Electronic Arts estimates it uses only 20% of the PS3's power
by Nick Doerr 
{ Dec 12th 2006 at 9:00AM }
Glenn was asked how the PS3 and 360 stack up (because it's all a "who's got bigger nads" game anyway... forget the whole "games make the system" argument) and he responded thus: "...We've got games coming out now where we feel we've hit maybe 20 per cent of the potential of PlayStation 3. We know the power's there, but like any new platform it's going to take us a little bit of time to unleash it." He also notes the complexity of the system and the challenge to figure out how the new hardware works, exactly.
Just think about it, though. If that 20% mark is anywhere near accurate (for the RPG fans out there, compare an early PS2 title like Ephemeral Fantasia to Valkyrie Profile 2... uh, there's a difference, a big one), will Gears of War eventually look like something done by amateurs? Not likely -- the game's damn pretty, but it will be one of many pretty games in a year or two. That graphical prowess will become the norm pretty soon and if 20% is right, will also get passed by sooner or later.
Reader Comments (Page 1 of 1)
BklynKid @ Dec 12th 2006 9:30AM
This should make fanboys happy.
Scott Krueger @ Dec 12th 2006 10:12AM
Is that a Sixaxis in my pocket, or am I just glad to hear this.
It probably is True to some extent, I don't know about 20% but, Gears of War looks at least twice as good as anything released at launch for the 360. Next Year around this time I should be playing some pretty awesome looking games on my PS3, WooHoo!!
neonDog @ Dec 12th 2006 10:25AM
happy happy =) but i heard about call of duty 3 having slow frame rates on PS3, if true it's probably coz they didn't program it properly...after all the same game is for 360 + wii
JH @ Dec 12th 2006 10:40AM
frankly, I'll wait unil next year to even consider buying the ps3. Im happy with my 360.
Eithan @ Dec 12th 2006 11:39AM
I only used 20% of my power posting this comment. Just think how much better it could be!
Nick James @ Dec 12th 2006 12:28PM
This is arguably true. Despite what people would have you believe, the PS3 is more powerful than the Xbox 360. Right now, it does not show due to the difficulty in programming for all the SPEs. All the Xbox 360 ports they compared obviously looked inferior because to do the same thing on PS3 requires a little bit extra work (possibly even a lot of extra work), and then some to make it look better.
At least, until these development companies get the hang of it.
Of course, that is by no means a pro of the system, and is definitely a downside to developing for PS3 as it adds to time... and thus, cost.
But the main point is that once programmers get the hang of it, you will see a difference.
Some programmers already appear to get the hang of it, as Metal Gear Solid 4 and Final Fantasy XIII both look to be on track for winners, but that's no surprise.
When Metal Gear Solid 2 came out on the PS2, it was miles ahead what everyone else was doing.
Same deal with Final Fantasy X.
Whomever they have over there, they are damn good at what they do....
Silver R. Wolfe @ Dec 12th 2006 12:57PM
Oh, I know why they are damn good at doing it. They're Japanese companies Nick. If they don't put their heart and soul into their work, we all know that they're employers will rip it out for them. :D
Pulse @ Dec 12th 2006 1:48PM
Whoa! How freaky was that! I was going around stating in gfx comparison threads on different forums that it is stupid to compare PS3 gfx to 360 gfx so far as game companies haven't even began using the PS3 properly and are probably only using about 30% or less of the PS3s power with what gfx we have seen thus far, even the best game on PS3 being less then 20% Obviously this isn't factual, so don't start bashing me, I was simply speculating, anyhow, I come here, and what is posted? This :) Not that it prooves anything, but it certainly backs up my points :)
Kevin @ Dec 12th 2006 1:36PM
The question is retards; how much power are developers taking advantage out of the 360?
Pulse @ Dec 12th 2006 1:52PM
Kevin, ask Epic, they are the ones saying they pushed the 360 to the max la di dah, I think they dug they're own grave by saying that about 360 cos now ppl want to know "What is beyond gears of war?"
Tomppa @ Dec 12th 2006 2:53PM
360 is powerful. Ps3 is powerful. I don't know wich is more powerful, but one thing I know: 360 uses dvd's while ps3 uses BD. textures, cutscenes etc. are going to be way sharper on ps3.
I think I've said this, but I say this again: No matter how powerful the 360/Wii would be, I wouldn't go for them. Ps3, GT5, Linux. K?
Adrien @ Dec 12th 2006 3:08PM
I've been waiting for a year already for that PS3 to show up. Now that it's out I've got to wait a couple of weeks before I can even get my hands on one and even when I'll have one I'll have to wait a year before I can see something better than what a year old Xbox360 can do? Wait wait wait play later.
Brian @ Dec 12th 2006 4:31PM
10. Resistance is on par with most current 360 games and looks leaps and bounds better than 360 launch titles. Remember, we programmers are a conservative bunch - we spend YEARS perfecting techniques and it takes time to learn how to properly use new tech. The 360s threshold will be reached in a year or two. The PS3 has seemingly limitless potential.
Brian @ Dec 12th 2006 4:51PM
Sorry, I meant 12 - let's just say Adrien in case there are more queued comments).
ozymandias @ Dec 12th 2006 5:03PM
Nick James:
the ps3 has less memory system bandwith with 48GB to the 360s 278GB and less ram with 256MB xdr main ram and 256MB gddr3 vram that cannot be shared. so to ME the real "power" of the console is still up in the air. but thats just my opinion.
ozymandias @ Dec 12th 2006 5:06PM
Brian
your right resistance totally looks better than COD2. but it should since its been in developement since 2004 I8 right?
George @ Dec 12th 2006 6:04PM
GeOW uses up basically all of the X360 GPU so basically that is the best ur gonna see for X360 (mabye a little better)btw i no GeOW uses only 1 core but im not talkin about the processing power.
Michael @ Dec 12th 2006 6:48PM
ahhh... sweet sweet speculation...
"I have a friend who's cousin married a dude who works for EA... and he says the PS3 is actually no better than a gamecube... but his boss' fiancee who works for Activision says that there is a hidden graphix card in the PS3 that has more power than one thousand space shuttles... and can actually calculate Pi... and so developers will never reach its potential... in fact... it will form a global defense coalition... becoming self aware at 6:30 PM, August 34th, 2020 and will rename itself skynet..."
Lets face it... the PS3 is newer Tech... the 360 has more games. (sound familiar... ahem... xbox vs PS2)... neither of which will really determine the fate of the system...
The original xbox's horsepower advantage never meant didly to those PS2 hugging RPG fans... and the PS3's library of hundreds of titles with wierd RPG names ("Super Vaalkeryie Symphony: Advantage Wars of the Clocktower") could never sway them from their Halo Lan Party addiction...
Lets face it... as much as we are eager to crown a "winner"... there is no "winner" in console wars... there are competitors (Sony, Nintendo, and Microsoft), and those companies who fall by the wayside due to their faulty business moves, not because the other system "beat" them (Sega).
Someone needs to start a peaceful blog... for all fanboys to come together under... maybe www.differentstrokesfordifferentgeeks.com just a suggestion..
I bet that blog would recieve 20% less comments posted due to the fact that it reached only 60% of its awesomeness.... after all... I have a friend who used to work in the marketing department of sega and she said they were...."
Inspired @ Dec 12th 2006 7:09PM
Interesting take, Brian. Limitless, yet there are already talks of a PS4?
I agree that developers are taping a very small percentage of the PS3 at launch, but be realistic. The GRAPHICS chips in the Xbox 360 and the PS3 are VERY comparable. They will not be outdoing each other from a graphical standpoint. Keep dreaming.
Pulse @ Dec 12th 2006 8:44PM
Nobody can proove anything until we see the best from both consoles, graphics may not be everything, but then comes game quantity, games with more to offer are better, gameplay and hardware usage. Also AI intelligence, theres nothing better then playing a game where the enemy is as or maybe just a little less as smart as you are.
Ghost @ Dec 12th 2006 8:49PM
70% of statistics are made up on the spot.
Brian @ Dec 12th 2006 10:03PM
Inspired, there are talks of a PS4 because some analysts said that a Sony management shake-up for some reason meant that they wouldn't make another console. When I said limitless I meant we probably won't reach the limits of the PS3 for a decade. Also, the big difference comes from the PS3's processor that can handle many times the number of operations of the 360 which means better physics and more objects on the screen. Furthermore people are discounting Blu-Ray right now but it will probably prove beneficial later on as even if it means things don't have to be as tightly encoded then it will run better for skipping a decoding process. While its potential as a movie format is in doubt Blu-Ray is a perfect storage medium.
adam @ Dec 14th 2006 2:09PM
Damn u guys have no clue,
20% = 3.2 ghz power processor on the ps3, they aren't even using cell, which was my suspicion all along.
Ps3 is fast, but I'm a programmer, and I've gone through cell's sdk and such, and seen 360 and ps3 side by side.
There is no financial incentive to try hard and port software cross-platform while utilizing the all the cell spe's, so it'll probably be exclusive titles in like a year or two that'll look the best on the playstation 3.
Cross platform games will always yield the advantage to the xbox, since it has something called "hardware multi-threading" yes, it has 3x the power processing of the cell (not fpu processing), which allows 6 hardware threads.
Multithreaded coding can fall back on a single cpu easily, which is what's been happening with most ps3 cross platform titles, and since it's the cheapest most effective way of porting games, cross platform will always look better on the 360.
Yes cell is fast, and it can probably decode/encode 50 hd streams simultaneously, but that has nothing to do with how the games will look.
They should dedicate one of those spe's to serve as a hardware scaler.