Ted Price- President/CEO of Insomniac Games
PSM-What excites you, as a developer, about the PS3?
Ted-Memory and processing power are the two biggies. We'll now have 16 times the memory to work with and a lot more computing muscle. This means we can simply do a lot more to create more immersive games.
PSM-Is the Blu-Ray Disc format particularly exciting from your standpoint?
Ted-Absolutely! We've already been running out of space on DVD's with current-gen games. Since next-gen assets are a lot bigger, you need a lot more space. Not only will in game assets demand more space(like higher res textures, normalmaps etc..), since the PS3 supports 1080p and 1080i, our video assets are also going to need a lot of room.
PSM-What is your honest opinion of Xbox 360 versus PS3?
Ted-They're both very powerful machines, but like every console to date, it's all about the games. While 360 has the advantage of coming out earlier and reputedly being easier to develop on, PS3 has more raw horsepower. I think what you'll see on PS3 at launch are games that look as good or better than 360 games, but a couple of years down the road, the gap will widen between PS3 games and 360 games as PS3 developers discover better ways to take advantage of the cell's unique architecture.
Neil Young- GM of EA Los Angeles
PSM-What changes to the way games are presented or played do you think we'll be seeing right out of the gate on PS3?
Neil-Well, On the presentation front, I think you'll notice a dramatic difference. Visually the games will look stunning and will really show off that HDTV you've got in your living room. I think from a gameplay standpoint there will be a few games that begin to use the power of the machine. It's incredible from a computational performance standpoint, but it's going to take awhile to fully unlock the full potential of the machine.
PSM-What excites you, as a developer, about the PS3?
Neil-What we can do with all that computational power! It'll take awhile , but before too long you'll start to see games that you could only once dream of.
PSM-What's the ratio of established franchises to entirely new properties looking like right now for EALA on PS3?
Neil-We've not announced our line-up for pS3 yet, but you can count on the fact that we're going to be bringing some of our best known franchises to the platform as well as original products, in particular the ones developed with Steven Spielberg.
Evan Wells- Studio director, Naughty Dog Inc
PSM- Do you feel it's impotant for Sony to offer a standardized online experience comparable to Live for this upcoming generation?
Wells-I think it's absolutely imperative. With every console being broadband ready out of the box, the number of gamers looking for an online experience is going to be huge. Online games are only as fun as the number of people playing them so an environment needs to be in place that fosters a sense of community that extends beyond the borders of an individual game.
PSM-What changes to the way games are presented or played do you think we'll be seeing right out of the gate with PS3?
Wells-I think many of the first wave of games are going to focus on impressing the player with how realistic and believable the graphics look. Complex physics simulations and a massive number of interactive objects will also be used to demonstrate the power of the PS3. Over time we'll see a shift stylistically to include a more diverse range of looks.
PSM-What excites you about PS3?
Wells- Each new generation of hardware always opens up new opportunities. I think the PS3 is going to knock down the last few barriers that have held back achieving the highest level of immersion whether it be in a fully realistic environment or a completely believable fantasic one.
PSM-Is the Blu-Ray format exciting to you as a devloper?
Wells-I believe that the increased capacity of the Blu-Ray format is going to be vital in allowing developers to create games with the quality ofvisuals that next-Gen hardware allows. The increase in size of game models , textures, and animations is going to require an enormous amount of staorage, and that's not even factoring in the damands that HD pre-rendered cutscenes will put on disc space. Sure, Putting discs on multiple discs is an option for some genres, but games like GTA or Jak and Daxter that have you spooling data from all over the disc would be ruined by the amount of disc swapping that would be necessary.
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