Technology Xbox360 is still in development, more power to come

[Salar]

Source TeamXbox (and IGN has it's own article which is very similar):

Of the recent Xbox 360 gameplay footage we’ve seen so far, the one major concern has been that of the sometime sluggish framerate. In a recent discussion with a number of Microsoft executives, we managed to learn that all current Xbox 360 games that were shown at last night’s E3 press briefing are still running on alpha development kits that are not a true representation of what we can expect when the console launches this holiday season. Estimations are that the current kits are running at only 25-40% of the maximum power that the Xbox 360 will possess. Beta kits are scheduled to hit developers within the next 2 months and final hardware should arrive in early July.

It’s no surprise that Microsoft lost money on nearly every Xbox sold due to the price point that the console came to market at, but Ballmer assured that they’ve since learned their lessons. Not only has Microsoft had the luxury of a three year planning window, but they’ve since strengthened retail relationships that were being formed when the Xbox launched. It may seem odd, but before the Xbox, Microsoft did not sell one product directly to retailers and so there was definitely a learning curve involved. Every aspect and feature of the Xbox 360 was thoroughly planned for to ensure profit, including the somewhat recent jump to 512 MB of memory.

More power? Can these specs that we see mean nothing?

ign article: http://xbox360.ign.com/articles/615/615667p1.html

 

[PaulyPac]

highly doubt it

 

[K D]

And you guys talk about the sony hype machine? microsoft saw ps3 and came up with this bs.. all you microsoft fan boys will obviously deny this but the truth is infront of your eyes ps3 > xbox 360

 

[Rukas]

The development kits were alpha, that doesnt mean the Xbox 360 specs are, it just means the development kit used wasnt as good as the 360 so the games dont look as good.

Thats true, Xenon kits had different hardware, an older GPU for example.

 

[K D]

Why would they send alpha dev kits to ppl who are making games when xbox is supposed to be released so soon? and esspecially show them at there hyped up mtv event, which was suppose to be blockbuster.. look at how much advertisment and commercials and everything they had for it.. why would they do all this if this wasnt the best they have? why show everything when it is still in ''alpha'' stage? this makes no sence.. only thing that happened was bill gates made a xbox hype machine and said all this bs

 

[Rukas]

^^ I dont know why they did it but its true, you can find the old Xenon developer kit specs online.

It was a dual core PowerPC G5 with the Radeon X800 XT chip, which is less powerful than the IBM three core CPU and ATI R500. I guess they just didnt have the hardware in time for the dev. kits, but its legit.

I dont doubt the hardware will change by launch date though something always does. The first Xbox actually got scaled down, it was supposed to be more powerful when announced, but nVidia fucked up and couldnt deliver what they promised on their GPU and Xbox ended up with a weaker one.

 

[Rukas]

See. Apple G5s.

Worries me though, if the hardware isnt finished yet, the damn thing needs to go into production soon, if they rush it it will come out buggy like the first series PS2s did, which isnt good.

 

[Salar]

oh and i don't doubt the hardware would change either. But i don't think it would be something that will change the power, but something that will change the price to increase profit margins

 

[K D]

So if this is true.. how much better graphics are we talking? because i wasn't impressed really at all with most of the boxes graphics except nba 2k if that was gameplay? (is it? maybe you can help me out on that rukas) then im blown away

 

[Rukas]

So if this is true.. how much better graphics are we talking? because i wasn't impressed really at all with most of the boxes graphics except nba 2k if that was gameplay? (is it? maybe you can help me out on that rukas) then im blown away

Heres a quote from IGN.

I had mixed expectations; I'm a realist. Games in development often have low framerates and shoddy AI. They're not done. Of course they do. Today, I saw a demo of Perfect Dark Zero running on a Xbox alpha kit (a PC) using an old ATI graphics card, not the final GPU from the Xbox 360, and was told the game was only using about 25% to 30% of the system's full power. And Perfect Dark Zero looked incredible. Incredible. It looked nearly as good as Gears of War, which, in my humble opinion is the best looking 360 game of the show so far (I saw that running in realtime too). So, simply put, Perfect Dark Zero shocked me.

So in that case, you can expect about a 70-75% improvement down the line.

 

[K D]

Rukas was that nba 2k6 in game? or was it rendered

 

[Rukas]

^^ Im pretty sure it was in game footage, running on the dev kits.

Dont quote me though, but I havent read anything that said it was rendered, and havent seen it myself.

I think most of MS show was real time, in comparison, all of Sony's was rendered.

 

[PaulyPac]

all of Sony's was rendered.

and how would you know that sir ?

 

[K D]

I think most of MS show was real time, in comparison, all of Sony's was rendered.

Eurogamer: One question on the lips of many people at the moment: how much of what we saw in the PlayStation 3 demos was actually running in real-time?

Phil Harrison: Everything in the demos was real-time.

Eurogamer: And what about the game footage clips?

Phil Harrison: Not all of that - in fact, none of it was real-time because it was all running off video. If you make a presentation to two and a half thousand people, you're going to put some of it on video just to be on the safe side.

I've been asked this question a lot. The way we put those videos together, everything was done to specification. Everything was done to PS3 spec. Virtually everything used in-game assets; some things were rendered.

Read the whole thing here,
http://www.eurogamer.net/article.php?article_id=59243

 

[Rukas]

and how would you know that sir ?

The developers said so.

Ok sorry, maybe not all, im not sure, maybe they snuck one or two in there, but most if not all was rendered.

For example the Killzone developers said it took them 6 months to make the footage they played at E3.

6 bloody months, I guess we can expect a killzone of that caliber for the PS4.

 

[Rukas]

Eurogamer: One question on the lips of many people at the moment: how much of what we saw in the PlayStation 3 demos was actually running in real-time?

Phil Harrison: Everything in the demos was real-time.

Eurogamer: And what about the game footage clips?

Phil Harrison: Not all of that - in fact, none of it was real-time because it was all running off video. If you make a presentation to two and a half thousand people, you're going to put some of it on video just to be on the safe side.

I've been asked this question a lot. The way we put those videos together, everything was done to specification. Everything was done to PS3 spec. Virtually everything used in-game assets; some things were rendered.

Read the whole thing here,
http://www.eurogamer.net/article.php?article_id=59243

Thats a lie.

The official UK PlayStation.com website recently posted an interview with Guerilla Killzone PS3 designer, Jan-Bart Van Beek. It goes like...

Is the Killzone sequence a fair example of what people can expect from realtime gameplay on PlayStation 3?

Jan-Bart: Yeah, it's basically a [highlight]representation[/highlight] of the look and feel of the game we're [highlight]trying[/highlight] to make.

So now we come to it... What do IGN editors think. Is the Killzone video real? Will the game look like that?

David Clayman - IGNXbox - "No. No. No. If that's the style of the game, it will look like that, but not at that level of quality. That had separate animations for every single movement. That is not a game. It was total CG. Those little things giveaway stuff like that real well."

It was rendered.


Quote of the moment:

Stephen Butts - IGNPC
[highlight]"No. The video is real in the sense that it exists in this time continuum, but no, it does not reflect what the game will look like."[/highlight]

 

[K D]

^^ so your qouting ignXBOX over what the ppl of sony and the ppl that are working on killzone said... yeah thats really reliable....

 

[Rukas]

^^ so your qouting ignXBOX over what the ppl of sony and the ppl that are working on killzone said... yeah thats really reliable....

Did you read what I wrote? i quoted IGN PC and the makers of Killzone too. The MAKER of Killzone said its a REPRESENTATION of what they are TRYING to make.

So yes, I do think thats very reliable.

Epic Games's Mark Rein:
"In addition to the Sony demos being shown by Phil Harrison, the Epic and EA presentations were the only third party portions actually running on the PS3 in real-time."

... Meaning Killzone wasnt real-time. And thats reliable too.

The fact that when asked about it Sony flat out LIED and said that it was real time is fucking bullshit.

 

[Salar]

It's all CGI and it's been confirmed by PS3 reps themselves.
Xbox released it's own rendered video of Ghost recon 3. Just like the killzone video... it's amazing. But just like the killzone video... it's not actual ingame footage

 

[Rukas]

Even Gamespot (who are very Sony biased) confirmed its rendered ina sort of confusing round about weirdly worded kind of way, almost like they didnt want to say it but had to.

What we heard: When the lights at Monday's PlayStation 3 demo came up, the audience members picked up their jaws off the floor...and began wagging their tongues. Like a game version of the Kennedy assassination, the audience quickly split into two camps: Those who thought the demo was prerendered, making it essentially computer animation, and those who thought it was rendered in real time, which means it would be close, graphically, to actual gameplay. The fires of speculation were fueled further by the ambiguous comments of Jan-Bart Van Beek, game eirector of the PS3 Killzone at Guerrilla Games, to the official PlayStation UK site."It's basically a representation of the look and feel of the game we're trying to make," he said. Then a post on the Eurogamer forums laid out a tantalizing conspiracy: Axis Animation, the same Scottish computer animation company that made a cinematic for the first Killzone, had been working on the E3 demo for months as straight-up CG. So how does Sony respond to the allegations? Far from being evasive, it met them head-on. "Yes, it is real time," a rep told GameSpot.

Bogus or not bogus?: Believe Sony? Bogus. Think Sony's lying? Not Bogus.