Kutaragi slags off rivals News
Xbox 360
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by
Ellie Gibson
As the next-gen console war heats up, Sony Computer Entertainment boss Ken Kutaragi has launched an(other) attack on his company's competitors.
In an interview with Japanese website Watch Impress, Kutaragi confirmed Sony's commitment to making the PS3 a console for grown-ups - undoubtedly a response to Nintendo's recent talk of 'All-Access Gaming' for the whole family.
"From the start, we intended to make not just a game machine for kids, but a computer for entertainment that adults throughout the world could enjoy," says Ken.
"Other companies may talk of game machines, but we've always referred to 'computer entertainment,' even in our press materials. It's entertainment and also a computer. That's what's important."
Kutaragi went on to take a swing at Microsoft, accusing J Allard and co of doing nothing more than playing catchup.
"This time, Microsoft has stated clearly that it is going after PlayStation. However, they're going not after the PlayStation 3, but the PlayStation 2. They were looking at 2, and that's why [Xbox 360] became like that," he reckons.
Kutaragi compared the current next-gen battle with the one that was fought by the PS1 and 3DO, saying there are clear parallels in terms of how the console specs have been interpreted.
"People probably won't be able to understand the difference between PS3 and Xbox 360 if the spec charts are just lined up," apparently.
"However, at E3, a suitable number of people said that they were glad they came and saw rather than just looking at the specs. When the PS3 is actually released, this will spread and people will come to understand."
The SCE president then talked about the power of the PS3's Cell technology versus the inner workings of its rivals: "Other companies may have high definition graphics, but the internals are the same. For the most part, they don't do calculations. For the most part, they don't do physics - they just add movement through motion capture.
"Even if you display beautiful high definition visuals, you can't immediately tell if it's being calculated in real time by the Cell," Kutaragi continues.
"However, if you look closely, the difference between things that are being calculated and things that are simply being changed and moved is clear."
It's all about real-time, essentially, as the PS3 demos on show at E3 proved, says Ken: "They used real-time on-the-fly calculations rather than pre-rendering and pre-calculations. For the graphics too, determining which movements to make were all calculated."
We're not sure we completely understand what he's on about, in all honesty, but it's clear that the emphasis is on calculators.
And finally, Kutaragi explained - sort of - why the PS3 doesn't contain a separate sound chip: "It's obvious... Because [the audio] is all calculated [through Cell]. Sound is not the about the number of voices, but is itself an object." Righty ho.
So there you have it - the latest shot across Microsoft's bows from the good ship Sony. What next? Allard calls Kutaragi a "little bitch"? Iwata says Xbox 360 "looks a bit gay"? It's everything to play for...
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Madder Max
09/06/05 @ 11:18
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Sounds just like the spouting liquid pooh that was everywhere about the emotion engine in the PS2...
Putting everything on one chip cant be a good thing surely and doesn't the 5.1 in the Xbox calculate the sound in real time? |
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Remember back in one of the first issues of Official Playstation Magazine 2, from E3 2001 when the specs of Xbox just had been made official. A whole page of young Ken having a go at Xbox and everything that was wrong with it, and how it was so much more inferior to his own Playstation 2. And he was oh so right back then, wasn't he?
Do not trust this man. |
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WhiteSaturn
09/06/05 @ 11:24
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Hmm, strange but if you look at the design of the Cell chip it will most likely be at a disadvantage compared to the 360 when calculating physics and AI
Its all to do with cache size and PPC and SPE and other stuff I vaguely remember, but there was a big deal about both chips being crappy for that sort of stuff at the GDC |
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I see alot of you misunderstand what he meant by calculating. Let me explain how I see it.
What we're used to from games so far are animations, made by artists in 3D-modelling software. The better the animations, the more lifelike the character. Not on the PS3. (At least on the techdemos seen so far.) I think he means that the movement is not pre-animated, but calculated on the fly. The characters calculate how to move, where to put the limbs, to be able to do stuff, like running and sitting. Take a look at the KillZone trailer again. Noticed those guys jumping out of those crafts when they land? They jump, they land, but they start running in the middle of the "stand up"-"animation". Normally, what we've seen, they'd first play the "jump out"-animation, which includes the "stand up"-animation. When that's done, they'll play the "start running"-animation, which goes over in the "running"-animation. See my point? In the KillZone demo, this isn't pre-animated. It's calculated on the fly! Physics is so much more than ragdoll and bounding boxes. This is the next level, and I hope XBox360 devs pick up the thread, 'cuz pre-animation will quickly look stiff when the PS3 comes along... (Damn, this was rather much for a comment... ;p )
Edited 1 times,
most recently on 09/06/05 @ 13:04
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Tweakmonkey
09/06/05 @ 12:16
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This time, Microsoft has stated clearly that it is going after PlayStation. However, they're going not after the PlayStation 3, but the PlayStation 2.
This was clever. For the most part, they don't do physics - they just add movement through motion capture. This wasn't. |
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"Then what's the point of waiting for the PS3? You may as
well get a 360 " May as well get a pc.. as all the games seem to be pc conversions anyway.. oh look.. i've already got one, using it to type this.. Just before I go off to play gta:sa on it.. I'll do what i did this gen then.. wait for pc conversions of the games i want to play on the other 2.. and buy nintendo machine for great games... |
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"In the KillZone demo, this isn't pre-animated. It's calculated on the fly!"
Well it wasnt but even if it was.. like a replay in (for example) gran toursimo.. making a animation look pretty on the fly is a lot easier than making a real time engine look good on the fly. anyone thinking that they'll actually be playing games to the quality of that in game will be very much mistaken. Makign things look good with pre-determined camera angles, lighting, etc etc is easy.. doing same wizardry with an in game camera less so. So much so, that when it comes to all the fps/racing games you'll end up seeing.. i doubt joe bloggs on the street could see the difference between those games on his xbox and the so called next gen. Which, i believe is nintendos point of.. "it's not how much power, it's what you do with it". Why will joe bloggs upgrade if he cant see any real difference? It's not going to be like the difference between ps1 and xbox. Case in point : How many people out there believe that the ps2 is more powerful than the cube, for instance? If they cant see the difference there.. will they really care for next gen? |
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"anyone thinking that they'll actually be playing games to the quality of that in game will be very much mistaken."
And how do you know exactly? The Killzone trailers may be pre-rendered but that doesn't mean we won't be playing games looking that good sometime over the next few years. Maybe even on the Revolution. ARGH! I promised myself I wouldn't repond to fanboy posts. I just can't help myself :'( |
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mcmonkeyplc
09/06/05 @ 13:07
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J. Alltard and Ken Retardi a match made in heaven!
It appears the fangirls are assembling! |
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People seem to be getting worked-up over nothing.
Ken (albeit in a confused and misguided manner) seems to be trying to explain that in the PS3, Sony have tried to rework how games are interpreted from raw information into what the player sees and hears. He seems to claim that the Cell will interpret data from a more basic lower level than current consoles, allowing for more variables to be included. This should in turn allow for better physics etc. He claims that in the XBox360, the data is interpreted into the player experience in a similar way in which current generation consoles do. Therefore pointing out that although the lights are brighter and the gloss shinier, there's not really anything new there to enhance the gaming experience. He could have a valid point, or it could be another Emotion Engine. |
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It's also worth pointing out that Sony have said that what was shown of PS3 visuals at E3 were video recordings of material that was being created on the fly and that was because in a live presentation, it is just prudent to do so. Otherwise you end up with another 'Gates98'/'Blue Screen of Death' fiasco.
So yes, what you saw of Killzone was created on the fly, but the output was captured on video, and then shown to you. So to say it was pre-rendered is somewhat inaccurate. |
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>So to say it was pre-rendered is somewhat inaccurate.
To say that someone actually belives that is somewhat stupid. PS3 will not be able to do anything that 360 cannot do. Nuff said. The only difference might be 6 months extra speed.... but like I said. The 360 CPU is actually newer than Cell and based on cell tech, it could be the *real* next gen. |
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@JHuxley: I know those demos where pre-rendered. But they show a bit of what Sony has up it's sleeves. Right now, I really want a PS3, but believe me, I'll check out those gameplay movies to see if Sony has delivered before I run out an buy one. If the actual presentation (graphics and physics) in KillZone and Motor Storm is not on par with the trailers seen on E3, Sony can cram that breadbox up their a**. ;-)
@smelly: No, it wasn't the camera angles that impressed me. I know how the right editing can make anything look cool; that's why I only download actual gameplay movies from new games (GameSpot is a marvel there) to see if they're any good. I know that the camera angles that make replays in GT4 look so good would never work when you actually played the game, and therefore your bound to the normal boring angles (behind or inside the car). Which in turn makes the game look more conventional when you actually play the game than on the trailers shown. No, KillZone showed another quality. It seems it's about to overcome some shortcuts made in other games so far. Ever noticed that developers only use ragdoll physics on dead enemies? Ever noticed how dead terrorists in Counter Strike: Source are flung all over the place by grenades, but a barely surviving one (standing right next to the explosion) stands firmly? When you shoot them or 'nade them and they don't die, they have the usual "ouch I'm hit"-animation, until their health is depleted, and all of a sudden they're slapped around like a... yeah, a ragdoll. Why can't they use ragdoll physics on an enemy that is still alive? The reason is simple: Where would the "stand up"-animation start? You don't know how the model is lying when you create the "stand up"-animation. It could be lying on the floor, hanging over a railing, or sloped against the wall. This, I believe, is about to change, with the technology KillZone is showing. Now the character would be able to calculate how to get up (and still seem convincing) after being thrown into a pile of rubble. |
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WhiteSaturn
09/06/05 @ 13:37
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The PS3 TECH DEMOS were real time. That means the rubber duckies etc. KillZone was an interpretation of what the next gen KillZone will look like. So says man from Guerrilla. That means it was prrrreeee-rendered.
Also the final design for the PS3 GPU hasn't even been finalised. There are no prototype chips at all. The demos were running on the next gen Nvidia PC card, in SLI mode no less. Thats straight from an Nvidia conference. So the real time demos that were shown were running on at LEAST £1200 of graphics card alone. Also seems strange that these cards would even work with the cell, more likely they were connected to a nice PC with liquid cooling overclocked to hell, that one is from my imagination though. |
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"PS3 will not be able to do anything that 360 cannot do. Nuff
said." Correct. And the games' quality are in the hands of the developers. The difference seems to that the PS3 developers are willing to go new ways to create impressive games, but the XBox360 devs are a bit stuck in the old PC-dogma of "wait until ATi and nVidia puts more features in the gfx hardware, and then exploit that to make better looking games". They don't take the responsibility in their own hands. They just "run with the mill", to exaggerate a bit. Yes they innovate, but not with the presentation. There wasn't one single game that really impressed me on E3 from the XBox360. Yes they looked good, but only so much as you'd expect from more powerful hardware. But what was seen from the PS3? Wow!!! And that wasn't thanks to camera angles and more detailed textures... |
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basically what he is saying i think is that motion capture takes a serious of movment and uses these to animate a footbalelr for example in pro evo. with physics the players move according to physics, the animation is calculated on the fly according to what is happening and the environment.
that what i think he means by: "For the most part, they don't do physics - they just add movement through motion capture". |
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"Pre-recorded is not the same as pre-rendered."
Deaner, if you look at EVERY comment from Sony regarding Killzone, they say everything except "Yes guys, all that you saw in Killzone was running in real-time on PS3 hardware". You will not find any such comment ANYWHERE. Instead they say things like "It's all gameplay" or "It's representative of the game" or "It uses ingame assets" etc. For the PS3 demos, the Unreal engine demo, Fight Night etc, you will find CLEAR statements that they were running in real-time. Phil Harrison confirmed that for the tape of PS3 games, some was real-time and some was rendered (or they say 'done to spec'). Hence it's clear to me that Killzone and Motor Storm are not real-time demonstrations, overwise Sony would have made this clear from the beginning. |
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Yaz: "Hence it's clear to me that Killzone and Motor Storm are not
real-time demonstrations, overwise Sony would have made this clear from the beginning." You're free to draw what conclusions you may, but it's unwise to assume that these aren't representative of the visuals that the console is capable of just because you didn't get to see him switch on a console and load them up. The only way is up. |
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