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Insomniac Chief Creative Officer Brian Hastings speaks out on the PS3

AltogetherAndrews said:
As much truth as there may be to this, I really wish developers would just stay the hell clear of participating in the console power showdown "the word" crap.

He doesn't have a right to voice what he believes because he's directly involved as a developer? That's what I read that as...

I think that all game industry folk have a right to participate in this "console power showdown" because it's their livelyhood. It's what puts dinner on the table and helps their families grow. They are the ones in the treches defending "their land". How could they not want to defend something they believe in and publicly if they chose to do so?

It's up to us, the ones who read their statements, to take any of it into consideration. If you only view their comments as being a "marketing tool" if it's pro whatever... then that is your opinion and that's fine. We should never tell these people that they need to stay out of it though.
 

theBishop

Banned
speculawyer said:
$70? . . . Oh really?

I've had enough . . . the PS3 has a lot of great points . . . but exaggerating & lying about the PS3 will be counter-productive, IMHO. Fight the negative press with good truth. Otherwise, you'll make matters worse, IMHO.

I think he was probably talking about this:
http://www.bestbuy.com/site/olspage.jsp?skuId=8003144&st=xbox+live&type=product&id=1155072369586

This is the actual "Starter Pack", rather than just a subscription card (which as he said, cost $50)
 
eudaemonic said:
He doesn't have a right to voice what he believes because he's directly involved as a developer? That's what I read that as...

I think that all game industry folk have a right to participate in this "console power showdown" because it's their livelyhood. It's what puts dinner on the table and helps their families grow. They are the ones in the treches defending "their land". How could they not want to defend something they believe in and publicly if they chose to do so?

It's up to us, the ones who read their statements, to take any of it into consideration. If you only view their comments as being a "marketing tool" if it's pro whatever... then that is your opinion and that's fine. We should never tell these people that they need to stay out of it though.
i think what Andrews is saying is that developers with a blatant stake in one console or another are better off not writing gaf style rants about the doom or lack of doom of any given console, and i fully agree with him.

not that he doesn't have a right to defend the PS3, but that nothing he says makes a difference to the success of the system and that it just drags down people's opinion of him for making such comments.
 

Chiggs

Member
It's a pretty sad when a developer has to come out and say something like this. If the PS3 is so dominant, so unstoppable, and so amazing, why the hell do you need to tell us? Wouldn't we already know?
 

Eteric Rice

Member
Emowii said:
Yeah, I just finished reading the entire blog post.

While he does present a lot of reasons why the PS3 will succeed in the future, he does a great job of explaining exactly how the PS3 was built to compete for the long haul. It's quite a compelling argument when you see each of his points broken down.


I have to say I agree with most of his points. But then again, it's not like this is all new information. It's all been there in front of our faces, but I think it's just a matter of thinking about the long haul. The PS3 has all of it's bases covered, and I dont' think anyone can really argue against that.

Meanwhile the 360 is already about to undergo it's first hardware revision, and I think thats fine, but the unfortunate thing for Microsoft is that some of the 360 hardware choices are not fixable with a simple revision. You can't make the processors any more powerful, and you can't easily make every game use the harddrive, and you can't make your discs suddenly 50gb.

Then you've got the bluray movie abilities of the PS3. We all know about this, and the truth is that it seems Bluray has already won. No, it's not 100% definite at this point, but it sure seems like it could be by Christmas. If, and when that happens, the PS3 has a major leg up as it's suddenly housing the defacto movie format for the next 5-10 years.

So, in all honesty, if I were asked by a friend which game system should I buy if i'm considering the true "big picture", I would have to answer the PS3. I love my 360 just as much as the next guy, but i'm under no illusions that it's lifespan is gonna be anywhere near the PS3.

I think that's the difference between most of us. Some see this generation as lasting 10 years, I see it as lasting 5. For me, it's pretty much over when the first console drops out. Like, lets say the Gamecube finally passes up the XBox this month, I still would consider X-Box the second place console.

And before someone brings up the Dreamcast, I don't really consider that one part of the last generation. It was sort of "in between." It was weird. :p
 

chemicals

Member
Wow.. all I have to say is that I feel bad for Insomniac. It must be embarrasing to realize that you employ such idiotic people. That list is just dumb. Casino Royale landing in the Amazon top 10 means NOTHING. Get real.
 

The Jer

Member
oo Kosma oo said:
Actually re-reading the entire thing I think it's funny how he stresses the fact that the PS3 will win in the end.
I don't think he ever claims this.

oo Kosma oo said:
1.In 2/3 years PS3 games will have advantage over 360 games graphically.
or this
Brian Hastings said:
The GPUs on the Xbox 360 and PS3 are roughly equivalent, with the Xbox 360 arguably having a slight edge.

oo Kosma oo said:
2. PS3 market leader by 2010.
or this

oo Kosma oo said:
5. In the future the PS3 will have a broader games library then the 360

or this.
 
eudaemonic said:
He doesn't have a right to voice what he believes because he's directly involved as a developer? That's what I read that as...

I think that all game industry folk have a right to participate in this "console power showdown" because it's their livelyhood. It's what puts dinner on the table and helps their families grow. They are the ones in the treches defending "their land". How could they not want to defend something they believe in and publicly if they chose to do so?

It's up to us, the ones who read their statements, to take any of it into consideration. If you only view their comments as being a "marketing tool" if it's pro whatever... then that is your opinion and that's fine. We should never tell these people that they need to stay out of it though.

No. Well, of course they have the right to do so, but I for one do not like it much. As developers, what earns their keep is the games that they produce. Regardless of which console the developer is exclusive to, that's their contribution to this "war". Now, I'm sure he's spot on in quite a few of the points he makes (especially the Cell point), but I would much prefer it if developers simply shut up and showed us this with their games. Prove to me that the Cell is all that a bag of crisps by utilizing in an OMFG way. There are enough PR tools for all these companies as is, and developers should stay focused on what really matters here: their games.
 

Link316

Banned
from my own experience I agree with #7, my sis bought a DS last summer for Big Brain Academy, she got bored with it after just 2 days and haven't touch the DS or bought any other games for it since then
 
Insomniac said:
Granted, some really great Xbox 360 games have squeezed onto a DVD9. Gears of War is a beautiful game and shows off the highest resolution textures of anything yet released, partly because of the Unreal Engine’s ability to stream textures. This means that you can have much higher resolution textures than you could normally fit in your 512 MB of RAM. It also means that you’re going to chew up more disc space for each level. With streamed textures, streamed geometry and streamed audio, even with compression, you can quickly approach 1 GB of data per level. That inherently limits you to a maximum of about 7 levels, and that’s without multiplayer levels or mpeg cutscenes.

InterMoniker said:
If this doesn't make you believe Blu-ray is needed, I don't know what will. Jebus this guy debunks all the FUD in one looooong post. It's nothing you wouldn't already know if you've looked into some of these false allegations toward the PS3, and have a morsel of common sense.

Just my 2 cents.

Mass Effect with 7 levels, no cinemas and no voice-acting CONFIRMED. :lol

Someone really needs to post the wtfisthisshit.jpg

Stinkles said:
I think 360 is awesome.

How did I miss this? :lol
 
2wpht9s.jpg

"This thread makes my life a lot harder."
 

MonkeyLicker

Art does not make 60FPS @ 1080i with real world physics on the PSf*ckin2.
Glad to see his team could muster enough strength to work on the considerably weaker PS2 last gen.
The guys a real trooper....
 

Oblivion

Fetishing muscular manly men in skintight hosery
It reads like an average GAF post.

Here's the thing about the Wii though, that so many people can't seem to grasp for whatever reason. It's totally possible that Wii may be a fad and will die out soon. But the question is, when will it do that? And when it does, by then how much support has been already shifted? Publishers are going to take notice. And then the whole cycle starts again, userbase > games > userbase.
 
The Faceless Master said:
i wish he fleshed out the PSN vs Live more with a discussion on host advantage in Gears vs dedicated servers in Resistance

Like I said, I would've loved to have read some of his specific perspective (like that) than what he chose to talk about.
 

reilo

learning some important life lessons from magical Negroes
dog$ said:
Yeah this sounds like a typical laundry list. Let's flush out the typical responses.
1. nobody cares about myspace PS3 and only Nintendo makes good platformers.
2. XBL service is superior.
3. Lazy programmers FTL.
4. I care about games, not movies.
5. HDTV is still niche and nobody knows how to hook the cords up.
6. Which will still fail.
7. LOL FUD FUD THEY SAID THE SAME THING ABOUT THE DS PRINTSMONEY.GIF
8. And half the RAM.
9. Which means people still aren't buying the PS3, lol.
10. Not Everyone has Five Hundred Ninety Nine Dollars to spend moron.

There we go.

Let's see what comes up.

:lol :lol :lol
 
Chiggs said:
It's a pretty sad when a developer has to come out and say something like this. If the PS3 is so dominant, so unstoppable, and so amazing, why the hell do you need to tell us? Wouldn't we already know?

Probably not. In part because we haven't really seen much utilization of the specific strengths of the system (cell, BR), and in part because even when we do, we tend to fashion a blind spot to strengths that go beyond surface qualities such as texture detail. I see people dog on Resistance all the time, using the odd weak texture as "proof" that the technology just isn't all that. Of course, if you bother taking into consideration things like scale, battlefield density and physics, it might not appear so weak after all. But those aren't surface qualities and can't be well showcased in a static screen, so said strengths are often brushed aside.
 

le.phat

Member
Eteric Rice said:
Here's some truth.

If you don't get momentum early on, third parties will move on and forget you. It happened to the Gamecube, and it could happen to the PS3.

I don't care about Blu-Ray, HDDs, or STDs, if you don't get the momentum, you don't get the games. They can still turn this around, but it seems unlikely.


there are no golden rules in this industry. psone had a poor launch and 2 lousy follow up years. look how that turned out.
 

Smokey

Member
1. Home & Little Big Planet
2. Free Online
3. 50 GB games
4. Casino Royale
5. HDMI
6. Standard HDD
7. The Wii Fad Will Fade
8. PS3 Has a Major CPU Advantage
9. PS2 still outselling 360
10. Something For Everyone

I disagree with the bold items:

1.) LBP will be awesome but I don't see it reaching the amount of mass appeal that everybody believes(outside of hardcore gamers). I'm sorry I don't see it.

2.) Free online? Ok yeah it's free and I'll give him the no lag argument(I love playing Resistance and Motorstorm with no lag), but the fact remains there is A LOT more stuffon XBL then PSN:

1. Movies
2. TV shows
3. Many many more arcade games
4. UNIVERSAL ******* friends list
5. Ability to have a conversation with a friend while playing different games or doing anything on your system.
6. Headset included in every Premium box
7. Way more demos of games

I just listed 7 reasons why XBL is superior. You get what you pay for.

4.) Ok I DO NOT CARE ABOUT MOVIES. Seriously. This has no impact on gaming whatsoever.

7.) See Nintendo DS vs PSP. Uh huh. Nothing even needs to be said here.

9.) It is $129.99 good GOD. It doesn't take a rocket scientist to figure out WHY it is outselling the 360. Sony shutup about this(yes Insomniac is Sony I don't care what they say). Please. It is getting annoying.

10.) $599.99 is not for everyone. Sorry. Last I checked the majority of games on PS3 were also on 360 and the ones that weren't aren't exactly aimed at kids. Very weak argument here.


I can't believe I just did all of that. In fact, I think I'll send this to him and see if he responds.
 

Kintaro

Worships the porcelain goddess
chemicals said:
Wow.. all I have to say is that I feel bad for Insomniac. It must be embarrasing to realize that you employ such idiotic people. That list is just dumb. Casino Royale landing in the Amazon top 10 means NOTHING. Get real.

Actually, it might mean something.

http://www.highdefdigest.com/news/show/Sony/Disc_Sales/Casino_Royale_Blu-ray_Breaks_100,000_Unit_Milestone/544

Casino Royale BR has shipped over 100k units in only 9 months into the format's life. In comparison, the first DVD to ship 100k units was Air Force One, which was 11 months into DVD's life.

Since this forum LOVES to throw around numbers... BR is moving. You can bet PS3 is a major part of that.
 

felipeko

Member
le.phat said:
there are no golden rules in this industry. psone had a poor launch and 2 lousy follow up years. look how that turned out.
But it had an early start and was cheaper to produce for...
 
Smokey Bones said:
2.) Free online? Ok yeah it's free and I'll give him the no lag argument(I love playing Resistance and Motorstorm with no lag), but the fact remains there is A LOT more stuffon XBL then PSN:

1. Movies
2. TV shows
3. Many many more arcade games
4. UNIVERSAL ******* friends list
5. Ability to have a conversation with a friend while playing different games or doing anything on your system.
6. Headset included in every Premium box
7. Way more demos of games

I just listed 7 reasons why XBL is superior. You get what you pay for.

4.) Ok I DO NOT CARE ABOUT MOVIES. Seriously. This has no impact on gaming whatsoever.

Right on, mate
 
AltogetherAndrews said:
Probably not. In part because we haven't really seen much utilization of the specific strengths of the system (cell, BR), and in part because even when we do, we tend to fashion a blind spot to strengths that go beyond surface qualities such as texture detail.
you raise something that i think is a problem with Cell and BR. it's going to be hard to demonstrate to someone that a game couldn't fit on a DVD even when it can't just because you can't see it in screenshots, or in video, or in 5 minutes with the game.

cell is going to enable more complex simulations, but it's going to take an extreme example of that for people to take notice of it even when the games do contain better accurate AI and physics.

it's going to be interesting to see people like Insomniac and Naughty Dog demonstrate those advantages. i hope they can.
 

captive

Joe Six-Pack: posting for the common man
Smokey Bones said:
1. Home & Little Big Planet
2. Free Online
3. 50 GB games
4. Casino Royale
5. HDMI
6. Standard HDD
7. The Wii Fad Will Fade
8. PS3 Has a Major CPU Advantage
9. PS2 still outselling 360
10. Something For Everyone

I disagree with the bold items:

1.) LBP will be awesome but I don't see it reaching the amount of mass appeal that everybody believes(outside of hardcore gamers). I'm sorry I don't see it.

2.) Free online? Ok yeah it's free and I'll give him the no lag argument(I love playing Resistance and Motorstorm with no lag), but the fact remains there is A LOT more stuffon XBL then PSN:

1. Movies
2. TV shows
3. Many many more arcade games
4. UNIVERSAL ******* friends list
5. Ability to have a conversation with a friend while playing different games or doing anything on your system.
6. Headset included in every Premium box
7. Way more demos of games

I just listed 7 reasons why XBL is superior. You get what you pay for.

4.) Ok I DO NOT CARE ABOUT MOVIES. Seriously. This has no impact on gaming whatsoever.

7.) See Nintendo DS vs PSP. Uh huh. Nothing even needs to be said here.

9.) It is $129.99 good GOD. It doesn't take a rocket scientist to figure out WHY it is outselling the 360. Sony shutup about this(yes Insomniac is Sony I don't care what they say). Please. It is getting annoying.

10.) $599.99 is not for everyone. Sorry. Last I checked the majority of games on PS3 were also on 360 and the ones that weren't aren't exactly aimed at kids. Very weak argument here.


I can't believe I just did all of that. In fact, I think I'll send this to him and see if he responds.
Good post, would read again A++++
 
sonycowboy said:
Genesis had no early momentum
Playstation had no early momentum
They got momentum before their major competitors did.
Xbox had no early momentum
And ended up alongside GameCube, 100 million behind PS2.
DS had no early momentum
N64 had early momentum
I don't think you can have both here. They both sold great right away, it's just that DS picked back up from the post-launch lull in a big way.
PSP had early momentum
Less than its competitor.
 

Eteric Rice

Member
plagiarize said:
you raise something that i think is a problem with Cell and BR. it's going to be hard to demonstrate to someone that a game couldn't fit on a DVD even when it can't just because you can't see it in screenshots, or in video, or in 5 minutes with the game.

cell is going to enable more complex simulations, but it's going to take an extreme example of that for people to take notice of it even when the games do contain better accurate AI and physics.

it's going to be interesting to see people like Insomniac and Naughty Dog demonstrate those advantages. i hope they can.

Not to mention that even with this extra power, developers are still limited by time and budget. If they don't have the time to make that kind of simulation, they might not have the money, etc.

There will always be limits, unfortunately.
 

Ranger X

Member
To a developer, an optional hard drive is roughly equivalent to no hard drive at all.

I share this opinion. That's exactly what i was saying in some other thread before and i've been seriously flammed for it.

I think the guy is wrong about the Wii though.
The DS was marketed with the touch screen and it was all the buzz. Today nobody gives a stinking shit about the touchscreen anymore and the DS still sell more than the PSP. Why? price.
Same logic with the Wii. The Wii Remote will lose it's novelty and the Wii will still sell crazy because it's sold cheap.
 

ROFL

Hail Britannia
plagiarize said:
i think what Andrews is saying is that developers with a blatant stake in one console or another are better off not writing gaf style rants about the doom or lack of doom of any given console, and i fully agree with him.

not that he doesn't have a right to defend the PS3, but that nothing he says makes a difference to the success of the system and that it just drags down people's opinion of him for making such comments.

I'm not so sure if you can always make that assumption. Sometimes jumping into the spotlight with a bit of controversial mouthing off can work in your favour by getting you attention (good OR bad). For example no matter what Quentin Tarantino says or does, he still seems to be able retain a certain degree of cool factor by consistently producing (relatively) cool films... Oliver Stone on the other hand......
 

shpankey

not an idiot
sonycowboy said:
Genesis had no early momentum
Playstation had no early momentum
Xbox had no early momentum
DS had no early momentum

I guess you're theory is all shot to hell.
being around during all of these launches, i disagree.


Genesis has early momentum by beating SNES out of the gates.

Playstation [can't even believe you listed this] had MASSIVE early momentum due to insane media hype bc of games like Resident Evil, Warhawk, NFL Gameday, Ridge Racer, Doom, etc.

Xbox had early momentum... Halo!

DS attatined its momentum with some games like Brain Age and the dog simulator and then again with the redesign.
 

antiloop

Member
There is so much truth in there but IMO he shouldn't involve himself in the stupid fanboy war. Some points could have been left out.

2.) Free online? Ok yeah it's free and I'll give him the no lag argument(I love playing Resistance and Motorstorm with no lag), but the fact remains there is A LOT more stuffon XBL then PSN:

1. Movies
2. TV shows
3. Many many more arcade games
4. UNIVERSAL ******* friends list
5. Ability to have a conversation with a friend while playing different games or doing anything on your system.
6. Headset included in every Premium box
7. Way more demos of games

I just listed 7 reasons why XBL is superior. You get what you pay for.

4.) Ok I DO NOT CARE ABOUT MOVIES. Seriously. This has no impact on gaming whatsoever.

You go on and on with how much content there is on XBL and then you are saying movies don't matter to gaming? Most of that XBL content (and features) won't improve my online gaming experience one bit.
 

Rengoku

Member
Falagard said:
"This means that you can have much higher resolution textures than you could normally fit in your 512 MB of RAM. It also means that you’re going to chew up more disc space for each level."

Depends entirely on your game. Oblivion managed to have a set of textures that are reused through the entire game, and a game with 200+ hours of gameplay.

I think his point was that with a 50GB bluray, the developer has alot more freedom. Surely with Oblivion, the developers had to at one point give the 'talk' about reusing textures and possibly limiting the creative ability of the artists. Especially when we're looking 2-3 years into the future, nearing the end of this generation's life cycle, shouldn't we be expecting significantly better graphics in games with 200+ hours of gameplay?

Falagard said:
PCs are still only equipped with DVD drives, and until 90% of them have HD-DVD or Blu-Ray drives, they're in the same boat as the 360. This means that anyone with even a remote interest in cross platform games will have to take the necessary measures to fit their games into 7 to 9 gigs of space. Poor use of compression, extraneous and unnecessary data, and over-use of full motion video cutscenes will be a problem. The cutscene problem will mostly effect Japanese developed games.

PC games have the advantage of a HDD built in. PC games don't need to be streamed directly off the DVD, so they can be compressed even more. Also, the required 'installation process' is already the norm for PC gamers, and distributing a game on multiple dvd discs only means you have to swap them during install, after which, you're all ready to go.
 

Smokey

Member
AltogetherAndrews said:
Right on, mate

I'm talking about strictly what you get with the XBL service. I personally don't care about movies, but the fact that you can DL them from Live is a plus, and something Sony does not offer with their 'free' service as evidenced by my choosing of the word 'stuff' in relation to what XBL offers that PSN does not.

Read please.
 

shpankey

not an idiot
i've never met one single gamer who refused to buy a game due to having to switch a disk mid-game.

nobody gives a shit.
 

ROFL

Hail Britannia
Smokey Bones said:
4.) Ok I DO NOT CARE ABOUT MOVIES. Seriously. This has no impact on gaming whatsoever.

But "normal" people do, and just demonstrated that in huge numbers this weekend over in Europe.

Welcome. To the Real World.
 
Eteric Rice said:
Not to mention that even with this extra power, developers are still limited by time and budget. If they don't have the time to make that kind of simulation, they might not have the money, etc.

There will always be limits, unfortunately.

Possibly. But then again, perhaps giving developers the power to go straight ahead instead of spending time and money developing a decent "fake" workaround may turn out to be beneficial. More important than anything will be the development toolset, and luckily Sony seems to have an interest in pursuing that angle as well, as is evident by the Edge tools demonstrated at GDC.
 
plagiarize said:
he compared it to the gamecube, which never lost EA support, and you compared it to the dreamcast which never had it.

he comes across as knowing what he's talking about. he didn't say it is happening to the PS3. he didn't even say it would happen to the PS3, he said it could and he said that's why it's important you have momentum early on.

which it is.
Don't stuff words in my mouth. I was joking about him saying PS3 losing it's third party ala Dreamcast, of coarse. Just a little sarcasm like everyone does here. Your right he didn't say it's happening to the PS3 he said it could

Possibly. But then again, perhaps giving developers the power to go straight ahead instead of spending time and money developing a decent "fake" workaround may turn out to be beneficial. More important than anything will be the development toolset, and luckily Sony seems to have an interest in pursuing that angle as well, as is evident by the Edge tools demonstrated at GDC.
Gabe Newell should pursue these edge tools :lol
 
that was a good read. i agree with almost everything he said.

it´s fun to see "some" (not every member) internet nerds showing that they know more about the industry than a guy that is a big time player in the real industry. Internet forums are a reasonable new thing if we lookt at videogames industry. i wonder how much effect those forum experts have on people´s minds. i wish i could study, but it does play a big role in the mindshare battle - which sony is losing by a good margin.
 
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