You could with less polygons or a lower framerate. I don't mind the framerate in Shadow of the Colossus for instance, despite how fluid it would be on a PS3 - and you can already see for miles upon miles and fight enormous detailed beings with a good physics system to epic, clear music. The field with trolls in Kameo also felt more like fighting a bunch of mass-produced cardboard cutouts than even remotely intelligent enemies. It was like a nondescript mass of "enemy" instead of an army. And you can't say that the "massive firefights and AI" couldn't ever be done on a Wii. How would you know? Are you an elite programmer with complete knowledge of its hardware? It sounds like a highly unrealistic and simplifying statement.

And the $350 more was referring to the PS3.

The problems of increased development times and higher budgets remain. Microsoft and sony are in a money-burning horsepower arms race. So the Wii can't have a million units on-screen and you can't see to the next star system, but I've yet to see a game where that actually matters. Give me cheaper and slightly technologically inferior games anyday, I'm not a rich man.

That is one of the faults I see on the horizon for "next-gen" systems, primarily the PS3.  Trying to fill 80 gb discs with stuff is no easy task, especially when you've got to have an artist or designer create almost every single bit of it.  There is no doubt in my mind that any developer who tries to take advantage of this space in a legitimate way (not by uncompressing things or just being wasteful or careless with space), that their games will not only take a long time to produce, but will cost more for the consumer in the end (think $70-90 per game!).

I don't see this happening much though, because any company interested in making a profit is not going to develop such a large game for just one system, they'll want to release on at least 2 of them.  Which means they won't be able to really take advantage of all that extra space anyway.  Then there's also the long load times that would come with usage of said disc space, ironically being one of the major downfalls of the PSP.

This is all speculation though, so we'll just have to wait and see, in a week, when everything's released.  Either way you look at it though, it's an exciting time to be a gamer.

If so much processor time's being spent on graphics, the AI for one clearly could manage on less memory. There's no logic to that.

dude, it does not take next-gen horsepower to do the thousands of enemies deal.
peep these, on the ps2, no less:

http://www.gametrailers.com/player.php?id=7874&type=mov&pl=game
(note: there's a short add you have to watch first - that's not the game in question)

http://media.ps2.ign.com/media/765/765311/vid_1327329.html
see that far bottom-right number?  that's the number of enemies on the field (65 thousand +)  :o


and i will keep throwing it around to the grave.  because good art direction is what makes any media beautiful - not technology.  and, of course i know that kameo and gow both have art direction.  i never said that they didn't.  i said that you can achieve massive worlds and tons of enemies without super tech, as long as you have great art direction, artists, and programmers.  you might want to go back and re-read that post...


very exciting indeed  ;D
now, if only they'd space out the releases of so many dang new games (current and next-gen) and consoles...

"And you can't...statement."



In the same note you could say that massive firefights and AI could be done on the Atari. Except they can't.



"If so...logic to that."



As of now they have one of the treads for just AI. This one thread is faster than the Wii's processor, so the AI couldn't be run on the Wii.

Well, I think the Wii will have some amazing games on it.  They've got some great ideas, and some great people working for them, and they are on a roll so far.

I gotta say though, Gears of War is by far the best looking game I've ever played.  And it's fun.  I can't get enough of running up to people and chainsawing them with the chainsaw bayonet in multiplayer!   :D

I guess then the next thing that matters is if the AI is actually worthy of such wasted processing (which I would imagine, given that it takes the sort of intelligent design five extra processors and a shed of RAM aren't going to get anyone for free, is not), or if it could have been done more efficiently...

Srehpog, Epic is a very experienced developer who pretty much only makes shooters. They know how to make shooters, they're really good at that. You'd assume that after 15 years making shooting games that most everything would be pretty well optimized.

Well, the game was made to work well on the 360.  If and when they release it for PC, they'll prolly have to change some of that, because as far as programming for a standard PC is concerned, it's not efficient or reliable to hope that the user has a double or triple cpu machine.

To me what it comes down to is what you want.

Do you want millions of enemies onscreen and graphics that look like real life?  If so, get the 360 or PS3.

In my case... I'd much rather side with the Wii.  Just thinking about it from a design perspective is exciting.  It just opens so many doors and has the potential to change gaming entirely.  Plus Smash Bros... can never forget that.  And honestly, Resident Evil 4 had graphics far beyond anything I'd ever require in a game for it to be fun or immersive for me and that was a GC game, so more processing power just doesn't convince me.

Of course if I had the money for it, I'd have all three.  Unfortunetly, that is far from the case.