Rockstar doing PS3-exclusive Comments by Tom Bramwell

/walks through pure, unspoiled comments thread enjoying the morning air

/hears approaching rumble

/runs in terror from approaching hordes!

PS3 deserves this. Even if it bombs in the end, at least it had a few quality exclusives. Hopefully.

"that you can truly only do on PS3, harnessing the power of CELL and Blu-ray disc"

This was getting tiresome a couple of years ago - now it just gives me a headache :(.

Manhunt 3? or, ummmm Table Tennis 2 perhaps....
As was the case with ole Table Tennis on the 360, Rockstar being plastered all over the front cover of a game is not a guarantee of a cosmic seller.
But Hey, it's all good for Sony, an exlusive's an exclusive.

'"Rockstar really wanted to make a game that you can truly only do on PS3, harnessing the power of CELL and Blu-ray disc and this deal lets them do just that," Shorrock declared.'

Deal? Not bribing then?

The GTA format has been done, redone, copied, plagiarised, exploited and stretched to its limits. It's about time for something different (notwithstanding gtaIV).

Oi rentboy!

I think that by "but something all-new" they are saying "NOT A SEQUEL TO AN EXISTING FRANCHISE"

tehpoweroftehcelllol!

I wonder what this new franchise will be? I'm completely lacking in imagination so can only think of variations on the GTA theme, like Canis Canem Edit was. Until Table Tennis came along, I would have guessed at it being either violent or controversial but now, who knows... it could be a cute platformer or an RPG for all we know? LOL

tehpoweroftehcelllol!


http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Wst6XRF7N_Q

So they have a exclusive but actually haven't started thinking about it then? A bit weird anmouncing something that isn't even there yet/ But heck if you can announce a trailer, you can announce "an exclusive" just as well.

I aanounce a GTA 5 in 2 years. And a GTA 4: Importing my bride from Russia, Too many Vodka tonight and Did you really put only 1 bullet in this gun.

'Rockstar Desperately Sucking Up To Sony After Pissing Them Off With GTA-Better-On-360 News Story'

... Has Rockstar even made a good game let alone blockbuster system seller outside of GTA or Bully for the matter.

Then again GTA was tailored for one system and look how that turned out.

Heh.

I can see it now:
Microsoft: "Yeah, yeah, well, /insert developer/ has signed their next 23 games as exclusive to MS!"

Sony: "Oh? REALLY? Yeah, well, /insert dev two/ has signed their next 27 to Sony!"

Journo: "Uh, any news on what the games will be?"

*Journo explodes from the combined hate beams converging on his face*

so the $50m from MS funded a Sony exclusive?

teh power of teh cell!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

mong

Why doesn't anyone remember that western game they showed back in 2005

The Untitled Western Project is exactly what I'm hoping it will be.

Rockstar presents Tiddlywinks

Rockstar is a industry slut:P

Perhaps they'll finally do "Naked Chicken Skating", you wouldn't be able to fit that on a DVD.

They really need new IP. Is there anybody left who hasn't bought/played a GTA game?

""that you can truly only do on PS3, harnessing the power of CELL and Blu-ray disc"

This was getting tiresome a couple of years ago - now it just gives me a headache :(."

Um, maybe, just maybe, Blu-Ray does give some benefits over regular DVD.

Are we talking exclusive as in GTA 3 (originally) or Table Tennis scale?

"Um, maybe, just maybe, Blu-Ray does give some benefits over regular DVD."

Off course there is, but I doubt it has anything to do with actual gameplay, maybe you can keep sitting on the couch instead of standing up 1 time to change the disk. Or put 500 hours of FMV in there just for kicks.

I'm kidding of course. But the only thing BR offers is more space. It's just storage, nothing different.

BD offers more space for larger streamed worlds with more texture variations though. Even if Rockstar only use 10-15 GB of space, it's still more than offered by the Xbox 360's DVD format, which has just 7.2 GB of usuable space per disc. Disc swapping isn't really an option in a game that uses a large open, highly detailed streamed world and I suspect that is what this new franchise will turn out to be. GTA IV is a return to the single city format of GTA III and seems to be a result of the game having been developed for the Xbox 360 and its DVD format. Rockstar certainly complained about that!

Isnt there some kind of restraining order preventing people from using 'THE POWER OF THE CELL' in press releases?

But have they paid?

Or 'contributed' to development and marketing costs in any way?

That's what I want to know!

As well as what it's about - it had better not be that Western game they showed a few years back, otherwise I'm going to have to start saving for a PS3...

"GTA IV is a return to the single city format of GTA III and seems to be a result of the game having been developed for the Xbox 360 and its DVD format. Rockstar certainly complained about that!"

Until they got the 50mln for the DLC... But even with that, it will be considerably less epic (in play area and in story) than the PS2 versions. I hope they'll be able to innovate but I expect a been-there-seen-that experience with lots of pixels, like the rest of the 'next-gen' crap.

@ Les,

Please tell me of this week's lottery numbers, Oh Farseeing Prophet of the Forums!

I promise to give you 1% as a token token of my gratitude.

@ bioreit

Unlike human behaviour, the past tells you nothing about randomly determined numbers, so I'm afraid I can't help you out with that one... ;)

I wonder if Sony is going to be sending some Sony Ninja's to help Rockstar with the PS3 engine, it's shocking that Take Two have a success story in the GTA franchise yet they can't keep up with the mortgage payments.

"Disc swapping isn't really an option in a game that uses a large open, highly detailed streamed world and I suspect that is what this new franchise will turn out to be. GTA IV is a return to the single city format of GTA III and seems to be a result of the game having been developed for the Xbox 360 and its DVD format. Rockstar certainly complained about that!"

Well seeing as SA was a lot bigger then GTA3, and still fitted on one DVD i see no valid point here. Sure they have to reuse some of the textures, but it's not like they wouldn't otherwise. Not that I'm saying you couldn't make a more detailed world with larger diskspace, but actual gameplay hardly benefits from it. It's not like it's shaping up to be crap, and GTA games have never been about graphics anyway. The PS2 versions looked shit as well compared to some other benchmarks. Okami is huge as well and that fitted the diskspace perfectly and looked better than 99% of the games out ther, including next-gen.

"
Until they got the 50mln for the DLC... But even with that, it will be considerably less epic (in play area and in story) than the PS2 versions. I hope they'll be able to innovate but I expect a been-there-seen-that experience with lots of pixels, like the rest of the 'next-gen' crap."

Driving 10 minutes through a grassland or getting stuck in woods hardly made SA Epic. Size doesn't equal a good game experience in my book if you can't fill in the blank spaces.

And calling next-gen crap is a bit harsh isn't it. PS2 wasn't the the definition of originality in the beggining either. games like Viva Pinata, Gears, the Darkness, etc all innovate in small steps.

Michael Shorrock sounds like some television evangelist doing an info-commercial:

"Attain true happiness and enlightenment by harnessing the power of CELL and Blu-ray disc".

"games like Viva Pinata, Gears, the Darkness, etc all innovate in small steps."

I fail to see the innovation in those games TBH.

"And calling next-gen crap is a bit harsh isn't it. PS2 wasn't the the definition of originality in the beggining either."

The next gen is almost two years old, so I don't think I'm harsh.

Clever move by Sony. Hardcare gamers will always have an eye on what Rockstar are up to. It may be the killer application that Sony needs to push the PS3. Rockstar need to be careful, courting both Sony and MS, they risk being accussed of two timing and getting dumped by one or both :-) in terms of big development spends.

Cool, so in 2 or 3 years Sony will finally have a title that utilises the full power of teh CELL! That's only, um, four years late, lol :)

@Les

Have you actually played those games then, otherwise I won't go into that discussion. Bit easy to yell something out of the blue.

To be sure, I said small steps, not massive innovations. But PS2 games don't do that either.

GTA IV is a return to the single city format of GTA III and seems to be a result of the game having been developed for the Xbox 360 and its DVD format

I suspect that's more to do with art production schedules than squashing things down for disk space.

"And calling next-gen crap is a bit harsh isn't it. PS2 wasn't the the definition of originality in the beggining either."

GTA was near the beggining and it is the cornerstone for most games these days.

The most innovative thing i've seen thus far in "this current" generation is LittleBig Planet, yet you could argue it's a glorified modding toolkit.

Then again the share aspect of it is what makes it unique, on a youtube level.

@Darren - Or you could argue Rockstar listened to a large portion of their userbase who told them that GTA:SA just wasnt as good as some of the previous games and that a lot of people didnt enjoy the huge expanses of nothingness that existed and so decided to make the game based around one city.

"The next gen is almost two years old, so I don't think I'm harsh."

The next-gen only begins when Les says so...? ;0)

I do think it's fair to say that the best titles for a console come later in its life-cycle:
PS2 - Shadow of the Collosus (sp?); God of War; Ico etc....
Xbox - Fable; Halo 2 (looking at MP only - before people say anything); Chronicles of Riddick; KotOR...

The 360 feels like it's just hitting its stride IMHO. The PS3 and Wii feel like they're still asleep... but give them a little time and I'm sure classics will come.

Sony really need to employ someone to keep a note of what all their top guys say.

Afteral its only a few weeks ago they said exclusives were not important anymore.

They just end up looking dumb when it looks like they can not rememder what they said after it has left their mouths.

Well couldn't they fill that huge expanse of nothingness with somethingness, i liked GTA II and Vice City, but it was a little boring that I knew every corner of the game, because you could go from A to B so quickly, in comparison to GTA:SA where i'd find a new area everyday.

And that's just about the only positive thing you'll see me say of GTA:SA it was such a technical cluster**** I couldn't play the game outside of the main missions, which was a first for me in the series.

"GTA was near the beggining and it is the cornerstone for most games these days.

The most innovative thing i've seen thus far in "this current" generation is LittleBig Planet, yet you could argue it's a glorified modding toolkit.

Then again the share aspect of it is what makes it unique, on a youtube level."

True. But a lot of games in those days we're fancy remakes of RR and Tekken. You still had to look for a couple of shining examples in a common crowd. Games like Dead Rising do take the whole world buidling concept further on a level which couldn't be done on a PS2. And tp be honest. GTA 3 was a very extensive vision of what GTA 1 & 2 were in the fisrt place. So a game like DR it builds upon a idea that already existed. The hardware just made it possible. Same with GTA.

And seeing the shift from offline to online in it's massive scale is proof enough that games do change and innovate. Co-op is a regular term now, and co-op games like Kane &Lynch and Army of Two are examples of new types of games.

If you really want innovation we should talk about the DS or Wii. But I don't need a groundbreaking example of innovation to enjoy my games on next-gen. I enjoy a game like the Darkness for it's superb storytelling, which laregely is created by it's visuals and production values. But back to the original topic. Do we really need all the extra diskspace to be innovative, aren't world the size of Oblivion big enough? And if you do think bigger is better, trhere's probbaly no way a studio wuldn't take 7 years to fill it with all kinds of different textures amd such.

@Steroyd - They could I guess which would probably make the development cycle even longer or they could release episodic updates that are based in the same city that keep the gameplay experience focused. ;)

If you really want innovation we should talk about the DS or Wii.

Ugh, the only games I like of their innovative control mechanics are ones that don't use them, and I don't give a crap about Brain Training, so I'd prefer not to talk about Nintendo they're dead to me now.

And tp be honest. GTA 3 was a very extensive vision of what GTA 1 & 2 were in the fisrt place.

We could go further than that and say that GTA as a whole was inspired by Final Fantasy's world map mechanism.

GTAIII first and foremost translated well into 3D that alone, is a feat in itself that few games have managed to well, it also changed the mission structure to, which is commonly used in games, open world with linear play.

The funny thing is i will fail to acknowledge the IV in GTA IV if they don't change the formula of the last three games, I would prefer it if they adopted the mission structure of the Psone GTA's heck basically I want GTA to clone Mercenaries in some cases, which practically IS a full 3D version of the PSone GTA's mission structure included, bar the theme.

seems to me like good news for PS3 owners,i still believe rockstar had to make some sacrifices for GTAIV on the 360

lets not forget the limited disc speed,there is no standard HDD on the 360,core owners dont have one,so you cant rely on the HDD to stream content on your game,you have to design your game from the ground up to stream all its content from the DVD drive

the 360 has a 12x DVD drive with a max speed of 16Mb/sec and falls down to 9Mb/sec and lower in the inner layers of the disc,meaning reading speed isnt consistent,this could be trouble some when you want to design a sandbox game where everything has to stream from the Disc

i think with the PS3 exclusive game,rockstar can freely use both the Blu-ray drive and HDD to stream content,and design a game from the ground up to use the HDD and Blu-ray for streaming

a normal HDD sata streams at 35.Mb/Sec with Blu-ray at 8.5Mb/Sec,compare that to the 360 single stream of 16Mb/sec - 9Mb/sec

it makes sense,60GB is more than enough disc space,i think rockstar will be able to achieve much more by having a blu-ray drive and a standard HDD to stream from,not to mention some other PS3 specific advantages like Cell...etc

i still think the Microsofts decision not to include an HDD in every box is a wrong one,you cant say that the DVD drive isnt hindering developers,rockstar dev said it,heck even Mass effect have some problems loading from the DVD [IGN preview]

in the end the most imporant thing about this new franchise is the concept,this will decide wether it will succed or just flop

fixed some typos

@steroyd

Well, you've certainly got a positive view on gaming:P, maybe it's not for you anymore.

"We could go further than that and say that GTA as a whole was inspired by Final Fantasy's world map mechanism.

GTAIII first and foremost translated well into 3D that alone, is a feat in itself that few games have managed to well, it also changed the mission structure to, which is commonly used in games, open world with linear play.
"

Aren't we talking Mario 64 here. Translating something into 3D wasn't innovative at all anymore in that time. PS1, N64, Saturn, etc had dozens of well implemented 3D games.

@bioreit

"But have they paid?

Or 'contributed' to development and marketing costs in any way?

That's what I want to know!"

...

"and this deal lets them do just that"

I think it's pretty apparent that if this is a "deal", then Sony are paying them. Otherwise, it would just be an announcement about a game - not a deal.