SquareEnix explains why FFXIII is PS3 exclusive - DVD9 not enough

Well we'll see this Xmas when we can analyze cream of the crop 360 games and what their disc needs are, and how they compare to PC/PS3 games.

Comparisons to PC games are much more relevant than comparisons to previous generations IMO, i.e. the whole 'well it jumped 10x last time' logic which so many use.

 

I didn't say it was impossible.

The game guide specifically says that the probabilities for certain creatures spawning are different for different locales, and they give mountain lions as a specific example of this. I'd have to look in the editor specifically to verify this, but I'm pretty sure the guide isn't lying.

Fine. But the point is, adding some scripting to make NPCs shop isn't going to add gigabytes and gigabytes of content to the game. But it will take lots of time to write and debug the scripts, balance it so they don't empty out the stores before the PC gets to them, make sure the NPCs don't run out of money, etc.

Sure you can always consume more disc space. I'm just saying that DVD isn't a big limitation for Oblivion, even with your suggestions. As long as you don't stray towards massive videos, wasting space with huge textures (that would massively screw up runtime memory usage), or adding hours and hours more voice acting, I doubt you'll be able to double the size of the content (currently ~2.5GB not including voice acting) in the game without increasing the schedule, the team size, and/or the budget drastically.

 

And this is 100% true.

PGR3 started out with a half terabyte of texture data. How hard do you think it would be for Bizarre to turn down their texture compression just a bit to double or triple the size of the game? Doing something like that would be completely unnecessary and silly, but could easily make the game too big to fit on a DVD.

(Ignoring of course the problems increased texture memory pressure would cause with other aspects of the game).

 

Even if there was a tendency to spawn in certain areas for a few select creatures (which is not apparent during my play time) this hardly changes the fact there there is no concerted effort towards local creatures throughout the game. You will absolutely see the same creatures over and over again anywhere in the over-world and this is no lie either. If you can find just 2 creatures local to north, south, east and west I will concede the point...and would ask for a copy of your game cause I got stiffed!

Scripting alone no. Diversity in the NPCs yes. (yes!=gigabytes more for just this...this is not an all or none situation)I was speaking the making the world more alive in the overall in any case. It is also said that the radiant AI has to be toned down before the release of Oblivion so at least to me this suggest "debugging" was not the problem in itself but other issues. Things like NPC's running out of money would've actually been quite interesting in a lot instances in the game.

I did not claim it was a limitation nor a hindrance to what Bethesda wanted to do with the game. For all I know, they could have fallen short of their goals in some areas and over achieved in others. I do not presume to know more than I actually do.

As for the rest of your comments as to memory usage etc....that's a whole other can of worms I'd rather not open. To go down that path we have address how Bethesda handled things, what was left up to the Gamebryo engine, what others would do in similar or dissimilar circumstances and just what level of resources it would take for all of the above, what return will come of doing x or y and whom this is and is not acceptable for. I'll beg your forgiveness but I've no desire get into all that especially when I feel it'll get us both nowhere pretty fast.

 

Whatever the problem is, it's certainly not DISK SPACE.

How many megabytes (yes megabytes) of scripting and AI code do you think is in Oblivion?

Besides, adding more unique behaviors to NPCs, adding more clothing, bodies, faces, none of this is disk space intensive either. How big do you think an NPC texture, face settings, and body model are?

 

I would expect not a lot for code...but code alone does not make some of things I speak to a reality by itself.

 

How big do you think an NPC is in terms of art assets in Oblivion (minus audio)? 1MB? 2MB? 5MB? 50MB? 100MB? How many of these art assets could be procedurally generated? How many of these art assets could be shared with other NPCs?

Just curious.

 

Why are you doing this? I don't want to do this. Is this an exercise or something?

Procedurally - the data is ultra compressed in a script so on disk it takes up virtually no space in the form of code.

What can be generated procedurally depends a good deal on the artists and what you're attempting to accomplish but generally speaking it is good for variation but not unique detail and then we have to distinguish between texture and geometry and then a host off effects we can be talking about.

Using traditional methods what happened...what will happen? Who knows, but probably not hard to ascertain where things ended up in Oblivion by simply looking at filesizes or what have you. Largely irrelevant in the overall as this does not outline what methods others will use, have used, and will use in the future and on what scale.

A definite number one way or the other? Undefinable.

I'm not going to get into this. It'll go nowhere fast as usual.

 

Just trying to keep you from dodging the point.

The point is: You claim that Oblivion could be even more detailed and alive with more disk space, and you gave a list of things that you thought would do that.

I'm trying to tell you by and large, that this list of things you came up with would not significantly increase the size of the game on disk -- certainly not to the tune of the game suddenly requiring a 50 GB BD instead of half a 9 GB DVD -- and that the limiting factor with that list of items you posted is development time and resources, not disk space.

Other games or the future are not relevant to the point: You posted a list of things that you wanted Oblivion to do that could take more disk space. I'm just telling you that this list of things won't bloat the game up like you seem to think.

 

Dodge? I'm doing nothing of the sort. While I respect your view it is not illegal to disagree with you. If I don't want to get into a protracted and most certainly futile debate over implementation it does not mean I am dodging the issue. However, you are free to take it any way you like...it's a free country...err...at least where I am

Future games are relevant as Oblivion is nothing short of the argument for the future on this subject. My point is that it alone is not a valid argument as it is not.

There's also no need to jump to extremes. I have not, do not, and will not claim a game will require 50GB of data in this generation.

 

Ok, that's fine. We'll just stop it here.

 

Cool beans! See ya around

 

The real time graphics are excellent to be sure, but the difference between them and the CGI is still night and day, particularly when it comes to sequences which could not be adequately rendered by the in-game engine.

 

Is there anyone in this thread over the age of sixteen?

This comment is so laughably inaccurate and I didn't see anyone pick up on it so I have to point it out. I'll exclude FFX-2 since that is a spinoff.

FFVII, FFVIII, FFIX and FFX match the above description.

FFI, FFII, FFIII, FFIV, FFV, FFVI and FFXI do not match the above description. Now, maybe I'm a little bit off- but if even one of the FF games was not linear and packing a tremendous amount of CG then that would make 'always' inaccurate. By political terms anything over 60% is a landslide, that I do recall quite clearly. Seven out of the eleven games released in the main series have not been packed with CG nor have they been extremely linear.

The 360 was never a viable platform for FFXIII no matter if it had the generation after BluRay in terms of media, it is DOA in Japan and that is the main market for that series. The only viable platforms for it, in a business sense, were the PS2, the PS3 or the Wii. Two out of three have significantly less storage capacity and significantly less shader power. Taken in that context, which is a realistic one considering the conversation, all of his comments make perfect sense.

 

He just meant modern, and FFXI should be called FFOnline to be accurate.
And he's correct, anything since the move to SONY console (single player) is extremely linear & bloated with FMV.

That said it's the poorest excuse I heard in a while (that DVD9 isn't enough for FFXIII), why don't they say they don't care about the 360, or just don't answer the question at all ?
Sounds like a kid trying to find an excuse, no matter how dumb it is, to justify his behavior...

 

But then people would complain if they sidestepped the question.

 

Final Fantasy games are not "bloated" with CGI, though you may say their file size is (they'd be huge anyway, often larger than even *gasp* an Elder Scrolls game - as are other games).

I have 600 hours on FFX and there is maybe 10-15 minutes of CGI. The proportion of "real-time" cutscenes to CGI scenes is still laughably in favor of real time... which is still crushed by, wait for it.... *gasp* gameplay!!!!!.

 

More then likely, DVD9 isn't enough. Take a look at Squenix's history and overall they tend to lean towards non linear titles for their main RPGs(all told you have fourteen of their nineteen main series beign non linear) and they tend to not rely on reused assets very much as BethSoft did for Oblivion. The 360 was never a viable option at all, I don't know why anyone would think it would be. The other two systems that had a chance at landing the title, the PS2 and Wii, were both also DVD9 limited. From a business perspective in the time frame that the game will come out it makes by far the most sense to release it on the PS2, their sales would likely be much higher then they would be on either of the other two options, but it wouldn't allow them to release the game in the way that they want to do it.

I don't think this is a slam in the least on the 360. The 360 sold 0.4% of what the DS sold this week- it is not a viable platform for the Japanese market. MS made their choices, and of those choices was the choice to go with DVD9 which everyone knew was going to be an issue if they wanted to land certain JRPG series on their systems(FF being the highest profile in the US). They decided to focus their hardware on the US and European market and so far that seems to be going the way they want it to(they have Gears of War which will likely sell better then FF in either of the two territories they are focusing on).

 

You are right that Square has never any interest in doing something on the xbox360. A number of other companies have the same opinion.

However JRPG's not being on xbox360 has nothing to do with space.

Would it surprise anyone if a JRPG makes it's way onto the Wii?

At the end of day, it's a marketing excuse, nothing more.