Peter Hines talks some more about Oblivion |
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SPOnG recently had the chance to talk to Peter Hines, Bethesda's VP of PS and Marketing, and we're featuring a few choice snippets of the interview today. Of course, when you say "Bethesda" these days, talk will invariably come around to Oblivion. The game is getting set for a worldwide PS3 release in March (it's a Euro launch title).It has already been made public that the PS3 version of Oblivion will include the Knights of the Nine content. According to Hines, they are currently discussing which of the other downloadable content such as The Orrery will work for the PS3 version and how well they work. Once that's over and done with, Hines said that it's only a matter of figuring out when to release them.
Hines also mentioned that some of the optimizations Bethesda made for the PS3 version of Oblivion that are non-platform specific "may be applicable to the PC or the 360." He doesn't mean all of them though. Everything that is specific to the way the PS3 is designed will not be ported to other platforms, of course.
Regarding the question of realism in Oblivion, Hines said that he still thinks Bethesda has a "long way to go in terms of lip-synching, facial animations, expressions and all that stuff." He added that "they're definitely getting better, but there's light-years to go where we are going to be approaching realism." Finally, an honest PR man.
To read the whole interview, click on the "read" link below.
Via SPOnG
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Comments [refresh]
"Everything that is specific to the way the PS3 is designed will not be ported to other platforms, of course."
That's right, OF COURSE, it's so obvious and yet we had gamers (especially Vietone) who couldn't understand this, thinking the improvements were due to the Cell processor in the PS3.
For example, one of the things I've read is that because Blu-ray is slower than the DVD drive in the 360, Bethesda are repeating some of the data in different parts of the disk to speed up the performance. That's an example of a PS3 specific optimization which doesn't apply to the other platforms. The same with optimization for the SPUs in Cell. It's PS3 specific and it's for improving the PS3's performance, it's not what makes the PS3 version better than the others. As Peter said in an interview a few days ago, Oblivion on the PS3 is doing nothing that can not be done on the other systems!
Anyway, it's great that compared to last year's release, PS3 gamers will get to play an improved version of this superb game, and it's great that owners of the 360 and PC version will see improvements too.
IMO, it's a win for gamers on all the main systems (PC/360/PS3). :)
it's stupid repeat data on a bluray becose it has a constant speed on all the disc. You can put data in a dvd becose it's slower ot the center. For the bluray slower than the dvd, it's the same. BD win at the center but DVD win at outer.
"it's stupid repeat data on a bluray becose it has a constant speed on all the disc."
The READ speed is constant, but the seek time is a bit slow, hence repeating the data helps to reduce the seek access time.
http://ps3.qj.net/Todd-Howard-on-Blu-ray-and-data-duplication/pg/49/aid/79719
"Howard said: "Drive speed matters more to me [than capacity], and Blu-ray is slower." Furthermore, EGM noted that "...the PS3 Oblivion team compensated for the slower drive by duplicating data across the Blu-ray disc, making it faster to find and load.""
The PS3 optimized, non-platform-specific enhancements are the improvements referring to new shader effects, which can be done on the 360 and PC versions. But the enhancements "specific to the way the PS3 is designed" refer to the increased draw-distance and lowered loadtimes. These are specific to PS3 and that is why "they will not be ported to other platforms". These were all mentioned in previous interviews.
So essentially, anyone arguing that the PS3 version looks better because of better graphical prowess of the Cell, is wrong. PS3 allows for the game to run smoother and allows for better draw distance.
"But the enhancements "specific to the way the PS3 is designed" refer to the increased draw-distance and lowered loadtimes. These are specific to PS3 and that is why "they will not be ported to other platforms". These were all mentioned in previous interviews."
No they were not. These are assumptions that gamers have made, but nowhere have they said the improved draw distance is PS3 specific. In fact, Peter said a week ago that the PS3 version is doing nothing that couldn't be done on the 360 and PC.
You can find comments and reports about optimizations to improve performance on Blu-ray, but at no time does Bethesda say load time optimizations in general and improved draw distance is specific to the PS3. Gamers are just guessing!
http://www.shacknews.com/extras/2007/020807_petehines_1.x
"Anyway, MOST of the enhancements or tweaks [to the PS3 version] are things that we've done to the PC or 360 version in updates or patches"
He THEN goes on to talk about the new shaders in relation to the PS3. So that suggests it more than just the new shaders being brought to the 360 and PC!!!
That's why when asked if the improvements were due to time or PS3 hardware, he says "It was entirely due to extra development time. It's not like the PS3 can do this and the others can't, it's actually something we were considering doing for the other platforms as well. We specifically did it here because we had some time and one of our graphics programmers said he could do it. Things like that are in the PS3 version, but everything else is just things that make the game load faster and run faster, so it runs as well if not better than the PC or 360 version. That was our goal all along. We felt like we were going to take however long it took until the PS3 version looked and played as well as it could"
We'll know for sure once the PS3 version is released and the 360 version is patched. But imo, Peter make's it very clear that the performance of the game has been improved for ALL versions, and that PS3 specific optimizations are due to differences in the PS3 architecture, not more power in the PS3.
It's typical on the internet for gamers to jump to conclusions if it favours their console, and Oblivion is an example of this.
The recent assumptions came from this report on IGN;
http://uk.ps3.ign.com/articles/762/762108p1.html
Here they discuss their observations of the latest PS3 build compared to the 360 and assume it's all down to Cell and PS3 hardware optimizations.
The problem is, this is only half true. Because whilst they have made PS3 speciafic optimizations (like EVERY game ported to the PS3), MOST of the improved performance is due to game engine optimizations, hence the quote you found where Peter says "MOST of the enhancements or tweaks [to the PS3 version] are things that we've done to the PC or 360 version in updates or patches".
It will be interesting once all three version can be compared side by side, the patched 360 version and PS3 in particular.
If as I expect, the graphics and performance is identical between the two, look out for excuses from those who today claim the improvements are all due to the Cell processor and that the 360 will only get the shaders to improve the backgrounds. ;)
We'll see.
I said "Here they discuss their observations of the latest PS3 build compared to the 360."
This is, compared to the currently released 360 build. They have yet to see the patched 360 version with all the new enhancements and game engine optimizations.
This is why it's a bit dumb for gamers to jump to conclusions over the improvements seen in the PS3 version.