue with ps3 dev kits being closer to final than 360 kits over a year ago.

Combine this with Sony's intention to launch in spring and one would assume that EA would have been much further along on madden ps3.

EA was probably privy to the 'revised' launch schedule some time in advance of the official announcement. That said, i'm sure the PS3 madden team had adjusted their development cycle accordingly, to stretch it out and leverage the addtiional time.

This could mean that tasks like 'engine multithreading' were lengthened and things like "add 3d crowds" were pushed back accordingly in the schedule. I see your point but i dont think you can simply do a direct mapping of timelines as theres no way to pull back the curtain and see what the dev team decided was worthy of additional time.

 

[_phil_]

True but as I said, Time shouldn't have been an issue with ps3 dev kits being closer to final than 360 kits over a year ago.

Combine this with Sony's intention to launch in spring and ....

..good luck with the duct tape for conclusions...
(hint :both imputs are not really facts -one being a too small chunck of reality -the missing part would most probably revert the perception .)

 

[TheChefO]

i dont think you can simply do a direct mapping of timelines as theres no way to pull back the curtain and see what the dev team decided was worthy of additional time.

Certainly true, and in fact they were probably dedicating what additional resources they had at this time last year to make sure they could ship a madden game along with 360. But the supposed "seperate teams" doesn't jive with this arguement.

It is interesting to me based on what others were saying WRT elite developers, where they are spending their time this gen and how that will relate to final product.

 

[Bad_Boy]

http://uk.sports.ign.com/articles/706/706168p2.html

How is the development for PS3 different than what you went through with the 360?

Steve Chiang: Definitely different. The PS3 has an interesting and unique architecture and it's very powerful. But it's different, because it has some parallel processing that we've never seen before. Our guys are getting a kick out of pushing the hardware to its limits. The Xbox 360 is more like a traditional multi-processor PC. It's more like what our guys are used to seeing.

Are the PS3 versions going to be any different than the 360 games?

Steve Chiang: We have a different development team on Madden. We have a 360 team and we have a PS3 team. Our PS3 games, what we're showing is still pretty early, we're still five-six months from launch. We're really working to create specific features for the PS3, but we're not talking about those yet.

they are not porting so dont expect the same development schedule for both games guys.

Jenson also said EA hadn't finished building a game for PS3, adding "we have not yet been able to work to port [a] PlayStation 3 game to an Xbox 360 game or an Xbox 360 game to a PlayStation 3 game" either. Porting helps significantly lower the costs of development for publishers. Jenson said EA plans to "work to try to scale the development cost but... that is something that it's way too early to speculate on, given the fact that we haven't really gone through" the porting process.

lets just wait and see what happens in the end.

 

[TheChefO]

"It's more like what our guys are used to seeing."

So they're used to developing multicore now? Wow. Where have they been hiding all these multithreaded games?

Seriously, I thought it would be quite a while (years from what I read) before devs really started tapping into the potential power of multithreaded game engines. Sure you can use the other cores on 360 for audio, decompression, etc. but I would hardly call that full utilization. He gives off the impression that his team has fully tapped and mastered the 360 cores and I find that a bit hard to believe this early in the game.

 

[AlNom]

That comment doesn't imply work with multithreading for years at all (at least to me). Take it at face value that three identical cores is not much of a stretch beyond dual CPU systems (and now dual core chips). Case in point: I've seen dual CPU systems for years, but that doesn't make me experienced with multithreading.

 

[TheChefO]

That comment doesn't imply work with multithreading for years at all (at least to me). Take it at face value that three identical cores is not much of a stretch beyond dual CPU systems (and now dual core chips). Case in point: I've seen dual CPU systems for years, but that doesn't make me experienced with multithreading.

Well yes, we've seen dual cpu machines for many years, but his statement was in the context of developing games and what said architectures are capable of, not whether or not one was aware of or ran apps off of or opened up the case to see whats under the hood.

I took his statements in the context of development on/with which is what the question was targeting. True the xcpu is a lot more like a traditional multicore cpu. But "traditional multicore" is an oxymoron as far as games development is concerned. Thats my point.

 

[Pozer]

I understand it isn't a technical issue. My surprise is from a development standpoint. As I stated above, I was under the impression that "the best of the best" would be developing for ps3. Combine that with early ps3 dev kits that were much closer to final spec than 360 kits were last e3 and color me surprised that ps3 madden at this point is this far behind other efforts already demonstrated on ps3, regardless of how it compares to 360.

True, they still have time, but I would have thought they would be much further along at this point.

The "best of the best" team could also be develping for the system which EA anticpates to have a larger install base for the fall '06. I don't think thats the case. But the ps3 team could be behind the 360 team because they are porting and the 360 is the lead design sku. EA has a long history of not using the extra power in the technically superior console and building for the console with the largest install base. Just a thought. But I would wager EA will sell more madden on the 360 this year than the ps3.

Also I wouldn't put much stock in the graphical quality of this years madden. This will be akin to last gens madden 2002. Madden 2008 (hopefully) should be significantly better looking. Like the jump from 2002 to 2003. i still don't think EA improved the gfx much beyond 2003 last gen. Although I could be wrong but I'd have to go back and play them again.

btw long live ESPN NFL2k5. best football game ever.

 

[mckmas8808]

I still don't understand why the X360 version has a lack of AF. Can anybody here explain this?

 

[TurnDragoZeroV2G]

From the other thread....

Lack of AF would blur lines in the other direction buddy, i.e. running up and down the field. The fact that horizontal lines are blurry in the up/down direction shows you that they're either doing DOF or intentionally reducing the LOD of the texture.

The fact that the hashmarks and numbers don't smear out left and right (like road lines do in racing games) suggests that AF probably is enabled.

That screenshot has some ugly-ass compression artifacts, too.

 

[Arwin]

Are the PS3 versions going to be any different than the 360 games?

Steve Chiang: We have a different development team on Madden. We have a 360 team and we have a PS3 team. Our PS3 games, what we're showing is still pretty early, we're still five-six months from launch. We're really working to create specific features for the PS3, but we're not talking about those yet.

This topic could have been titled:

Madden 07 on PS3 more features than on 360?

 

[mckmas8808]

From the other thread....

What other thread? And doesn't everybody agree that what ever is going on in the X360 version doesn't look good and makes the game look worst?

 

[scooby_dooby]

What other thread? And doesn't everybody agree that what ever is going on in the X360 version doesn't look good and makes the game look worst?

Umm. I agree these both look like ass, especially the ps3 version, and that EA needs to find a new developer for madden because this is PATHETIC with the type of units this franchise sells.

What a joke! How many months have they had dev kits with CELL+G70? A year now? 30% done? What a farce, and the 360 version looks like last years version to me, talk about mailing it in. Ok, so they have 2 months left, they've had 13 months with the 360 version since last E3 and this is what they've been able to accomplish?

 

[sonyps35]

Didn't EA always in the past just port the PS2 version to Xbox?

The fact they're supposedly building the PS3 version from the ground up seperatly is kinda a slap in the face to MS then, no? Why not just continue doing what they did in the past: port? Why change now?

Especially since I doubt the gap between PS3 and 360 can be considered nearly as large as the PS2 vs Xbox gap..

I am also wondering about PS3 specific features..those have got to do with the HDD no? And again, why didn't they do that with Xbox1?

I've always considered EA not too like Microsoft all that well..though they dont really say it on the surface I'm sure it's widely assumed..

Although Takahashi's book mentions Robbie Bach and some EA head honcho became fast friends in the Xbox era, even Bach was invited to a EA employee fishing trip or something..perhaps that contributed to the thaw with EA going to live..

Also I really dont get all the hate for Madden's looks. Although to be fair I dont pay attention to football games.

I mean, just if they took Xbox graphics and put them in 720P, which alone requires a nice increase in horsepower, that alone would be another nice step towards photorealism, looking like the real game on Tv (which it is almost there, first time I recall thinking "wow, it looks just like a real game on TV" was actually gameday back on the playstation 1). And I'm sure they did a bit better than that...