360 & PS3 have equal power?

Author: Ryan Garside
Published: 1st November 2006
Comments (17) Digg Stumble
Too Human looks stunning and is certainly one of the most anticipated 360 titles of 2007.

Too Human looks stunning and is certainly one of the most anticipated 360 titles of 2007.

Dennis Dyak, President of Silicon Knights (the development company for upcoming 360 game Too Human) recently conducted an interview with the San Jose Mercury in which he claimed that:

"The 360 and the PS 3 are equal in power in my eyes. Maybe the PS 3 has more processing power. The 360 has more available memory. It's pretty much a net, net. The public perception of the PS 3 was that it was much more powerful. To developers, they look even."

Quite a shocking revelation; many gamers were expecting the PS3 to dwarf the capacities of the 360 however the indication now is that this won't be the case. We won't really be able to judge until we get our hands on both consoles and can compare them side by side.

The interview also had some other interesting comments: staff sizes for development studios have almost tripled with next-gen games and Dayak said costs are edging closer to "small budget movies". He also made this comment on high-definition gaming:

"It is questionable if there is a difference between 1080P and 720P. All of our games are likely to be 720P because of the faster refresh rates. There are all kinds of trade-offs. It takes a lot more RAM to do 1080P. You'll reserve RAM for the textures. 720P is just less pixels. There is definitely a huge difference from 720P and analog."

He also said he was glad that E3 was over, claiming it distracted developers. The big question however was who would win the next console war. Dyak's bum will be full of splinters as he sat firmly on the fence:

"It's a tough one. Microsoft is looking really good. Everyone is looking pretty good. At the beginning, everyone thought Sony would walk away with it. We won't know for sure for two years."

Will the PS3 be more powerful? Predictions in the forum please.
Quote oasked 1st November 2006, 11:04
This has been known for a while, I think other developers have commented on it. Each console might be better in particular areas, but when you add it all up, they're about equal. :)
Quote DougEdey 1st November 2006, 11:10
The only thing that PS3 had going for it really was the exclusive titles, but with MGS4 rumoured to be hitting 360 and 360 having a fair few big hitters under its belt which will never leave it seems like Sony are getting in trouble.
Quote Bindibadgi 1st November 2006, 11:40
It's entirely true. The PS3 has 256meg XDR rambus based memory and 256meg GDDR3. Despite the fact that the RSX can talk to the GDDR3 as well as XDR, being different speeds and memory sets means that using them both for texture memory is going to be exceptionally difficult to code for and it will fill the inter-buses with graphics IO rather than game IO. Even though Sony has made it easier to code for in C++ etc

I think we'll see a more massive extrapolation of the PS3s power in the next 2-5 years like Square has done with final fantasy, or the guys who made resident evils did with the cube. Moreso than the 360 which is "easier" despite the fact it's still a multicore/unified shader that's "new". It's still got pc-esq components.

I think this guy is right on the money with his opinions.
Quote Houck 1st November 2006, 12:15
Althrough the Xbox 360 games are way better :D
Quote Veles 1st November 2006, 12:37
Quote:
Originally Posted by Bindibadgi
Despite the fact that the RSX can talk to the GDDR3 as well as XDR, being different speeds and memory sets means that using them both for texture memory is going to be exceptionally difficult to code for

Yeah thats what I've heard, although the PS3 may have more processing power that the 360, it's meant to be a right bitch to program for.

The xbox 360 on the other hand is meant to be very easy to work with, Gears of War was originally meant to be an xbox title and it took them only a month or two to completely convert (not port) the game as it stood for the 360.
Quote riggs 1st November 2006, 12:47
So if they're generally almost equal in power, it's up to the consumer to decide whether or not it's worth paying the extra cash for the PS3 exclusive titles (and risking buying into the [not yet standard] Blu-Ray phenomenon).

I will end up getting one at some point (2nd hand, no doubt), for the exclusive titles I'll inevitably want to play.

imo though, they seriously need to stop all this BS hype - ok, so the vast majority of the public are idiots, and will believe anything you tell them, but surely they're gonna be pretty p**sed when they find out their hard-earned cash has essentially bought them a 360 equivelent, with a BR drive...even moreso if BR ends up redundant.

The PS3 will still sell in massive numbers - but that's not surprising when you consider the crap they feed Joe Public.
Quote TheSaladMan 1st November 2006, 13:02
I thought this had been known for quite a while now, hell the PS3 is such a bitch to program for that the Assassins Creed devs have come out and said that the AI is gonna be alot better on the 360.
Quote Chuff_72 1st November 2006, 13:22
Yeah, this news has been known a while, read a pretty damning report on the PS3 version of Oblivion on IGN, you should check it out, I read it with a kind of half grimace, half smirk (must have looked pretty weird!). The interview starts with a standard "We've been porting this game for ages already..." then the IGN guy starts asking the standard q's;

What new content is there?
A new 20hr quest.

Will this be available on the x360?
Yes

How have you improved the graphics?
They are the same as the 360, with some new shaders and the middle distance is now smoother.

How have you used the hard drive?
The same as the 360.

Will you be able to download content?
Not at the moment as we don't know how this will work!

Are you using the tilt function?
No.

Will the PSP have any conectivity?
No, sorry.

This piece of news lead me to finally purchase a 360 2 weeks ago.
Quote Bladestorm 1st November 2006, 13:46
As far as I know the designs for the major hardware parts were finalized at about the same time were they not ? I think we can assume that both would try and get away with as much power/heat as possible and using the same generation of technology, that isn't likely to differ too much, hideously expensive, almost impossible to leverage anywhere near the theoretical power of cell processors (so say, for example Epic megagames I believe) aside :)
Quote Bindibadgi 1st November 2006, 13:51
Quote:
Originally Posted by TheSaladMan
I thought this had been known for quite a while now, hell the PS3 is such a bitch to program for that the Assassins Creed devs have come out and said that the AI is gonna be alot better on the 360.

The fact is also, because it costs more to code for it, the dev teams will then charge more for the games for longer. The RSX chip is based on 7xxx technology too, so whilst the Cells are fantastically powerful, unless they do graphics as well (also a bitch to code for RSX and Cells to do the same thing) it can't be much/at all better graphically than the 360.
Quote Veles 1st November 2006, 15:22
What it all really comes down to in the end is the quantity of high quality games, Sony are in a bit of trouble here though because I've heard they havn't got that much support from developers, who'd much rather program for a easier machine, like the 360.

All this stuff about "ooo look at these fancy cell processors" doesn't mean anything if you've not got decent games to use them, the only use videos like riggs linked to is for developers, and I really doubt they're gonna be swayed by some buzzword bull****.
Quote DXR_13KE 1st November 2006, 15:27
people will buy the ps3 anyway.

"it it is expensive it is good because quality is not cheap"

but this is funny anyway.
Quote Bindibadgi 1st November 2006, 15:55
Quote:
Originally Posted by Veles
What it all really comes down to in the end is the quantity of high quality games, Sony are in a bit of trouble here though because I've heard they havn't got that much support from developers, who'd much rather program for a easier machine, like the 360.

All this stuff about "ooo look at these fancy cell processors" doesn't mean anything if you've not got decent games to use them, the only use videos like riggs linked to is for developers, and I really doubt they're gonna be swayed by some buzzword bull****.

Sony still have a lot of loyal Japanese developers who are willing to throw many man hours into games, that's their advantage.
Quote Neogumbercules 1st November 2006, 18:28
I'm not suprised he's glad E3 is over. Almost every developer is glad that's done with. Especially him, since Too Human got slammed last E3 because it was choppy and hard to play. He said the final product will be NOTHING like the E3 demo. Too Human is -THE- game I am looking forward to for 360, though.
Quote Warrior_Rocker 1st November 2006, 19:52
Its not how big your bus is, its how you use it. Or so my virtual girlfriend says.

In all seriousness though did anyone actually think the ps3 would be so many times more powerful than the 360? The ps3 after all was not all that powerful. Just when you code and develop specifically for it you can utilize the platform specific advantages.
Quote Veles 1st November 2006, 23:17
Quote:
Originally Posted by Bindibadgi
Sony still have a lot of loyal Japanese developers who are willing to throw many man hours into games, that's their advantage.

True, but alot of big name developers have splintered off from thier old companies and have signed exclusive deals with MS.

They can't really conquor europe and america without some big name western developers signing exclusives (like Rockstar, GTA games are always a big pull for customers), after all, the majority westerners wouldn't buy a JRPG unless it has Squaresoft on it, and many other japanese games never see the light of day over here.

But like many people have said, it will sell out just because it's called the PS3.
Quote Aankhen 2nd November 2006, 08:09
Quote:
Originally Posted by Veles
The xbox 360 on the other hand is meant to be very easy to work with, Gears of War was originally meant to be an xbox title and it took them only a month or two to completely convert (not port) the game as it stood for the 360.
Quote:
Originally Posted by TheSaladMan
I thought this had been known for quite a while now, hell the PS3 is such a bitch to program for that the Assassins Creed devs have come out and said that the AI is gonna be alot better on the 360.
[citation needed]

Yes, I've been looking at too many Wikipedia articles of late. :p
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