PSM: Five Ways the Playstation 3 Will Change Games

[yankee lion]

Five Ways the Playstation 3 Will Change Games

...Not every game will do this stuff, but the ability to will still exist for game makers with the time and creativity to tap into it. Let's take a look at just a few of the new gameplay experiences that PS3 will make possible

1. The End of the "disappearing act"

In theory: Everything that happens in or to the game world will be persistent.

In Action: You break it, it stays broken. You kill'em, they pile up. Even when you go back to previously visited areas later in teh game, you'll see that path of destruction you've left behind - enemies may even have decomposed or trees rotted. you definitely won't have to ask yourself "Have I been through this area before?"

2. Great minds think alike

In Theory: Enemies will react to what your character does and the situation they're in more realistically than ever. In fact, they'll be able to be nearly as smart and adaptive as the player.

In action: Enemies will run out of ammo and ditch their gun for another one- maybe even a better one. Maybe the gun you were hoping to grab. They might also dash for the same ammo pick-up available to you, abandoning their cover and opening them up for a clearere shot. Remeber shooting out lights and using night visiosn goggles to sneak up on enemies? Now they'll use that trick, too... so you'll have to make sure you can see in the dark as well.

3. Uncanned animation

In Theory: Motion capturing and traditional frame-by-frame character animation will give way to "smart" actiosn that take the character's physical attributes and their surroundings into account.

In action: If you're playing a platformer, your character will never leap or land using exactly the same animation twice. They'll "know" if they're exhausted from running and start to show it by a change in their stride. In a basketball game, the ball will never look like it's connected to your player's hand by a rubber band; in Madden, players will "know" their uniforms are dirty and brush themselves off at the line of scrimmage. Enemies wont' always fall down teh same way when shot, but they won't flail around like rag dolls either, if they're standing by a rail, for example, they'll "know" to try and grab it with one or both hands if you throw them over it. Even if they hang on, you can shoot their hands.

4. Never been there, never seen that

In theory: The immese capacity of Blu-Ray discs will overcome the limitations of even dual layer DVD and enable artisits to create game environments that never look repetitious. Their only limitations will be the amount of time they have to actually create objects and textures.

In Action: Games will be able to have many more types of environments, and more variety within each of them, without having to the areas in teh game any smaller to comensate. Objects won't just break; the extra room for textures on the disc will allow for almost limitless states of appearance - scorched, cracked, chipped, scratched. Heck, even sand that can turn to glass under the heat of a rocket thruster.

5. Interacting in newer, better ways

In theory: More processing power will take the capabilities of the EyeToy and voice recognition to new levels.

In Action: Your role-playing hero is having a heart-to-heart talk with their love interest. Only they're actually talking to and seeing you. Will you sound confident or cowardly? Have a happy face or a plain one? The very inflection of your voice and look on your face will determine his or her reaction. IN squad-based military games, when your team's back is up against a wall and the enemy's just aroudn the corner, you'll actually have to whisper your plan of attack to prevent being overheard= and that plan of attack can be very specific. "You, run across the street and take cover behind the red car!"

There is a picture and caption to number 5. It says, Sony is already working on a PS3 game called Eyedentify that combines advanced voice and face recognition. In it, you control a duo of crime fighting females that react realistically to your commands, tone of voice, and facial expressions.

Every Game Should Do This

We're not game developersm, and we dont' pretend to fully understand all of the hardships involved in making games, but as gamers, we know what we want - nay, demand - from our next-gernation games. Fair or not, the customer is always right, so listen up, developers!

60 Frames Per Second, Standard

A high frame rate can make an incredible difference in a game, especially fast-moving racing games and first-person shooters. It provides extra-smooth control and solid, quality feel. if triple-A PS2 titles like GT4 and God of War can run at 60fps, then why should we settle for anything less on PS3? If a trade-off has to be made, we'd gladly swap the last 5% of backround detail for a more enjoyable overall feel to the gameplay.

No Load Times

Since we're still dealing with disc-based games, we'll settle for "much improved" load times. Even though PS3 games will need to load up more polygons, more detailed textures and so on, BD-ROM will allow everything to constantly stream from the disc so we don't have to sit around staring at progress bars any more.

In-Game Memory Card Management

We've all done it - you play a game for, like, half an hour, only to find out that you don't have enough room left on your memory card to save. All you can do is reboot to the PS2's main menu and loose all of your hard work. Games need to let players access their memory card files from within the game. That way, you could quickly clear some space, save and continue playing.

Sleep Mode

Handhelds like the PSP and the Nintendo DS have this, and it's about time that consoles offer it, too. For too long, players have been unfairly penalized for having to stop their game. Something comes up, you've gotta run, but no - you're stuck searching for a save point or else you'll have to redo everything you've just accomplished. Game makers should recognize that players shouldn't be beholden to their games by inculding a sleep mode that will allow us to easily save our place at a moment's notice.

http://forums.e-mpire.com/showthread.php?t=46890

[Xtreme $niper]

Mmmm I don't see how they can confirm most of this, especially sleep mode? It's possible I suppose but who says they'll do it?

[icecaveman]

OK most of this is just generic for ALL games on any platform, PCs, Xbox etc...

BTW how COULD they keep EVERYTHING persistent without a HDD?

but whatever this really has nothing to do with games since this has in no way been proofen and given Sony's past of lies you should take these statements with a great caution.

[reveries]

^ exactly.

[jerry]

Five Ways we think PS3 will change games. :unsure:

[reveries]

always 'talk' about how gaming has changed before they release a new console.

[yankee lion]

Guys, it's obviously speculation, and yes, it applies to all next-gen gaming. It's just that PSM wrote it so they have to label it with PS3 because it's a PS magazine.

[Brandon Live Veteran]

How is any of that (other than the bluray comment) specific to the PS3?

Kind of a joke. They must have nothing else to write about.

Regarding levels not being repetitive thanks to BluRay, that's misdirection. The challenge in interesting level design and the length of a game has virtually nothing to do with limits imposed by the size of a dual-layer DVD. It's almost entirely a matter of development time and effort.

The way to overcome that problem isn't with more space. It's with better tools, more code reuse, and more money+developers+time. I think Microsoft gets that. Given the closeness of the hardware platform (and in my opinion, advantage to the Xbox 360), the real battle will be won in software. And to be honest, I don't really think Sony even stands a chance on that battlefield.

[ienhz]

"2. Great minds think alike

In Theory: Enemies will react to what your character does and the situation they're in more realistically than ever. In fact, they'll be able to be nearly as smart and adaptive as the player.

In action: Enemies will run out of ammo and ditch their gun for another one- maybe even a better one. Maybe the gun you were hoping to grab. They might also dash for the same ammo pick-up available to you, abandoning their cover and opening them up for a clearere shot. Remeber shooting out lights and using night visiosn goggles to sneak up on enemies? Now they'll use that trick, too... so you'll have to make sure you can see in the dark as well."

I don't see how the PS3, specifically, will just suddenly make this possible. Correct me if I'm wrong, but don't enemies run on programmed AI (meaning it's not hardware dependant)?

[Eaten By A Grue]

Given the closeness of the hardware platform (and in my opinion, advantage to the Xbox 360), the real battle will be won in software.  And to be honest, I don't really think Sony even stands a chance on that battlefield.

586682914[/snapback]

Despite the fact Sony has shown little to nothing up to this point? I would wait until the end of this month or E3 2006 to make such assumptions.

[IK47]

Five ways the PS3 will damage the gaming industry:

1. Introduce a high-demand console which people can barely afford. Not only will the PS3 devastate people's savings, but will leave them with little or no money to buy games and accessories.

2. Insist that developers make use of all the PS3's countless features. Coding a game would take ages, and make the price for developing the game much higher than one for the PS2. The prices of individual games will be very high. Not only that, but few games will be developed for the PS3, making it's appeal lower.

3. Being prone to be outdated. The PS3 has alot of high tech inside. From the BluRay drive to the Cell processor, the PS3 is loaded. However, with today's technology, a cheaper, more powerful graphical vehicle or a better, more popular media might be introduced. If this happens, Sony will have to stick with all it's current technology for at least 7 years. Keep in mind that when psone was introduced, it was more powerful than anything out. This was also the case with the PS2, bar the dreamcast. However, the PS3 is not much more powerful than the most powerful PC GPU. This will affect the technological rank of the PS3 deeply.

4. Piracy. With the price of games rising, and the quality of games sinking, piracy is encouraged. Piracy is appealling to everyone, especailly to those who just spent hundreds on their PS3. If Piracy is high, then how can Sony make money? Then how can developers make money and be encouraged to make more games?

5. Competition. I have seen the Xbox360, and it's capabilities. I have also seen some of the NR, and was also imressed. Both of these consoles are innovative. Either they improve on the previous version's traits, or introduce new features with are quite pleasing. The PS3 on the other hand doesn't show anything new. It appears to be a turbocharged PS2, which is not very impressive at all. How can the gaming industry grow if the manufacturer of the biggest console line isn't thinking clearly?

[crazy@5$]

They've got to be joking, right?

They're making it sound like every game on PS3 is going to be amazing because of the hardware capabilities. It's all up to developers to decide how good the game is going to be.

Besides all of this is already capable on the PC and probably the Xbox

[Brandon Live Veteran]

Despite the fact Sony has shown little to nothing up to this point?  I would wait until the end of this month or E3 2006 to make such assumptions.

586683057[/snapback]

My opinion, while probably biased, is based on the histories of both companies. Microsoft knows software. And Microsoft learns fast. That's why I love it here :)

On one hand, I see a relentless force of nature that never settles for second best. On the other hand, I see a company in financial trouble and cutting jobs that sells 18 different and incompatible "Memory Stick" products and obsesses over media formats.

But that's just my view, I could certainly be wrong.

[Doli]

Five ways the PS3 will damage the gaming industry:

1.  Introduce a high-demand console which people can barely afford.  Not only will the PS3 devastate people's savings, but will leave them with little or no money to buy games and accessories.

586683126[/snapback]

think about the price of the Xbox when it came out, it sounded more like a computer package than a game system with the high prices bundles.

1. The End of the "disappearing act"

In theory: Everything that happens in or to the game world will be persistent.

In Action: You break it, it stays broken. You kill'em, they pile up. Even when you go back to previously visited areas later in teh game, you'll see that path of destruction you've left behind - enemies may even have decomposed or trees rotted. you definitely won't have to ask yourself "Have I been through this area before?"

Thats been done, hell im seeing it now when i play Silent Hill 3 (still a good looking game without needing a beefy computer... my cheap stab at game develovers who demand super computers to play their games....some of them dont look as good as SH3)

[yankee lion]

Five ways the PS3 will damage the gaming industry:

1.  Introduce a high-demand console which people can barely afford.  Not only will the PS3 devastate people's savings, but will leave them with little or no money to buy games and accessories.

2.  Insist that developers make use of all the PS3's countless features.  Coding a game would take ages, and make the price for developing the game much higher than one for the PS2.  The prices of individual games will be very high.  Not only that, but few games will be developed for the PS3, making it's appeal lower.

3.  Being prone to be outdated.  The PS3 has alot of high tech inside.  From the BluRay drive to the Cell processor, the PS3 is loaded.  However, with today's technology, a cheaper, more powerful graphical vehicle or a better, more popular media might be introduced.  If this happens, Sony will have to stick with all it's current technology for at least 7 years.  Keep in mind that when psone was introduced, it was more powerful than  anything out.  This was also the case with the PS2, bar the dreamcast.  However, the PS3 is not much more powerful than the most powerful PC GPU.  This will affect the technological rank of the PS3 deeply.

4.  Piracy.  With the price of games rising, and the quality of games sinking, piracy is encouraged.  Piracy is appealling to everyone, especailly to those who just spent hundreds on their PS3.  If Piracy is high, then how can Sony make money?  Then how can developers make money and be encouraged to make more games?

5.  Competition.  I have seen the Xbox360, and it's capabilities.  I have also seen some of the NR, and was also imressed.  Both of these consoles are innovative.  Either they improve on the previous version's traits, or introduce new features with are quite pleasing.  The PS3 on the other hand doesn't show anything new.  It appears to be a turbocharged PS2, which is not very impressive at all.  How can the gaming industry grow if the manufacturer of the biggest console line isn't thinking clearly?

586683126[/snapback]

1. Price has not been announced.

2. Proof? And its' better to insist that the developers make use of all the features than let them do they're own thing only to come out with halfassed launch titles (You cannot argue that some of those games don't look like they're from XBOX) like Microsoft did. Sony pretty much has the Japanese 3rd party market in it's hards except for one or two companies (Team NINJA). And hey, who makes more games, the Japanese or the rest of the world?

3. PS3 is more technologicly advanced than the 360... which makes the 360 more prone to be outdated.

4. Piracy is the same for the 360?

5. Er... 1. PS3 and its' feature haven't been fully announced yet, I don't really think you can accurately say what its' capabilities are. 2. NR is impressive, it's going a totally different direction from the 360 and Microsoft. 3. Please don't underestimate Kutaragi. Sony, on their first crack at a console totally outdid Nintendo and Sega. The next gen Sony killed Sega and brought Nintendos sales to a fifth of theirs. 4. I will agree 360 roxxors at the software, but it is to be expected, Microsoft is a software company, eh?

[yankee lion]

BS

At best it's equal.  At best.

586683778[/snapback]

You can argue that the processors and GPUs are the same, but Bluray > DVD and that's the major aging factor in the 360.

[Brandon Live Veteran]

3. PS3 is more technologicly advanced than the 360...

586683679[/snapback]

BS

At best it's equal. At best.

[Brandon Live Veteran]

You can argue that the processors and GPUs are the same, but Bluray > DVD and that's the major aging factor in the 360.

586683790[/snapback]

I'd argue that the X360 has a better GPU and a better overall architecture for games.

I'd say Bluray is a small advantage for the PS3. But given the uncertainty of the Bluray vs HD-DVD battle, and the fact that BluRay will have little or no effect on actual games... I'm not too worried about it.

[yankee lion]

I'd argue that the X360 has a better GPU and a better overall architecture for games.

I'd say Bluray is a small advantage for the PS3.  But given the uncertainty of the Bluray vs HD-DVD battle, and the fact that BluRay will have little or no effect on actual games... I'm not too worried about it.

586683796[/snapback]

=)

You could, but final RSX specs arn't out yet lol. I wish Sony would just give it to us so we could have some kind of decent debate.

PS3 is supposed to have a ethernet port 10x faster than 360s? I heard that somewhere, I'm too tired to confirm it lol. And 1080i, with two outputs. That's some future proofing there. People thought that the CELL processor was going to cost $100, but now they're looking back and saying,"Hey... It could be $25 if Sony mass manufactures these." So there's a possibility of 2 CELLs in the PS3.

Actually many movie studios who were totally HD-DVD such as Paramount and Warner Bros are cracking and going both ways. Bluray has the support of Dell and HP and most of the major movie studios now, and as far as I'm concerned, it's pretty much over.

Bluray affecting games? No. Bluray selling PS3 consoles? Maybe.

Honestly, we don't have enough info for a good conversation. Maybe we should wait a bit then argue about which is better, huh?

[Hitman2000]

Everything mentioned in the article can be done on any console.

[Matrix XII]

A possibility of 2 Cells in one PS3? You're dreaming man..

[Noveed]

=)

You could, but final RSX specs arn't out yet lol. I wish Sony would just give it to us so we could have some kind of decent debate.

PS3 is supposed to have a ethernet port 10x faster than 360s? I heard that somewhere, I'm too tired to confirm it lol. And 1080i, with two outputs. That's some future proofing there. People thought that the CELL processor was going to cost $100, but now they're looking back and saying,"Hey... It could be $25 if Sony mass manufactures these." So there's a possibility of 2 CELLs in the PS3.

Actually many movie studios who were totally HD-DVD such as Paramount and Warner Bros are cracking and going both ways. Bluray has the support of Dell and HP and most of the major movie studios now, and as far as I'm concerned, it's pretty much over.

Bluray affecting games? No. Bluray selling PS3 consoles? Maybe.

Honestly, we don't have enough info for a good conversation. Maybe we should wait a bit then argue about which is better, huh?

586683840[/snapback]

RSX wont use unified - can we say its already outdated?

nVidia @ E3 : We will use unified when time is right

nVidia after E3 after release of 7800 series : unified is the way forward :whistle:

im not 100% sure on this again id need to find the articles again but maybe someone else knows this.

The Ethernet port may or may not be 10x faster but what use is it? it wont make the internet any faster? that depends on the net speed itself. And Router functions have been dropped by sony so now it wont act as a router either. About the 10x faster thing im very skeptic.

1080i future proof? Well yeah :p but only for the Rich and Elite of people

2 x Cell in PS3. Well i dont see that happening. Sony come out with quite a lot of BS and i doubt it will cost em $25 to make cell if they mass produce (if hey do enough it will but to begin with its a big NO NO) Maybe in PS3.5 but not before that

[Kerm]

If only.

[Brandon Live Veteran]

I think you meant 1080p, since the Xbox 360 also supports 1080i.

There is no specification for 1080p output. There are 1080p DLP sets, but they convert their inputs to that resolution (much as my 720p DLP set converts all inputs to 720p). So I think their claim that they support 1080p output is mostly smoke and mirrors.

In my opinion, if Sony launches the PS3 in the Spring (that is, without changing what we already know about the RSX chip), it will be inferior to the Xenos chip in the X360. It doesn't have unified shaders, it has fewer pipelines (although a direct comparison can't be made because of architectural differences, the Xenos seems to have the aggregate advantage here), it doesn't have the same access to CPU cache, and it most certainly doesn't have embedded memory with built-in AA logic.

[jerry]

PS3 is more technologicly advanced than the 360... which makes the 360 more prone to be outdated.

586683679[/snapback]

Looks like we have a Sony spokesperson. :rofl: :laugh: