Ben-DutkaNo, this isn't 2007 when crappy PlayStation 3 ports abounded ('cough' The Orange Box 'cough') but even so, we still can't seem to leave such unpleasantness behind. At least, not entirely.
EA got in the doghouse early by shafting PS3 owners with Madden 09 ; the version for Sony's machine ran at only 30 frames per second while other versions fared much better in that department. EA has since cleaned things up and we haven't seen many significant differences between PS3/360 versions of their games. But just this year, despite Sega's assurances, Bayonetta lagged on the PS3, and I had to remind everyone that the 360 version was a 9+ game (as most sources claimed). Just recently, Mafia II underwhelmed critics; the console version was significantly inferior to the PC version. I'm not sure if there were clear differences between the PS3 and 360 versions, but the point is that Mafia II is best played on one platform above all others.
There does appear to be a formula that seems to work almost 100% of the time: if a game is made on one platform first, and then brought to other platforms, the original platform invariably gets the best version. If the designer works on all versions simultaneously (and most are doing that these days), nobody gets ripped off. Platinum learned from their mistake with Bayonetta and made sure that the upcoming Vanquish wouldn't piss off PS3 owners. They did use the PS3 as the lead dev platform but they already had a working knowledge of the 360 after their stylish action slashfest earlier this year. But the problem still exists in the industry and if exclusives don't promote multiplatform gaming, the shoddy ports do. Hardcore gamers have always been better off with multiple options, anyway. If you're willing to shell out, of course.
So if you were only a 360 owner and were considering a PS3 purchase due to games like Uncharted 2: Among Thieves , God of War III , Metal Gear Solid 4: Guns of the Patriots , Gran Turismo 5 , and Heavy Rain , you'd also like to know that Final Fantasy XIII is probably best played on Sony's machine. If you were a PS3 owner, and titles like Gears of War 2 , Alan Wake , Mass Effect 2 (yes, it's coming to the PS3 but you wouldn't have known that back then, would you?), Fable II , and Halo 3 / Halo: Reach didn't entirely convince you, it'd be good to know that Bayonetta is best experienced on Microsoft's console. In the end, we want the best versions of games we intend to play and as of yet, they're not all identical across all major platforms.
At the rate ps3s are selling now, I see them working with ether ps3 first or just making it on ps3.
I certainly hope so. It pays off. Sony once said its good for the industry if they remain the leaders and i think that rings true more than ever with this subject.
I hope so. Anyone with a clue just needs to take a look at the visual and audio quality of Uncharted 2, Killzone 2, and MGS4 to see that point.
Or…
Come November 2nd, examine GT5 and Forza 3 next to each other.
im happy with my ps3 and i am pretty sure i do not need a xbox. i have been checkin into the few games i want that are on the box and i can get them on my computer. i have so many games to play already i dont know that i need anything else to play right now.
ive said it before and i will say it again, port is a 4 letter swear word.
the ports that aren't quite as good as their counterparts on the xbox doesn't really bother me at all… dragon age's framerate dropped in the PS3 version but, it didn't keep me from playing it… if the game is still good, it's not really an issue for me…
i think this whole thing is being blown way out of proportion on the internet… then again, this is the internet we're talking about…
I don't know what it is but the only reason I couldn't get into Dragon Age Origins for PS3 was precisely because of the framerate issues.
My belly is happy enough with all the PS3 exclusives, it doesn't need multiplatforms, even though a dessert sometimes isn't unwanted, but for the rest of the time, I'm stuffed.
We still see crappy ports though not as many.
Really, i a little more than tired of ports. Last generation ports came with a reduced price tag. This gen, the devs try to pass of them off as though it was the original intended platform.
Given that list of Xbox exclusives, i won't be buying another Box anytime soon(probably never, i don't reward bad products). Funny how we always here Xbox has more exclusives yet that list never seems to grow. It consists of the same old tired games. Shooters, shooters, more shooters then Fable.
Last edited by Jawknee on 9/6/2010 1:01:44 PM
You're right. Critical minds can see through Microsoft's lies
*hear
when xbox came out with better graphics than the ps2 developers always made the xbox look better. no questions asked intentionally done xbox got a better version. it was the more powerful machine. now the ps3 is clearly more powerful and developers still make the 360 better. i am starting to think M$ is behind this somehow.
Last edited by frylock25 on 9/6/2010 1:20:17 PM
You mean the 360 is more powerful than the PS2, right? Cause the PS2 was the sickness.
no the xbox was more powerful than the ps2. even if it was just a little. games like gta look better on the xbox. think back. ps2 came out in 2000. xbox came out in 2002. all M$ did was copy the ps2 and put slightly better graphics capability in it.
ps2 kicked so much ass because it played all ps1 games, has a huge library 10 years strong and is still supported today.
xbox sucked because it was around for barely 4 years and the new machine does not play all the old games.
there is still a way to play every game that sony has ever put on the market.
ben u say the orange box was a horrible port can u expalin is it because the lagfest in team fortress 2 or is it the half life games in it or portal perhaps
if i remember correctly, it was about the framerate and graphics of half life 2 and lack of support for team fortress 2. i have the orange box right now but so far i've only played portal.
From what i heard, the load times were a bit longer, there was a bit more slow-down in HL games, the quincunx AA in Portal gave it the smeared-vaseline look supposedly, and TF2 was a bit more laggy.
But I still thoroughly enjoyed the package on thanksgiving of that year. Portal was revolutionary, and i had never played the HL games, so it was still very much worth it for me even at full retail price.
When playing Halflife the game would freeze at check points. Sometimes for a few seconds others for over a minute. Sometimes i would have to just shut the console off. My friend has it on the 360 and it plays great. i played it at his house and thats was the reason i wanted it. After playing with the PS3 version for a few hours, i shelved it then finally gave it away to a older guy at my work who just bought a PS3 and didn't have any games.
I find the games that happen to have a sub-par version on one platform or another, aren't really worth making a fuss over anyways.
Sorry but crappy ports and multi platform games don't deserve my time. Sure I am missing some good games though. but I have no interest in them.
well all i have to say to u is Red Dead Redemption, Batman:AA, Assassin's creed II…if u are missing out of thos then u are a gaming loser.
These are high profile games. but they are not my type. and I do not see myself as a gaming loser.
Why is he a loser for reserving his time and money for the best of the best? Hes voting with his wallet.
I agree there are some multiplats worth it but most aren't.
@ThEInFamOusgOd
Those aren't my type of games too, people have their own opinions. Even more than half my ps3 library is made up multi-platforms.
I don't know why you single out the Orange Box, I only ever had slight framerate issues in Half-life 2: Episode 2. But then, I have a tendency not to notice below par graphics and screen tearing, so maybe I'm just missing something. Maybe I got lucky?
To be perfectly honest, I couldn't really care less if the game plays better or looks better on another platform, as long as it looks and plays good enough on my own. I just can't get wound up by these shoddy ports, as most of the time, they don't seem as bad to me as they are made out to be. Go figure.
While I can see your logic in proclaiming that poor ports are a catalyst in people choosing one platform over another, I don't really think it makes all that much difference. It's like I was going off about at work yesterday, very few people seem to care about quality, so in many instances, they'll simply take the best option that they've got (or the easiest/cheapest), which is to buy these second-rate ports.
If I remember correctly, both DMC4 and Burnout Paradise were built on the PS3 then ported over, yet I read of no complaints or differences between the two versions. I think the problem lies solely in the PS3 hardware, as it genuinely seems harder to get a game working at full efficiency as opposed to the more standard layout of other systems. I'm not technically minded, so I'll just let other people duke that one out.
Peace.
Its not the PS3's fault rather the developers who are unwilling to make the PS3 versions of their games shine.
The reason DMC4 and Burnout turned out good on both consoles was because they did what Platinum did with Vanquish. Built the game on the PS3 then ported it to Xbox. EA has also expressed that working on the PS3 then porting to Xbox works better then the other way around. Some have actually said it benefits the Xbox version when the work is done on the PS3 first.
The problem with ports is they usually don't run as well or look as good as the original unless the developer does the extra optimization. In the cases where they don't (The Orange Box, Bayonnetta, Mafia II, etc.) the console getting the port is getting an inferior, buggy product. There for, in my opinion, we shouldn't be charged as much. Like i said before, ports last gen were generally considered inferior and came a with a reduced price. Look at Capcom with Resident Evil 4 on the PS2. Lower quality, cheaper price.
Last edited by Jawknee on 9/6/2010 2:19:00 PM
The technicalities of the matter is this: most devs in the beginning of this gen, and quite a few currently, did not use the Cell, and did not take advantage of the bluray. And although the RSX (ps3 graphics chip) can do a number of things better than the 360's, it was meant to be more like a beginner's tool, so that most of the work would eventually be off loaded on to the Cell during the development cycle.
The 360's graphics chip benefited from a completely sharable ram of 512MB DDR3 between the graphics and system memory, and although not even being a 3rd as fast as the ps3's XDR 256MB memory dedicated for video with an additional, sharable DDR3 256MB, it allowed devs to program their game with greater ease because they did not have to worry as much about allocating partitioned memory.
In addition, the 360's graphics chip benefited from it's hardware based AA, and though it was optimized to perform at subHD, the upscaler chip would then boost the resolution (non-natively of course)…where as the software based AA and quincunx of the ps3's graphics chip was optimized to perform at HD, but gave the graphics a vaseline-smear effect, which wasn't as sharp.
Some ports early on in the generation, like Deadspace, actually had better versions on the ps3. thanks to being able to store uncompressed data on the bluray, and because of the memory allocation of the ram. So although both had identical graphics and gameplay, the ps3's version had better sound and video quality, thanks to being not compressed, and supporting dolby 7.1. Burnout Paradise is another example of a game that saw a slightly better version on the ps3.
However, 1st-party studios very quickly began to show what was possible with the Cell (along with one very special 3rd party studio headed by none other than Hideo Kojima). Games like Uncharted and MGS4, soon to be followed by Killzone 2 and Uncharted 2, showed that the ps3 was in fact capable of the best performance drastically overshadowing anything else out there on consoles. Quite truly, hypothetically without the licensing-restrictions of 1st party franchises, porting these games to the 360 would be like trying to port a 360 game to a Wii…
"Some have actually said it benefits the Xbox version when the work is done on the PS3 first. "
I remember a PR person saying that as well. While I think there's a lot of ambiguity with such a claim, there is an example that may hold some validity.
Ninja Gaiden 2 was custom designed for 360's strengths. While the game may have pushed around a lot more polygons (more enemies on the screen and 60fps cutscenes), it definitely didn't look as pretty on the bling-bling side of things as the PS3 follow-up, NGS2 (much better shader effects, higher res, scaleable AA, more colorful).
The reformed Team Ninja was faced with a conundrum: do a slap-stick port by shaving down elements because of convenience (the norm with multi-plats going from 360 to PS3–see Bayonetta), or work harder and do it right by re-engineering the game around PS3's abilities. The end result of Team Ninja's PS3 efforts is a game that brought to light the balance of the RSX's design ( a balance of vertex and shader processing) making for a prettier, "better looking" game opposed to a game that was slim on the shaders but heavy on the vertices. Team Ninja also did well to re-tune the enemy AI and health to accommodate the fewer enemies.
I don't remember exactly who said it but it wasn't a PR guy for what i do remember. it was a developer. Not a Sony rep. He said something about the PS3 requiring "cleaner code" than the 360 so when you transfer the "cleaner code" to the 360, it benefits from it.
If i can find the article, I'll post it. can't find it as of now.
Thanks for the info there Shams. Thanks for the input Jawknee and Temjin. Very informative, but I still don't understand WHY there is such a huge differential between the quality of the ports. Is it really just lazy development? Is it really that PS3 development serves as an aid to 360 development? Or is it that the PS3 is truly that different from the architecture of the 360 that it becomes intimidatingly difficult for the devs to try to make it match up?
A discussion for another day perhaps, I must retreat into the land of dreams: LittleBigPlanet. Only I'll be going to sleep, not turning on my PS3 again. Not tonight anyway.
Peace.
I just got one thing to say I LIKE OWNING BOTH SYSTEMS there is no reson to own one only gaming system in less you are a loud mouth gaming fanboy. its great to know that i can play any game i want on what ever system i want. like Bayonetta for exsample i brought it day one for the Ps3 biggest mistake of my life it did not even last that night it still sits on my gaming shelf to this day but i recently i brought Bayonetta for the 360 and i am really enjoy it.
If a console that doesn't have what you want then I think It's an obvious reason to only own one.
Most people I know own a PS3 and a PC.
Your the one who sounds like a loud mouth fanboy. I don't like Gears, Halo or Fable so why should i spend 300 plus dollars on a console that offers nothing more then shooters, shooters and Fable? I own a PS3, PC and a Wii. I enjoy all of them, PS3, Wii, PC in that order.
I chose to spend my money wisely and spending it on a console that dies every few months or shuts off by itself when you have played it too long is not a wise investment.
Oh you know, maybe some of us don't like to buy crappy hardward that is unreliable.
i LIKED having a 360 but it just collected dust after i found and beaten infinite undiscovery for 10 bucks. but right now there arent any games worth spending my money on a new 360. besides, i refuse to support a company that decided to fix a hardware failure that they created by rushing their product by TAKING OUT THE LIGHTS ON THE RED RING to "fix" the Red Ring Of Death problem.
360 and Ps3 is they only way to if you are a real gamer. I'm keeping it at that. as for the 360 i may be on my 3rd 360 and its running cooler then my other 2 360 ever did and its been 6 months now and still no damagies to my 360 discs and its don't even get that loud like other people sime to complane about.
Yea well, there is no litmus test for being a gamer. the 360 is a been there done that, i ditched it after my first one died twice. Maybe i am a fanboy for not rewarding crappy products with more of my money. What does that make YOU for continuing to waste your money on junk?
Last edited by Jawknee on 9/6/2010 2:47:04 PM
Let this go.
the ps3 versus the 360 arguement is like the mustang vs the camaro arguement. it all comes down to opinion and taste. it often is not worth argueing about and usually does not change anyones minds.
i guess the wii would be like a toyota corolla 😉 lol
360= GM, Chrysler.
PS3= Ford, Honda, Toyota, Ferrari or any car that isn't a gas guzzling junker.
haha
Hey! No jokes about the the corolla. My baby's very sensitive.
The Wii is like a Corolla, not a lot of horse power, but one of the most reliable and efficient cars you can buy.
Thanks for the placating words. I think my baby stopped revving (strokes white finish repeatedly). (Speaks gently, almost to that of a whisper) It's okay…you're attractive to me.
Wow… a whole six months without an issue… obviously a God-like machine…. /sarcasm/
I still have my 60gig release PS3. Still going strong (but with 500gigs now).
ROFLMAO! Sorry Ben. I just had to LOL at that guy's comments. I'm overheating…wait…NO it's my 360! Not again! Well guess I should go get another one. Oh man! LOL! Pretty tedious cycle for 360 owners.
"You know what time it is? Not mating season…RROD season"!
"Man mine just inwardly combusted this time! How bout yours"?
"It…it…it just disappeared".?
Last edited by just2skillf00l on 9/6/2010 3:27:04 PM
The alternative to shoddy ports on the ps3, good versions of games on a shoddy system. To me, that's not a fair trade off.
I can afford to buy any game that I want by sticking with one console.
It would be nice to know if developers have to replace their xbox's that they test with, as often as the general public has to.
I've been thinking about getting bayonetta on boxing day. Is there any big differences from the patch and the release versions?
a person who likes all types of games……….and i end it here……..
currently playing
360: Alan Wake
Ps3: Red Dead Redemption
I get what you're saying and everything Ben, and yeah there's some 360 titles I'd like to try, but the crappyness of that system keeps me from risking it. I'd rather have a Dragon Age with framerate issues than no Dragon Age because the system I bought it for doesn't work. What scares me is that people pay for online to play the same games we do for free.
@World
Exactly! I couldn't imagine paying for online gaming. 360 owners claim that they have better online experiences though. I really just don't understand why more people own 360's. Xbots claim that PS3's cost more but when you total in all that you pay for online games and replaced consoles, the PS3 is easily the smarter choice.
And that fee was just increased another $10. i would have thought MS would just start making LIVE free like PSN if they wanted to keep up. I have so many friends who played their 360s offline because they refused to pay to play. Now most of them own PS3's and wonder why it took them so long to come over to the "darkside." haha
In the end, if the PS3 was a junker i wouldn't continue buying it either. Even with all the fantastic games it has. I just don't function that way. You reward crap, you get more crap. Small wonder MS simply removed the Red Lights to fix the RROD. LOL! People like our friend here continue to buy it anyway!
I hope 360 people don't reward their kids the way they reward MS.
Last edited by Jawknee on 9/6/2010 3:58:42 PM