The source was an experienced game artist presenting data from an investigation as an aid to other game artists. Original blog isn't available but here's a link explaining it...I only meant to say that the game was never made, or seen, which... yeah is a pretty good reason not to use it in an example. If the game existed in some form for us to validate that figure, it would be usable evidence.
http://www.game-artist.net/forums/showthread.php?t=3241
There was a double asterisk with the 30M/s figure which isn't explained without access to the blog which is no longer online.Previously, I’ve explained that it is very difficult to answer the question “How many polygons should I be using in a character/vehicle/environment?” This doesn’t stop the question being asked however, so I thought I’d approach it in a different way - how many polygons have other games used?
By listing the game, the hardware it runs on, and any art information I could find, I hope that this will be a good starting point as to suitable polygon counts and texture sizes.
I won't argue this proves the 30 million figure, but you dismissed it out of hand without appreciating where it came from. It was an insider figure of a game the artist saw and felt worth mentioning as being useful to other game artists. Possibly the game didn't see release because it didn't run well enough, but that should be the level of your counter argument, rather than a snooty 'yeah well that company went bust and didn't even release the game so it was probably vapourware anyway.'
It's well known the PS2 can produce far more polygons than GC, and if you question that then you are seriously ill informed. PS2 can produce many times more polygons on screen than GC because it has to because it's a multi-pass renderer. By and large the same polygons were drawn multiple times using the immense polygon and pixel drawing capabilities (in which the PS2 was by far the most powerful console of its generation and quite probably will always be relatively the most powerful console in those two areas because we use different techniques now). The end result was using several triangles to achieve the same look as one triangle on the other machines with single-pass multitexturing etc. However, in some cases where you could get away with just one pass like particles, PS2 was unequalled. You could end up with a situation where the PS2 drew more polygons than GC, had simpler object geometry than GC (drawing the same triangles multiple times per object), and yet have more particles and better effects than GC.Oh and so now not only can the xbox produce more polygons, so can the ps2? Well that's two examples i'd like to see from you now. Since you just claimed that about the ps2, by your own rules, the burden of proof is on you as far as that's concerned.
As a final reference point to try and illustrate it's not as black and white as you think, check out this side-by-side for Baldur's gate Dark Alliance 2 (which is not in any way a good side-by-side video!), a very well made PS2 (skip 1 minute).