Rage has been the game that has been turning heads in the game industry. The moment the first demo was shown and it was all real time it was like killzone 2 all over again when it came to the graphical hype train. Rage is beautiful in every way but the shocker was having all that beauty run on the Xbox360. DVD storage has always been the problem that consumers thought would keep them from having top of the line quality games but this isn’t the case and now seeing RAGE and knowing that it runs on the Xbox, then regardless of DVD space Microsoft really created a powerhouse console.
Rage has also been in the light of controversy considering that John Carmack himself said that the Playstation 3 version will be the better version simply cause of the blu-ray benefit and the raw calculating power of the Cell processor but, it will be harder to develop on. The industry goes into shock again considering what we’ve witnessed this generation when it comes down to multi-platform games, we’re all use to seeing the Playstation 3 get the short end of the stick but finally especially for fanboys out there the Cell finally wins over the competition.
Now Mr. Carmack says that the Xbox360 runs at 60fps (frames per second) while the Playstation 3 is pushing 30fps but the question is this, will that be the result or is it just the situation at this point in time with development. Sony’s machine is harder to work with this is a fact but, PC and Xbox360 is easier so for the sake of the developers let’s kill two birds with one stone but how? since the Xbox is easier let’s get some of the development process out the way a little earlier and then come back to the Playstation 3 with a better more focused development cycle to get the most out of the machine makes sense.
For a company to consistently say that without a third disk on Microsofts platform they are going to have less quality textures, then instead of building the game up like they were going to originally they make certain changes to allow the 360 version to be more on par instead of left out in the loop in terms of cross platform quality. The situation here is that John Carmack clearly stated multiple times that the Playstation 3 is a more complex yet more powerful machine and that alone goes to show that if the games end up exactly the same knowing that the Playstation 3 version could’ve been the better version then yes Sony once again will get shafted and the power it has won’t be shown in it’s full glory for the sake of the Xbox360. This may not be fair but it’s not Microsofts fault it’s the developers choosing not to use the most out of one system just so both can be the same.
The problem with this method is that Sony’s marketing appears fake why? Sony says they have the most powerful console on the market and regardless if the exclusives they have demonstrates this power the multi-plats should as well and when developers refuse to go the extra mile for the sake of making another rival competitor happy then it’s a disservice to the R&D (research and development) of the Playstation 3 if the power is only going to be used exclusively instead of organically across all companies.
John Carmack Quotes Below
“Everything is designed as a 60Hz game. We expect this to be 60Hz on every supported platform”
“There is disc space issue on the 360, and if we cant find a clever way or compromise with Microsoft to address that issue… even though we feel the 360 has superior hardware, the size limitations may mean that we may not have as much texture density or resolution on the 360 version.”
“It is multiple discs. We think that it’s going to cram onto two discs right now. We’ve been spending a lot of effort on an extra compression method for it, and profiling where we can cut on that.”
“We would love to set the thing up where it filled one Blu-ray disc versus three DVDs, which is about the right mix, but the game just…we can’t cut it into a third like that. We can cut it into two pieces. We’ve got two large wastelands on there. We just couldn’t make an arbitary cut,”
“There’s a little bit more theoretical raw performance on the PS3, so we’ve got a little bit more headroom.”
“We’re getting along with the PS3 really well. We took a lot of time early on in the development cycle on learning it.”
“The 360 was easier to certainly to get to where we are now. More sweat equity had to be put into the PS3.”
Noticing a pattern here and this is it. John Carmack feels that the Xbox360 is easier to develop on but at the same time the PS3 development is coming along very well. PS3 provides more raw power and with 1 blu-ray they can make the game better as opposed to 2 DVD’s, especially with the open world nature of RAGE. Rage was developed with the console in mind and considering the xbox360 is easier it’s not a surprise that it’s further along in development. The Truth, The Hype And The PR in this situation is that even though Xbox360 is easier the PS3 can perform better with more work hours put into it but, why work harder when you can settle for what’s easy and then spread the love across the board including the PC version as well.
That’s The Conclusion.
