Of course you havnt seen how good Killzone looks, but I got one up on ya, if this game is to be made for ANY console, they hafta cut ATON of graphics options than that of a PC.
I have a problem with this statement.
With the Xbox architecture, all you cut down on are memory management routines [must be more efficient], ragdoll effects [again, tweakable so that ragdolls dont interact as much], the source art is scaled down to meet the [low] texture memory of the GPU, and the polygon counts are cut down in many cases for less CPU usage.
On the playstation 2, you have a totally different architecture from the PC and Xbox. In addition to being older, slower, and harder to code for- you have a totally different codebase period. That is what fucks things up for PC games that are also released on the PS2. Developer hastle.
If you are lucky, you get a separate developer to port the game over to PS2 and "deal with it", but in reality, they usually have the same developer [different wing] doing all 3 versions. Thats the problem here. Not the fact that the PS2 can't handle all these advances that we wan't, but that the DEVELOPER DOES NOT HAVE ENOUGH TIME TO CREATE TWO VASTLY DIFFERENT VERSIONS OF THEIR GAME ON A PUBLISHERS DEADLINE AND BUDGET CONSTRAINTS.
THAT cuts into the maximum quality of the PC versions, and keeps them looking "this generation" instead of "next generation" like they should be looking by now. It's not that they can't make two different versions.
Of course, Xbox 2 will help this by coming out this year [2005], but guess what- its going to be a problem AGAIN because the playstation 3 will not be out until 2006. So, the big publishers have two choices. Cut out the PS2 entirely [never going to happen] OR make obviously scaled down versions of their next-gen games for the playstation 2 [most sensible, but bad press for Sony], OR , [the most likely option IMHO], continue to hinder the progress [at least graphics, physics & A.I. but really what else is there] of new title development to keep in pace with what featureset the PS2 can cope with.
And thats the hard truth.
[disclaimer- if said out-of-date console was the Xbox, i'd bash it instead, don't call me an Xbox fanboy]
This comment was edited on Dec 25, 09:58.