Ridge Racer 6 & 7 Comparison 720p Comments by Robert Purchese

The comparisons of Ridge Racer 6 vs 7 seem to leave out the fact that there are waves under bridges that MOVE in the Xbox 360 version, while the waves don't move at all in the Playstation 3 version--they just remain still, like a cutout picture...and that SUCKS.

Also, it is a MAJOR problem when there are sailboats MISSING from the Playstation 3 version, because the Playstation 3 can only display 275,000,000 polygons per second compared to 500,000,000 polygons per second for the Xbox 360. That is the whole reason why the Playstation 3 version does not have the ability to maintain a steady framerate at 60 frames per second when the resolution is 1080p.

The Xbox 360 upscales the resolution to 1080p and maintains the resolution at 60 frames per second fine.

Also, this article fails to mention that Ridge Racer 6 was developed on Pre-Alpha development kits for the Xbox 360, which only gave developers access to one of the three CPU cores on the Xbox 360. This means the developers at Namco only had access to one-sixth of the General Purpose CPU power for the Xbox 360 while making Ridge Racer 6.

On the other hand, the Playstation 3 was delayed, which means that Ridge Racer 7 was released after the developers at Namco had access to the Final Development kit for the PS3 for over SIX MONTHS, which allowed the developers to have access to 100% of the power of the PS3.

In the stages that appear on both systems, the Xbox 360 version had more detail, better lighting, smoother framerates, and faster load times.

In this first picture comparison, it appears "brighter" on the PS3 and "darker" on the Xbox 360, just like the person comparing the games points out. But what he fails to mention is that Ridge Racer 6 has a wide variety of times of day that you can race. The Xbox 360 looks GREAT in those night stages because of the vastly superior lighting of the Xbox 360. Take a look at that tower on the right with the green lighting for proof of that.

Read the review for both games. The Xbox 360 version is rated higher, and the review for Ridge Racer 7 makes it clear that the Xbox 360 version has smoother graphics.

Also, the article here fails to mention that the Playstation 3 version of Ridge Racer does NOT allow you to use a headset to talk online to the people you are playing online with, like the Xbox 360 version of the game does.

Ridge Racer 7 is just like all of the games from EA Sports, and 2K Sports, and Call of Duty 3, and just about every third-party game for the Playstation 3; it does NOT allow you to talk online with the people you are playing with while you are actually playing the game. The Xbox 360 version of Ridge Racer, and all of the EA Sports games, and all of the 2K Sports games, and Call of Duty 3, and just about every third-party Xbox 360 game lets you talk online with the people you are playing online with.

The reason for this is because the Xbox 360 comes with an online headset, which includes a headphone and a microphone. The Playstation 3 does not come with anything like that at all. As a result, third parties are not motivated to include voice-chat features like that in the games, since Sony doesn’t support the feature themselves.

Ridge Racer is much more fun on the Xbox 360, simply because you can talk with the people you are racing with online, and it adds UNLIMITED replay value!

I did think the demo looked nicer but it didn't occur to me it was THAT much nicer...

The Pre-Alpha development kits that first-gen Xbox 360 games like Ridge Racer 6 used only allowed the developers to have access to ONE of the CPU cores...and not only that. Each of the three CPU cores has two threads. The Pre-Alpha development kit only allowed the developers to access ONE thread on only ONE of the CPU cores!!!

That is why the developers only had access to one-sixth of the Xbox 360 General Purpose CPU power.

The superior lighting of the Xbox 360 version of Ridge Racer is the result of the superior Xbox 360 GPU from ATI.

And by the way, these screenshots of Ridge Racer are TERRIBLE, because they are NOT taken during the same time of day!!!

If Eurogamer is going to compare screenshots and levels side by side, they NEED to be taken during the same time of day!!!

I think we can safely conclude that Mike maybe needs to get out a bit more. I thought it was a piss take at first :-/

I reckon he's one of those WOM marketing types, informing his 'friends' on the EG comments threads of the goodness of the 360...