The relative signifigances of "Tilt" and Bluray.

[Hekmat]

I've been wondering about this for a while now, and I thought it would be interesting to see what other people think.


Before I start, I'd just like to state for the record that I'm no tech guru. It's entirely possible that I may have misunderstood some points I make in the post, so please feel free to correct me if that turns out to be the case.


It seems to me that, people are underestimating the motion sensitivity of the 'sixaxis' PS3 controller, and also placing too much praise upon bluray.



First I'll bring up my thoughts about the controller. From what we've seen and heard about the 'sixaxis', it appears to have all the functionality (speaking from a motion sensing perspective) of the wiimote minus the ability to detect it's position in space.

To hear most people speak of it, however, it would appear as nothing more than a cheap gimmick, disparagingly referred to as nothing more than "tilt". No one seems to make mention to the fact that it can detect acceleration, for example. The fact of the matter is, that many Wii games could be done on the PS3 as a port. A quick example off the top of my head is the sword fighting in Zelda (albeit less practical because of the PS3's controller design). I'm willing to bet that most (if not all) the mini games in Warioware could also be done on the PS3.

So why do so many people dismiss 'tilt' out of hand? I agree that it was lame of Sony to so blatantly copy Nintendo, but that can't be helped now. Any thoughts?


Now for Bluray.

While I love the fact that the PS3 uses next gen DVD media, I just don't see the improvement in the games. Take Resistance for example. Insomniac has already stated that the game is at about 22 GB currently. What is all the space being used for? The game looks great, with tons of things happening on screen at the same time, good AI, and great physics. But I just don't see where the 22 Gigs are.

From what I've read, Bluray is supposed to mean better textures in games (should developers choose to take advantage of it). To further illustrate what I mean, I'm going to make a comparison between Gears of War (Please don't ban me )

First off, both games look great. In my opinion (and remember that it's just my opinion) Gears of War looks better, *however*, Resistance has far more outdoor areas (that we've seen) and far more things happening on-screen simultaneously, so it pretty much evens out. My point here, is that I don't necessarily see better textures in Resistance than in GoW. In fact, I don't see any clear advantage in any PS3 games texture quality.

Don't get me wrong, I know there are many awesome advantages in using bluray over DVDs, such as different languages, larger games, better cut scenes, etc. I just think that people tend to exaggerate it's importance in the greater scheme of things. I do think that as a whole (and once again, this is only my opinion), the average graphical quality of PS3 games is higher than the Xbox360's, but I can't directly attribute anything to Bluray. I admit that this may be out of ignorance, and if this is the case, I'd like to be corrected.

Anyway, what do you guys think? Am I mildly retarded, or do I have a point?

 

[nonamer]

I've been wondering about this for a while now, and I thought it would be interesting to see what other people think.


Before I start, I'd just like to state for the record that I'm no tech guru. It's entirely possible that I may have misunderstood some points I make in the post, so please feel free to correct me if that turns out to be the case.


It seems to me that, people are underestimating the motion sensitivity of the 'sixaxis' PS3 controller, and also placing too much praise upon bluray.



First I'll bring up my thoughts about the controller. From what we've seen and heard about the 'sixaxis', it appears to have all the functionality (speaking from a motion sensing perspective) of the wiimote minus the ability to detect it's position in space.

To hear most people speak of it, however, it would appear as nothing more than a cheap gimmick, disparagingly referred to as nothing more than "tilt". No one seems to make mention to the fact that it can detect acceleration, for example. The fact of the matter is, that many Wii games could be done on the PS3 as a port. A quick example off the top of my head is the sword fighting in Zelda (albeit less practical because of the PS3's controller design). I'm willing to bet that most (if not all) the mini games in Warioware could also be done on the PS3.

So why do so many people dismiss 'tilt' out of hand? I agree that it was lame of Sony to so blatantly copy Nintendo, but that can't be helped now. Any thoughts?

If you ask me it's some sort of cognitive dissonance, where the PS3's motion detection is useless but the Wii's motion detection is "innovative." Frankly they're both inperfect control devices, where perhaps the Wiimote is better than the SixAxis but the mouse + keyboard is still better than the Wiimote.

Now for Bluray.

While I love the fact that the PS3 uses next gen DVD media, I just don't see the improvement in the games. Take Resistance for example. Insomniac has already stated that the game is at about 22 GB currently. What is all the space being used for? The game looks great, with tons of things happening on screen at the same time, good AI, and great physics. But I just don't see where the 22 Gigs are.

http://blogs.ign.com/Ted-Insomniac/2006/09/07/30283/

40 levels that eat up 300MB each. Not something you'd realize watching game trailers, but you probably will notice it when you play the whole thing through.

From what I've read, Bluray is supposed to mean better textures in games (should developers choose to take advantage of it). To further illustrate what I mean, I'm going to make a comparison between Gears of War (Please don't ban me )

First off, both games look great. In my opinion (and remember that it's just my opinion) Gears of War looks better, *however*, Resistance has far more outdoor areas (that we've seen) and far more things happening on-screen simultaneously, so it pretty much evens out. My point here, is that I don't necessarily see better textures in Resistance than in GoW. In fact, I don't see any clear advantage in any PS3 games texture quality.

You're thinking of RAM, not disk space.

Don't get me wrong, I know there are many awesome advantages in using bluray over DVDs, such as different languages, larger games, better cut scenes, etc. I just think that people tend to exaggerate it's importance in the greater scheme of things. I do think that as a whole (and once again, this is only my opinion), the average graphical quality of PS3 games is higher than the Xbox360's, but I can't directly attribute anything to Bluray. I admit that this may be out of ignorance, and if this is the case, I'd like to be corrected.

Anyway, what do you guys think? Am I mildly retarded, or do I have a point?

No in either case. The primary advantage of Bluray is going to be the bigger, longer games. GeOW is a 10 hour game, but R:FOM looks to be a 20+ hour game at least with huge multiplayer maps that supports up to 40 people at once.

 

[Squeak]

First I'll bring up my thoughts about the controller. From what we've seen and heard about the 'sixaxis', it appears to have all the functionality (speaking from a motion sensing perspective) of the wiimote minus the ability to detect it's position in space.

But that's the most important part of the controller. The ability of the controller to see a fixed reference point makes it far more precise, than anything based on measuring the torque of a weight.

The tilt and acceleration sensor in the wiimote is only there because of battery life and because some games will use the controller in positions where the IR "eye" won't be able to see the sensorbar.

True, the Blu-Ray drive will only be really beneficial for movies and FMV sequences. If you ever tried watching a DVD on a good LCD or plasma TV, you will know how visible compression artefact's can be when blown up and not smoothed out by a CRT. That Blu-Ray will cure plus higher resolution.
Personally I'm also really looking forward to playing SACDs (I already have a few hybrid discs).

 

[one]

True, the Blu-Ray drive will only be really beneficial for movies and FMV sequences.

Not really according to developers.

http://ps3.ign.com/articles/733/733921p5.html

IGN: What advantage does Blu-ray afford you now? Everyone talks about how great the extra storage space is but are you actually using it for Lair?

Eggebrecht: The single level at TGS alone takes up 4 Gigabytes of data.

 

[MatchMade]

Going back to the days of the N64, i did a research paper on compression and current consoles and my comparison was between the Resident Evil 2 of the ps2 vs the N64's port. They basically say that it was like coding the game from scratch due to the CD-CART format, they use real video renders and sounds and all sorts. The games look great on each but the N64 has to be merited as it pulls the same job off with half the space.

What im saying is that programmers get lazy again now as they dont have to watch the optimisation. 22gig is absurd for a size of a game unless there is over an hour of fmv footage. I will bet my bottom dollar tho that Bungie and their Halo3 uses seamless transitions between levels and loading, all with the current 9gig they are allowed on regular dvd. Games like MGS4, Resistance, which i have to admit looks like a good newcomer, GT and others will use i believe pretty much half of the blu storage space but deliver the same game length, same amount of levels, it may just look prettier and a few more things may come at you at once and for sure more cutscenes. Remember we are playing a game and there is a difference between making a game realistic and making a game playabl, both necessarily dont work together. Imagine one of the new war games has it where you can be shot in various parts of the body and you can get ur arms and legs blow off, would you really want to sloly move a checkpoint which in real time may take you 20 mins to move something which would have taken you 5, or have an arm blown off leaving you with no weapon? It wont work, no matter how realistic they go the games all boil down to 3 things, playable, satisfactory AI and gamer experience.

Bottom line, despite how much space they have All the games for all the consoles will look more or less the same. Im disapointed with Sony and MS as all they have done is increased their consoles spec a bit while Nintendo have revolutionised(or at least i hope) the way we play games now and in the future. Yes sony has this tilt thing but it looks like a total gimmick to me but given to the right developers may make it work.

 

[pc999]

It seems to me that, people are underestimating the motion sensitivity of the 'sixaxis' PS3 controller, and also placing too much praise upon bluray.

That is pretty much my opinion on the subject, true it may not be as good as the Wiimote but it could add some very cool features anyway.

If you ask me it's some sort of cognitive dissonance, where the PS3's motion detection is useless but the Wii's motion detection is "innovative." Frankly they're both inperfect control devices, where perhaps the Wiimote is better than the SixAxis but the mouse + keyboard is still better than the Wiimote.

You are not only putting your opinion, but also let it interfer with your reasoning. They are very diferent things and it may be the case that one is better in some thing and the other in other things, but you cant say it isM+K is better overall (unless you are just speaking by yourself and for the games you like (which dont seems to be the case)).

Not really according to developers.

http://ps3.ign.com/articles/733/733921p5.html

That is probably just PR talk (unless the game does have less than 6 levels ) and they are talking of uncompressed data and such.

 

[Hekmat]

Im disapointed with Sony and MS as all they have done is increased their consoles spec a bit while Nintendo have revolutionised(or at least i hope) the way we play games now and in the future. Yes sony has this tilt thing but it looks like a total gimmick to me but given to the right developers may make it work.

This is what I was reffering to with the first half of my initial post. I do believe that the ergonomics of the wiimote and the fact that it can detect it's position in space are better suited to motion sensitive gameplay, but why do you dismiss sony's controller so easily?

Games like Lair have proven that at least some developers don't think of it as just a gimmik, but so many people call it one.

 

[patsu]

What im saying is that programmers get lazy again now as they dont have to watch the optimisation.

Since the expectation on physics, AI and graphics increase this gen, I hesitate to call programmers "lazy" if they prefer to spend less time on disk layout and more on the rest.

I am also not sure if BR means less work for devs. There may be other challenges Insomniac need to address for streaming data from BR (or hard disk) in Resistance:FoM compared to the "traditional" route. Plus there should be an increase in workload at the content creation side due to the increased capacity.

I prefer to think of BR as a tool. It makes programmers' lives easier, allows them to explore additional aspects of the game world. If devs do spend less development time because of BR, it may mean they can afford to spend more time elsewhere. Whether it's going to make a difference, well... Sony has about 1 year to prove it.

As for the controller, I'm for it. Afterall, gaming is an interactive media. I think companies should try to experiment more with the controller every now and then.

 

[nonamer]

You are not only putting your opinion, but also let it interfer with your reasoning. They are very diferent things and it may be the case that one is better in some thing and the other in other things, but you cant say it isM+K is better overall (unless you are just speaking by yourself and for the games you like (which dont seems to be the case)).

Why jump at me for saying a M+KB is better than the Wiimote and not the Wiimote being better than the SixAxis? From the videos we've seen the Wiimote is absolutely not perfect. Metroid and Red Steel are both pale imitations of real PC based FPS. Some guy from IGN complained that unless you stand at a proper distance and/or a lot of configuration, the wiimote can be clumsy. M+KB on the other hand is much more accurate and much more intuitive. It's even way faster since you can flick a mouse around pretty quick without losing track. I'm also well aware of numerous 3D and gyroscopic mice that never panned out because they weren't as good as a regular mouse, and the Wiimote doesn't seem to be any different. So anyways, I don't what's the problem with making that claim as it's a well founded opinion as any, like saying Wiimote is better than the SixAxis.

What im saying is that programmers get lazy again now as they dont have to watch the optimisation.

And development costs are shooting through the roof. Somehow I doubt they are spending it on donuts and pizzas. It's another form of cognitive dissonance to say that programmers are "lazy" in an era where they are taxed harder than ever before.

 

[Skrying]

BluRay more than anything to me this go around is a marketing tool. While I can see there might be advantages, there are also reasons why it just doesnt make a whole lot a sense to me for games. Namely I dont believe the PS3 has enough RAM to benefit from the extra disk space and therefore more textures/better quality textures that could be packed on the disk. Next you could say it means they do not have to compress the data on the disk and could just directly stream it, well first the PS3 has a hard drive which can be used as a decent caching tool, so there's really no point and add to the fact that bandwidth on optical drives is really not massive to begin with.

I'm sorta glad Sony did include BluRay with the PS3 though. It makes it a great home entertainment tool for those who dont have a ton of money to spend (I'm talking middle-middle class people, 50K a year, etc) who have enough to spend to get a decent HDTV but not on grabbing a BluRay player, etc. The PS3 provides both gaming entertainment and from what we've heard possibly a good BluRay player too. At first I wasnt so sold on this fact, but over time I must say it has grown on me.

In the end though I highly doubt the tilt function or BluRay will be large selling factors of the PS3. Its game library and support will be its selling factors, along with the fact that its the PlayStation 3 afterall.

 

[Mordecaii]

As has been stated before in this forum, one of the primary uses for BR-D is that it will allow for a greater number of textures and such to be stored on the disc. Keep in mind that this doesn't magically increase the number that can be used at once since that directly depends on the amount of RAM, but they certainly can use a larger variety of textures spread throughout the game to give a more varied look to the game. This also applies to sound effects, music tracks, etc.

 

[pipo]

GeOW is a 10 hour game, but R:FOM looks to be a 20+ hour game at least with huge multiplayer maps that supports up to 40 people at once.

40 people. There's no way the 360 could pull that off with its DVD drive, right?

On top of that: how long a game takes from start to finish has little to do with the amount of original content. I think there could be a big advantage for streaming games like GTA though.

OT-ish: longer games. I think they're highly overrated. There's always the option of the second disc (RE4 anyone?), and I for one hope games won't be longer this generation. Give me two good 10 hour titles (at a reasonable price! 60 bucks - WTF?) over one 40 hour title every day. As much as I like Zelda, man do these games need some time. It's almost like you've got another girlfriend.

Re: tilt, I'm not sure. We'll have to see how that turns out. Direct pointing is Da Bomb (tm) though. And it has the potential to destroy the mouse/kb combo in my opinion (which is useless for a console anyway). But again, I'm still on the fence until I can get my hands on the Wii. Lag? Precision?

/ramble

 

[Squeak]

That is probably just PR talk (unless the game does have less than 6 levels ) and they are talking of uncompressed data and such.

Some developers will spew tech BS at incredible rates if they think they can get away with it.
4 bit textures, compressed geometry and lossless compression on top of that, will get you a wast and very detailed level in less than 100 Mb.

 

[Laa-Yosh]

Some developers will spew tech BS at incredible rates if they think they can get away with it.
4 bit textures, compressed geometry and lossless compression on top of that, will get you a wast and very detailed level in less than 100 Mb.

Not to mention how Lair manages to look amazingly ugly despite all that 4GB of stuff...

 

[Rolf N]

Not to mention how Lair manages to look amazingly ugly despite all that 4GB of stuff...

Lair uses 4GB of data for that one level probably in the same sense as Doom 3 uses several million polygons for a character model.

 

[London Geezer]

Lair uses 4GB of data for that one level probably in the same sense as Doom 3 uses several million polygons for a character model.

Which means... it doesn't...?

 

[Rolf N]

Which means... it doesn't...?

Yes
... but ... it's not really a lie. You just have to not listen very carefully, forget half of what you heard, and misinterpret the rest. Or use a PR person to help

For Doom 3 these very detailed models were created but they are source art from which the in-game models and normal maps have been derived. The high-detail models aren't used in the running game, they aren't even on the disc. But they were made. For Doom 3. Right?

 

[pc999]

Why jump at me for saying a M+KB is better than the Wiimote and not the Wiimote being better than the SixAxis? From the videos we've seen the Wiimote is absolutely not perfect. Metroid and Red Steel are both pale imitations of real PC based FPS. Some guy from IGN complained that unless you stand at a proper distance and/or a lot of configuration, the wiimote can be clumsy. M+KB on the other hand is much more accurate and much more intuitive. It's even way faster since you can flick a mouse around pretty quick without losing track. I'm also well aware of numerous 3D and gyroscopic mice that never panned out because they weren't as good as a regular mouse, and the Wiimote doesn't seem to be any different. So anyways, I don't what's the problem with making that claim as it's a well founded opinion as any, like saying Wiimote is better than the SixAxis.

Fpr one you are just talking about FPS, and here you may have reason (cant say has I never tried it), but we should confess that for first gen titles the things look very promissing even on the FPS area.

But what about a Tennis game, or racing, or sports, fighting there is many kinds of games that are better even on last gen controlers that most, IMO, can only improve with this aditions this even before of talking about things that cant just be possible with a M+KB (as simple as a Wiisports like things). Anyway you cant even say that a M+KB is better overall than a PS2/XB/GC controler and it will be much harder to do that over a DS3/Wiimote.

About Wiimote being better than DS3 I thought you are refering to the new features on both (as in the Wiimote they are indeed better and does have more, like the pointer), still IMO I think that for some things DS3 will still be better (eg traditional fighters).

 

[Beafy]

Why jump at me for saying a M+KB is better than the Wiimote and not the Wiimote being better than the SixAxis? From the videos we've seen the Wiimote is absolutely not perfect. Metroid and Red Steel are both pale imitations of real PC based FPS. Some guy from IGN complained that unless you stand at a proper distance and/or a lot of configuration, the wiimote can be clumsy.

To be honest, I don't know why anyone is suprised by this. It's an absolute pointing device, so the closer to the display (or the sensor bar) you are, the more exaggerated the movements have to be.

M+KB on the other hand is much more accurate and much more intuitive. It's even way faster since you can flick a mouse around pretty quick without losing track. I'm also well aware of numerous 3D and gyroscopic mice that never panned out because they weren't as good as a regular mouse, and the Wiimote doesn't seem to be any different. So anyways, I don't what's the problem with making that claim as it's a well founded opinion as any, like saying Wiimote is better than the SixAxis.

I don't think there have ever been absolute positioning devices apart from lightguns, which have some fundamental differences in its ergonomics (e.g. you can't rest them on your leg while using them). You can't compare the Wiimote to any previous 3d mouse.
I do believe that Sixaxis can bring improvements to certain games, but it has nowhere the usage range of the Wiimote.

 

[rabidrabbit]

I'll comment on the Blu-ray, and why I'm really looking forward to it.
I recently bought a nice 720p front projector and a 90" screen.
My! I never knew DVD's really have that much compression artecacts!
I sampled some HD flicks from my PC hard discs and the difference between an upscaled DVVD and a 720p HD flick was phenomenal.
If you have a 40" LCD you might not care even then, but for rally big screens a high definition movie format is a godsent.
So, a Blu-ray in PS3 to me is a significant advantage.
I know you'd be able to enjoy high definition films on an xbox360 and a HD DVD addon too, but the PS3 to me is just a more complete package, and the Blu-ray can't hurt the games either.

The 6 axis motion sensing controller, I rather have it than not. Some games benefit from it more than others, in many game sit makes controlling more simple and effective.
It has it's limitations compared to the "Wiimote", but it's a nice addition that'll surely be used more imaginatively in the future than it will be in the launch games.