Japanese developers talk shop
by Adams Briscoe 
{ Jun 2nd 2006 at 12:00PM }
The game makers across the Pacific have been sharing their opinions on the next-generation of console gaming and some of the things that surprised them coming out of E3. Some of the big-name developers with big-name contributions spoke their mind, like Resident Evil 4 producer Hiroyuki Kobayashi.Kazuma Kujo, creator of R-Type, brought up a great point about cross-platform gaming. He believes that the stark contrast between the control scheme of such systems like the PS3 and the Wii "will discourage many developers from making games for multiple platforms." If this turns out to be true, will we finally see some innovation? If game makers are tightening their focus and concentrating on just one system, then gamers may finally get their hands on new concepts.
One developer's biggest surprise from E3 was the price of the PlayStation 3 (O Rly?). This pretty much sums it up: "As a Blu-Ray player it's cheap; as a game console, it's expensive. ... Is it a 'game machine' or an 'entertainment machine'?"
Reader Comments (Page 1 of 1)
Fan @ Jun 2nd 2006 12:13PM
I thought games were entertainment....
adamsb @ Jun 2nd 2006 12:33PM
lol good call-
PS3 @ Jun 2nd 2006 9:51PM
ummm...only one Console, are 3rd parties in the buisness of making money? 1st party are a thing of the past
Pete @ Jun 5th 2006 7:44AM
As a blu-ray player, it's cheap, as a video game console, it's expensive, as both, it's a justified cost with a 60 gig hdd. Just my opinion.
striderhayasa @ Jun 6th 2006 7:31AM
$600 is $600 no matter how you slice it, spin it or justify it. It's not a mass market price and bluray is five years too early.
Pete @ Jun 6th 2006 8:31AM
yeah, 600 is 600, justified or not. Sony will make it a mass market price and blu-ray is ahead of its time if that's what you mean by "too early". In terms of the HD era, I don't see that as the big draw to either system, but a nice feature; the space that blu-ray offers is what seals the deal for actual nex-gen games. It gives developers no excuse for crappy games. You see, if devs were complaining that "if only we had more space", Sony including the blu-ray drive is the eliminating factor to that excuse (some devs are mad because now they are eating their own words in a 'put up or shut up' fashion). Not saying there won't be any more excuses, but it is one less limitation set on devs. In terms of cost, based on the selling price of the PS3, blu-ray games should be competitively priced. For instance, If MGS4 is released as a blu-ray title, they cannot expect to sell the game for more than $60-70 reasonably. I think time will tell, if they opened the market for cd-based games, then closed that and made dvd-based games, then they sure as hell can change the game once again.
striderhayasa @ Jun 6th 2006 11:47AM
@ pete. are you kidding me? And exactly what game is going to need 50bgs of storage and since when did storage become the end all reason for good design? Oblivion sure as hell didn't need HD-DVd or Bluray. I doubt that Sony can make $600 a mass market price. That's just wishful thinking. Last time I checked, great jobs weren't that plentiful and the economy wasn't doing all that great to expect the average household to support a $600 toy.
Blu ray is five years too early simply because there are other and many cases better options for more storage. Coming soon... floppy CDs that start at 9.7GBs that can be layered for nearly up to 1TB. Holographic disks that start at 300GBs and can use blue lasers for up to 515GBs, Flash memory, Microdrives etc. I haven't heard one good reason why it's a great idea to support bluray DVD or Bluray drives. Resolution and storage aren't good enough when I can get a 300 GB harddrive online for less than a hundred bucks and read/write and rewrite to my heart's content. DVD still looks great to me and I personally don't want to re-purchase my movie collection AGAIN.
This just makes no sense to me. It's like any game that doesn't support hi def isn't good. Any game that doesn't use at least 30GBs of storage isn't good. WTF is the industry coming to?
Ty @ Jun 8th 2006 7:24AM
to #7. No Pete isn't kidding you.
If you look at DVD games now the data is written up to the edge. Look at the game. Look at the best of games you gave the data is written fully. Pop it in your computer if you think i'm kidding. Then look at 360 games. Wii games. So we stop at bluray next. Space? More. Disk proportions? Roughly the same. This leads us to 1 thing. Either longer games or far better looking games. Look at what 360 games have done with DVD (minus HD support games). If thats possible then what can be done with more content out of the box. To the couch gamer. The person who envied the xbox and ps2 and gamecube as leaps from the prior then the PS3 is the way to go (without having an even greater leap on gaming... see Wii)