PS3 interview

[Vandenh]

The Eurogamer lads have managed to snare Sony for a PS3 interview (http://www.eurogamer.net/article.php?article_id=59243). Very interesting.
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.
Squirm!

[agentgray]

Man! "That all depends on your definition of is..."

Does this really answer the question? It's almost like he wants you to assume that it is a video of real-time.

[Varsity]

Rendered until proven real time as far as I'm concerned.

[Morrolan]

That IS what he wants you to assume.

[Knite]

so in other words
we technically STILL don't know what PS3 and X360 games look like
nice
lol

[Morratut]

'Hey Phil!!'

'Yea Morratut?'

'Your full of shit!!!'

[sebastard]

See? I said the same thing in the Killzone 2 article. There was NO WAY that Sony was going to have real-time playback of 10+ games on a console that's a year away from being released.

They were going to show video and play it safe. Why would they risk having it crash in front of the industry (Who all understand this fact) just to satisfy a bunch of unrealistic Internet fanboys who haven't got a clue?

At least some of us understand this...

[sebastard]

And again, like I said in the KZ2 thread:

From the article itself:

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.


They pre-rendered those videos to play it safe, but they used in-game assets and specs, which means that while it might have been more fluid and a bit more refined than what gameplay will look like, visually the level of detail was accurate.

Sigh. People freak out about the lamest things.

[Vandenh]

Or...

They had no playable games (surely NOT! You must be joking sir!)

[Shadowmage952]

Squirm!

Squirm? Did you read the article? He hardly seems like he was squirming throughout the interview. Not only did he give specifics about certain videos using in-game resources (and even said some stuff was rendered), but he went into detail about which processor was handling the computations.

I thought it was a well done interview, providing good information without being overly "marketed" information.

[Furious Wang]

God, how much money is Eurogamer taking from Sony? Geezus

[Vjornaxx]

Some interesting stuff in there. However, I get the feeling that he was avoiding something in the questions about an online service. It would be pretty unfortunate if Sony doesn't deliver an online service that compares to Live.

[Ernst_Jager]

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.

What exactly is considered 'real-time' by them?

[Mason]

And again, like I said in the KZ2 thread:

From the article itself:


They pre-rendered those videos to play it safe, but they used in-game assets and specs, which means that while it might have been more fluid and a bit more refined than what gameplay will look like, visually the level of detail was accurate.

Sigh. People freak out about the lamest things.

Guess who sets the PS3 specs? Sony. You could render a billion dancing spidermen in 3dsmax and Sony could declare it within the PS3 specs if they so chose.

And it would be nice to think that Sony was confident enough in their console to let it run it all real-time, but then it is still early hardware and their concern is sensible. However, that only extends to the big presentation. Why couldn't they have a PS3 elsewhere on the floor running it all real-time?

And to say that something is from in-game assets isn't particularly straightforward. A rendered PS2 hype-video with twenty high-res Yunas walking around would technically be drawn from in-game assets which conformed to the system spec, but there's no way the actual hardware would've been able to run it.

Indeed, a "game asset" is fairly resolution-agnostic. All it means is that someone produced it for use in the game, not that it is being used in the video in the same context as in the game, or that there's a functional version of the game running on real hardware which has the asset in it.

Whether or not the PS3 is capable of pulling this stuff off is immaterial. I really hope it is capable, of course. But for Sony to throw up a rendered video of a game that the Killzone 2 devs would really like to try and make is dishonest. Regardless of the truth about the product, manipulative marketing like that is always dishonest, and should always be frowned upon.

[Mason]

Some interesting stuff in there. However, I get the feeling that he was avoiding something in the questions about an online service. It would be pretty unfortunate if Sony doesn't deliver an online service that compares to Live.

If they were going to, we would've heard about it. I mean, that's such a huge draw for a system nowadays that they'd be giving MS a big advantage by concealing it. I imagine they'll have some sort of online service, it'd be negligent not to, but they're keeping it off the table to avoid comparisons with Live.

[Phades]

You know, I still want a PS3 and an Xbox360. I don't really care about the real-time or not stuff. What I've seen that I know is real-time has been enough to convince me I needed it. (for the sake of total disclosure, all they really had to do to win me over was say "Next generation Xbox" or "PS3" and I was all theirs. The stuff they've already put out has been awesome so I'm not too worried about the next-gen being great.)

[Vjornaxx]

Mason - That's exactly what I'm thinking. When you look at how he deals with the question, his response is more like "The PS3 can go online right out of the box" with no mention of anything that compares to Xbox Live Silver (which comes with every Xbox 360).

My thoughts are this: From pure numbers, it looks like PS3 is the more powerful system. It LOOKS like it. Xbox 360's "no bottleneck" design may prove to be quite powerful. However, I'm all about a secure multiplayer experience. Socom for PS2 is a great game, but there's no way to deal with cheaters. Also, servers are maintined by developers (who may or may not have the resources to do so), and not by Sony. As pretty and fun as I'm sure PS3 games will be, it's the multiplayer that gives games longevity for me. If Sony can't deliver a secure and stable online service, then I see no reason to invest in a PS3.

[TRiLoGY]

Realtime or not, Its still gonna be awesome IMHO..

Did half of you actually read the Article? I thought it was a very good Article with some interesting information..

[Rakael]

God, how much money is Eurogamer taking from Sony? Geezus

How much money is MS paying you? Oh, thats right, your paying them. Why again are you such a supporter of them and basher of everything else that comes along?

[Heretic Machine]

Thus far, I count three Sony fanboys in this topic who are completly ignoring everything that has been said.

[emperordahc]

Burn!

I read the article, and this guy is dodging the question. "To specs" means they said "you can render X amount, now see what you can do prerender w/ that limit". So they do prerender using only X complexity. Wow. Ummm.... ok. Yea. Sony is trying to kill the XBox the same way the PS2 killed the Dreamcast. That was lame.

[XenonCJ]

How much money is MS paying you? Oh, thats right, your paying them. Why again are you such a supporter of them and basher of everything else that comes along?As if paying money to Sony is moraly superior? laff

[Borys]

Thus far, I count three Sony fanboys in this topic who are completly ignoring everything that has been said.

You're not gonna count to four :)

They did it again I guess. Kings of hype in full swing. Press fell for it I can even imagine PS3 on the Newsweek cover right now.

[sebastard]

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.

What exactly is considered 'real-time' by them?

Uhh, he's talking about the tech demos, not the game demos. That's the difference they're making out here.

Did you even watch the video of the press event?

[Furious Wang]

Guess I should give Sony some love.

Here: I enjoyed DMC 1, Gran Tourismo 3, Ratchet & Clank, SLy and the family Stone, Rygar, GTA3, SSX, Tekken Tag, FF X, and about a ton of PS1 games. I'm not some mindless Sony hater, but when they pull bullshit Im gonna call them on it.

Eurogamer posted a sperm covered post press conference article that said Sony Nuked the high hell out of its competition so powerfully that it erased Nintendo and MS from the timeline as we know it. Based on...CGI. Uh, yeah. Now they post up this damage control interview where every question is dodged and avoided like the Sony guy was running for Congress. I smell cohoots.

[TRiLoGY]

Geez, why is everyone calling everyone else a Fanboy just because they are excited or have positive feelings towards a particular console?

I think that all of the new consoles are going to be awesome in there own way! Im personally more interested in the PS3 due to the game range that has been produced for previous Sony Consoles. I dont care if X360 has better graphics or not! I think the competition between the consoles is absolutely fantastic for the Future of gaming, pushing technology forward. All of these consoles are gonna be better than anything we have seen before.

FFS stop Bashing people just because they think one of the consoles is gonna be great!

[sebastard]

Whether or not the PS3 is capable of pulling this stuff off is immaterial. I really hope it is capable, of course. But for Sony to throw up a rendered video of a game that the Killzone 2 devs would really like to try and make is dishonest. Regardless of the truth about the product, manipulative marketing like that is always dishonest, and should always be frowned upon.

Are you really that naive guy? That's what marketing is. It's about selling image. It has always, and will always be like that.

Ever see a McDonalds ad? The burger doesn't look like that. Ever pick up, oh ANY MAGAZINE IN THE WORLD? The people on the cover are airbrushed. Every ad in the magazine is airbrushed (yeah I know, it's done digitally now, but it's the same idea).

Most people know this, so you're not "pulling back the curtain" for the rest of the ignorant world to see, by the way.. You take it in stride.. You're basically saying "the sky is blue people??? Am I the only one who sees it? Look up for god's sake!!!"

I will say it again, for probably the 10th time in these forums: The hardware is year away, you are all being un-realstic. Market pressure dictated that Sony had to release specs and info at E3, which they did.

And let's be honest, if Sony had decided not to show anything at E3, because they wanted to wait for final hardware and reliable real-time demos, the same lot of you who are complaining about the rendered demos would have been LOSING YOUR MINDS about Sony's mistake of not showing anything at E3..

sigh..

[Dirty Harry]

Are you really that naive guy? That's what marketing is. It's about selling image. It has always, and will always be like that.

Ever see a McDonalds ad? The burger doesn't look like that. Ever pick up, oh ANY MAGAZINE IN THE WORLD? The people on the cover are airbrushed. Every ad in the magazine is airbrushed (yeah I know, it's done digitally now, but it's the same idea).

Most people know this, so you're not "pulling back the curtain" for the rest of the ignorant world to see, by the way.. You take it in stride.. You're basically saying "the sky is blue people??? Am I the only one who sees it? Look up for god's sake!!!"

I will say it again, for probably the 10th time in these forums: The hardware is year away, you are all being un-realstic. Market pressure dictated that Sony had to release specs and info at E3, which they did.

And let's be honest, if Sony had decided not to show anything at E3, because they wanted to wait for final hardware and reliable real-time demos, the same lot of you who are complaining about the rendered demos would have been LOSING YOUR MINDS about Sony's mistake of not showing anything at E3..

sigh..
so basically take everyones general reaction to nintendos approach and multiply times the size of your waist :P?

[president_fred]

I declare a faceoff. I can see it now: In the right couch wearing a star trek shirt and xbox cap the great destroyer from his parents basement... etc..
Both consoles will be great. In fact I have it on good authority that the PS3 comes with out of the box "cure for cancer" and the 360 has the ability to "create money on demand" so there you go. Either choice if you are only choosing one seems allright but I would recommend both as getting cancer when you are filthy rich can be quite inconvenient.

[bobbler]

Some of you are nutjobs.

Something someone said a while ago comes to mind, it went something like this:

You guys talk about consoles like they're sports teams

[chechenepiphany]

Some of you are nutjobs.

Something someone said a while ago comes to mind, it went something like this:
heh, welcome to the age of electronic mccarthyism

[Kelegacy]

If Sony can't deliver a secure and stable online service, then I see no reason to invest in a PS3.

Is online gaming the only thing? No. If no other console besides MS offered an online service this round, but continued to put out great games, then i could give a rat's ass. That's like saying that if the Revolution doesnt have Metroid, I'm not buying it. There are always other factors that even out the gaming experience.

Maybe I'm just a little put off that people have replaced online gaming as their most important thing on the consoles. Fuck, it's been around forever on the PC so maybe that's why I just not so excited about it on the consoles--i've BEEN there long before now. Yes, it doesnt have the streamlined Live features--this i know--but it's still online gaming, sans the glitter and lube.

[Kelegacy]

Thus far, I count three Sony fanboys in this topic who are completly ignoring everything that has been said.

I can count many, many more of the other variety of fanboy that seem to enjoy spitting at sony, pulling out their hair and screaming "foul" at the skies until their lungs bleed.

You ignore alot of things too my friend. Like the fact that though you point fingers at others for being guilty of fanboyism...you should be pointing in the mirror as well.

[ElectricMonk]

I actually thought this article was neat, and he didn't dodge questions any more than an ms guy would. I'd like to see the terrain-rendering video.

I think the ultimate console might be a huge pile of parallel processors.

maybe in 10 years when cells are $5 to each this will happen.

[mister_slim]

Dodging questions? Have you guys ever read an interview with Fils-Aimes or Bach?

[Eon]

At the end of the day E3 is just an excuse for all the usual suspects on here to trot out the same opinions that they had before hand, untramelled by sense or reason.

Some of you don't like Sony. Alright I GET it. Don't buy a PS3 then - more and more the industry is less and less about people like you. Sony started that process and if I was going to play dimestore Psychologist, I'd say that's where your irrational hatred started.

Either way, games are going to get better than they were / are and we're all going to have lots of fun. Now, if you want to argue about something with passion go get interested in politics and maybe make a difference to the world, hmmm?