The Getaway 3

[mckmas8808]

No they didn't. Kutaragi simply and only said that there may be playable demos at TGS.

Anyway, really nice demo. It'll be interesting to see how cities "work" in games like GTA, and The Getaway etc. next-gen. I'm wondering if they're reusing some of the PS2 The Getaway assets for this demo? It seems that way to me, in places at least, but the quality of the rendering brings everything up a lot. And apparently this is just a tech demo, so it wouldn't make sense to make new assets only for that.

Yeah looks like they still are using some PS2 assets. Kind of like what Polyphony are doing with GT5. These cities are looking so realistic that it feels like you can almost smell the city streets. The way people move for some reason makes it feel more alive.

 

[Pozer]

I didn't mean to imply the ps3 was not capable of rendering this in realtime. I think it can/will. It just came off to me as render target type demo though.

I was more implying that the the lack of true gameplay video means the ps3 will not be seeing springtime in the USA. I think the spring thing has always been a Sony marketing tactic to scare early adopters away from the x360. Spring Japan, Summer possibly in the USA, more like early fall.

 

[RavenFox]

What do you guys make of the "Cell only" comments made about the Getaway E3 demo? (i.e. the demo was rendered entirely with Cell alone). Does it hold any validity at all?

Somehow I doubt it...

Well it was said here again by Sonys Chief Technology Officer

Q. In regard to PS3, because few devkits are supplied, I hear 2 kinds of opinions. Some expect it’d be hard to extract performance and others are surprised as they can extract performance very easily in an actual development. How is it in the real development scene?

A. To be honest, since it has so much margin in performance, we’ve heard no such feedback that it’s difficult to develop on it. Naturally it’s different from single-core programming, but it doesn’t add to man hours required for game development that much. I repeat it but entertainment programmers have tremendous ability.

For example we showed the demo that renders London City, it’s not rendered in the GPU but the CELL does lighting and texture processing then outputs it to the frame buffer. Even without GPU, only CELL can create good enough 3D graphics.

Link

 

[avaya]

The demo looks almost identical to the one shown at E3. Just different camera angles.

We've still got Vauxhall Vectra's and Astra's as the only two types of cars on the road, all the buses and taxi's are exactly the same too.

 

[Onix]

How many playable demos X360 had between 8 and 10 months before your release date?

Blame Microsoft for being late with dev kits.

The bigger developers have had PS3 dev kits, and obviously target specs, for a long enough time to be able to show works-in-progress demonstrations.

 

[scooby_dooby]

Uhm why? Cause you say so? Do you own 51% of Sony's shares by any chance to be making demands?

Did I make a single demand? No. So WTF are you talking about?

Kutaragi's comments about playable games at TGS had most people in the industry expecting playable games at TGS.

The fact they are scheduled to launch in 6-9 months, and this is one of the only big gaming events left before May, they should have something to play, that's not a demand, it's an opinion. Ya dig?

It's practically the equivalent of MS showing up to E3 with no playable games, or even a decent amount of in-game footage. TGS is over, and the PS3 gameplay thread is still looking very thin....

 

[typoEDR]

I thought they were supposed to shake things up at CES in Nevada...

 

[liverkick]

Kutaragi's comments about playable games at TGS had most people in the industry expecting playable games at TGS.

Which people in the industry exactly? Every prognostication I saw had it wide open as to what was going to be shown..."we hope they may have something playable but we're not sure at this point" was pretty much the general sentiment going in. But whatever, carry on with the molehill mountain conversion.

 

[one]

Did I make a single demand? No. So WTF are you talking about?

Kutaragi's comments about playable games at TGS had most people in the industry expecting playable games at TGS.

The fact they are scheduled to launch in 6-9 months, and this is one of the only big gaming events left before May, they should have something to play, that's not a demand, it's an opinion. Ya dig?

It's practically the equivalent of MS showing up to E3 with no playable games, or even a decent amount of in-game footage. TGS is over, and the PS3 gameplay thread is still looking very thin....

They were waiting for Nintendo to disclose its controller... Conspiracy time!

 

[Phil]

So...

Kutaragi's comments about playable games at TGS had most people in the industry expecting playable games at TGS.

...turns into...

Sony promised playable demos at TGS

And here am I thinking that it's claims like these that provoke threads getting locked, trolling and are therefore simply unwanted here.

 

[London Geezer]

Did I make a single demand? No. So WTF are you talking about?

Kutaragi's comments about playable games at TGS had most people in the industry expecting playable games at TGS.

The fact they are scheduled to launch in 6-9 months, and this is one of the only big gaming events left before May, they should have something to play, that's not a demand, it's an opinion. Ya dig?

It's practically the equivalent of MS showing up to E3 with no playable games, or even a decent amount of in-game footage. TGS is over, and the PS3 gameplay thread is still looking very thin....

"Sony promised playable games" is not an opinion. It's a lie. You're just trolling as usual.

 

[rabidrabbit]

Maybe Sony just isn't forcing the devs to show incomplete playable games with bad framerate and less than impressive graphics.
That would go in line with Kutaragi's comment "...games may be playable at TGS"... he wasn't sure if any of the games would be ready and polished enough to be shown playable, without making a bad first impression.

 

[avaya]

The fact they are scheduled to launch in 6-9 months, and this is one of the only big gaming events left before May, they should have something to play, that's not a demand, it's an opinion. Ya dig?

What they did was exactly right. It's about getting your vision for this cycle of consoles across to the public. If they had playable games those games would have been a poor reflection of what the final hardware would have produced. First impressions are everything.

This is where Sony has schooled MS so far. MS were too honest at the start; they should never have shown their games to the public when they were on the alpha kit form. The first ever screens of PDZ and Kameo were horrid, they should have been kept under tight wraps till at least beta kit form - then revealed in all their glory. The impact they would have had would have been far greater that way.

It would have been better for them to showcase tech demo's and target renders from a purely marketing point of view in that botched MTV event and E3.

There is actually no need to have playable games before your console launches. Only a small and largely irrelevant minority of the gaming population will get to play them and when a console launches the hardcore following will always ensure a sell-out initially.

Just as long as the games are there for launch and keep on coming in a steady stream after that it's not a problem.

 

[London Geezer]

It's almost like expecting to see unfinished scenes from unreleased movies, with place-holder scenery and costumes. Or expecting to hear demos of songs, with half-finished lyrics and place-holder arrangements before an album is released.

Who would care?! What the people want (that's the 99% of people who doesn't post on internet forums, cause we are a very small minority) is to buy the product as it's meant to be. They want to go to the movies to watch the final version of it, they buy albums, the final versions of it. Normal people don't give a damn about the work-in-progress, and the prospect of seeing unfinished and potentially crappy work-in-progress doesn't excite them in the least.
If the development houses wish to show us work in progress, fine, but there is little point in showing unfinished and largely low-quality material, risking to scare customers away. That's what MS did and they got caned for that.

 

[avaya]

It's almost like expecting to see unfinished scenes from unreleased movies, with place-holder scenery and costumes. Or expecting to hear demos of songs, with half-finished lyrics and place-holder arrangements before an album is released.

Who would care?! What the people want (that's the 99% of people who doesn't post on internet forums, cause we are a very small minority) is to buy the product as it's meant to be. If the development houses wish to show us work in progress, fine, but there is little point in showing unfinished and largely low-quality material, risking to scare customers away. That's what MS did and they got caned for that.

Exactly. I was really surprised MS went down that route at the beginning.

 

[3roxor]

But the Microsoft devs don't have the time to make trailers of what they expect the games will look like. The advantage Xbox360 has is that it's released ahead of the competition (PS3)

 

[hey69]

they are not talking about TGS, sureley they had time for E3 no?

 

[mckmas8808]

But the Microsoft devs don't have the time to make trailers of what they expect the games will look like. The advantage Xbox360 has is that it's released ahead of the competition (PS3)

Well isn't that a MS problem. They could have been making trailers at the end of last year. But I know you will say, "Well devs didn't have proper dev kits to program on." And again that is a MS problem. I remember about 6 months ago people were saying that MS had an advantage over Sony because they had dev kits out 2 years eariler than them. People were saying having something weak is better than having nothing at all. Well I wonder how far that got them. Maybe Sony had a better plan with having more complete alpha kits.

Disclaimer: I'm am not saying that MS can't overcome this, yet just a small bump to cross.

 

[London Geezer]

But the Microsoft devs don't have the time to make trailers of what they expect the games will look like. The advantage Xbox360 has is that it's released ahead of the competition (PS3)

The point is that if you're gonna show crap, you're better off not showing anything!
If MS didn't have any decent footage to show, they shouldn't have showed anything! I'm talking from a PR point of view.
Not only they would have time to eventually show more finished and decent material, but the lack of footage would make the fans wait, driving them crazy with expectations, and demand would go up!
I can't believe Sony seem to be the only ones to understand this very very simple economic/marketing principle. Show very little, but what you show must be amazing stuff. Drives the fans crazy in a positive way (for Sony).

 

[scooby_dooby]

With a console launching in 6 months no playable games is a let down, all that says to ME is that they are having a hard time coping with the new hardware, and that the launch of PS3 may be delayed even longer.

It's funny how Sony gets a free pass on everything, if MS showed up to E3 with nothing but CGI trailers cut-scenes, with not a single playable game, or any in-game footage, people would've nailed em to teh cross. BUt for PS3, it's good marketing?

Please, in 2004 Kutaragi was saying playable PS3 in E3 2005, then at E3 he said playable PS3 at TGS, now at TGS it's still not playable. I find it funny how some people have such blind loyalty to a company they can't even express dissapointment when that company decieves or fails to deliever on what they promised.

At least when MS fucks up I'm all over them, i don't sit back and make weak excuses about what marketing geniuses they are. This is the last big show before x360 launches, no playable games, nothing besides MGS4, that's not very much to stop the X360 momentum and I expected alot more.