Is Hitman's Next Target Assassin's Creed? 
Why Kotaku Australia Should Never Work With Children... Or Robots 
Three Words I Said To The Man I Defeated In Gears Of War That I'll Never Say Again 
New Doom 3 For Xbox 360 And PlayStation 3 Supports Head-Mounted Displays 
Far Cry 3 And The Stranger In A Strange Land 
Why Robin Makes Batman Better Once upon a time, Devil May Cry 4 was a PS3 exclusive. Now, it’s not. Capcom is putting it on the PS3, the Xbox 360, PCs and cereal boxes if it could. But was it hard to move what was once a PS3 exclusive over to the 360? Nope! It was simple. DMC4 Hiroyuki Kobayashi explains:
It [the engine]is not a 360 engine. It’s not an engine for the 360. It’s the internal engine that we use at Capcom for next generation machines called the MT Framework [note: MT stands for multi-target] . That actually runs on PC. As you know, we did originally plan to have this title just on PS3, but actually the development was done on a PC, not on a particular console. So because it’s all done on the PC… it makes it very easy to move it put it on the 360 and use the power of that machine, or to put it on the PS3 and use the power of that machine, each in different ways. It’s really pretty easy to do it, developing it from this PC base.
It so easy that we really doubt we’ll see Capcom exclusives outside of Wii and DS games. Porting those ain’t so easy!
Sympathy for the Devil [Level Up]
Not much debate surrounding the 360 version of the Orange Box. It’s great, if you don’t have it, you’re a sucker. But the PS3 version? It raises people’s ire. Ignites controversy. Some believe it’s all busted up. Others, like our own Michael “Once Was A Teenage Hair Model” McWhertor, didn’t really mind the PS3 version’s technical hiccups, and had a blast. Who, then, do you believe? “Why Mike, of course” is the correct answer, because a low-res embedded clip is no substitute for, you know, actually playing the thing. But if you really must come to these conclusions on your own, please see above.
Games cost a lot of money now, there’s not as many people owning current-gen consoles as owned stuff like the PS2, competition between the three platforms is closer than last gen, blah blah blah. In short, the third-party exclusive is dead. We’ve heard it all before. Capcom have heard it all before, too, and do you think they care? They couldn’t give a rat’s arse. Capcom marketing VP – and exquisitely-named gentleman – Nique Fajors: Exclusives are driven by gameplay functionality and cost. If you get your gameplay functionality and costs right, exclusivity can work.
How right he is! Phoenix Wright, Dead Rising, Lost Planet, Devil May Cry…oh, wait… Capcom: Third-Party Exclusives Still Viable [Next-Gen]
Over at his blog Seven Degrees of Freedom, Pandemic programmer Tony Albrecht has posted an explanation of the mathematics behind the “Tony” unit. If you missed the post from two weeks ago, Tony came up with a new unit of measurement to quantify the power of the three major consoles. It was all in good fun, mind you, so don’t take this as Tony’s official stance on how the consoles rank.
From the post:
The numbers I gave were;
• X360: 6 Tony units • PS3 : 14 Tony units • Wii : 0.2 Tony units
Basically, I took my personal brain power (3.2GHz – which just happens to be the same as a single HW thread of the X360) as a base unit. So, the X360 with 3 cores, each with 2 HW threads gets 3*2 = 6 Tony units.
More specifics on the PS3 and Wii can be found at the original post.
I hope Tony doesn’t mind all the attention. This is the last of it man, I promise. Unless, of course, you make something else up that’s cool.
Tony Units [Seven Degress of Freedom] Tony Albrecht Debuts “Tony” Units At Game Connect [Kotaku AU]
Pandemic’s Tony Albrecht decided to invent a new unit of measurement to compare the processing grunt of the major consoles, in an effort to simplify the concept during Game Connect’s “Great Debate”.
It’s called the “Tony”. Yes, he made it up.
Before the fanboys get themselves worked up, the debate was an exercise in humour.
Well, mostly. Although many of the points brought up during the verbal sparring were legitimate, they were often exaggerated or stretched. Mind you, Tantalus’ David Hewitt did an excellent job of combing the real with the funny as he defended the Wii, and it came as no surprise when he won the debate.
But back to Albrecht:
The 360 has three cores and two hardware threads on each … so you have six units of Tony power. The PS3 [has SPUs]… you can port your code across onto the SPU and it’s around four times the speed – six of those for you to play around with, so you have around 14 Tony units.
How about Nintendo’s effort, Tony?
The Wii has about .2 Tony units.
It should be noted that Albrecht doesn’t own a 360 or PS3. But he does have a Wii.
Can we please have the Tony added to the metric system? It’d make writing all those technical articles on the consoles so much easier.
Consoles or PCs? Quick, where do you stand. Crytek art director Michael Khaimzon is a PC guy and for good reason. He explains:
My opinion on them in comparison to the PC is that I think the PC is always better. Because the PC you can do so many things with, and the console is just there for the gaming… You cannot create characters on a console — you can’t run a 3D program from one, as far as I know. You can’t play certain strategy games on a console well, like Total Annihilation for example, or at least I haven’t seen one, I think it’s limiting to certain types of games.
Sure, it’s common knowledge that PCs are way more powerful than consoles. They’re also way more expensive. You get what you pay for!
PCs Better [Games Industry][Image]
So Dynasty Warriors 6 hit Japanese PS3s and Xbox 360s. People have really been really been looking forward to this game! But which version is better? Side-by-side comparison time! For the game’s movie scenes, the PS3 version is clearer, and things like hair and skin are crisper. Also, the PS3 rendered clouds aren’t as blocky. What’s more, the Xbox 360 version loads slightly slower than the PS3 version. In-game battle footage (above) looks roughly the same; however, the Xbox 360 does render the night stages a little “darker.” The So, there are differences! Small ones. Hit the link below for more images.
Dynasty Warriors 6 Compared Compared with HDMI [Hiruinaki Coin Ikkoireru]
When the Xbox 360 Elite hit Japan, the black console sold right out. And when the 40GB PLAYSTATION 3 went on sale, it didn’t. Japanese site Ota Road claims that the limited edition Elites (Japan only got 5,000) wasn’t nearly as abundant as the 40GB PS3. What’s more, the new and cheaper PLAYSTATION 3 doesn’t seem like it sold out anywhere in Osaka’s Den-Den Town. Things to keep in mind: This isn’t based on official sales figures, but rather visiting multiple Den-Den Town retailers. What’s more, stores most likely had a larger stock of 40GB PLAYSTATION 3s than Xbox 360 Elites. However, the Elite’s launch was backed by little to no support from Xbox Japan, while Sony rolled out four television ads for the new, cheaper PS3 model. That’s not to say this new model is a failure, but rather, that it just didn’t sell out like the Xbox 360 Elite did. As we posted earlier, there was a good turnout at the Akihabara launch. We won’t know until we see the sales figures, though. One thing that is sure: There’s no shortage of 40GB PS3s in Japan.
Did the Elite do Better? [Ota Road]
CVG has hammered the gavel on multi-platform Assassin’s Creed (why don’t we get a gavel?). So which version does CVG say we should pick up? Under a microscope the PS3 version does look a bit sharper when the two versions are running side by side.
OK, so even though the two versions are close, that means graphics go to the PS3. Err…it’s never that simple, is it?
Oooh! The Wii’s weekly sales are falling! If this continues, I can win. Over at the world’s largest internet forum 2channel, one poster has done a succinct job of summing up the console wars now that the Xbox 360′s weekly sales briefly passed the PS3s in Japan last week. No worries! This week will most likely be back to your regularly scheduled program with the Wii coming up in first place, the PS3 in second and the Xbox 360 in third. Xbox 360 Hardware Outsells PS3 [2ch.net via Game|Life]
