Aug 14 / Ozymandias

1080p Meaningless this Generation

blu-ray, hd-dvd, home-theater, playstation-3

There’s been a lot of interest in the PS3 due to its stated 1080p output for both games and movies (via Blu-ray). What’s interesting is that a lot of folks don’t realize how meaningless 1080p actually is in this generation.

Let’s take games first. The PS3 has roughly the same pixel-pushing capabilities as the Xbox 360. Don’t need to take my word for it, it’ll be obvious soon enough over the next year. Even if this wasn’t the case, consider we now live in a multi-platform development world, and that the current sweet spot developers are targeting is 720p due to the extremely similar system specifications. Simply put, a developer who is planning to release their game for both the Xbox 360 and the PS3 will aim for a common attainable ground. In fact, I’ll stick my neck out and predict that that you won’t see any 1080″x” games for the PS3 this year.

Let’s move on to HD movies. Home Theater Magazine (recommended!) has a sister website, and I wanted to point you to a great blog post by Geoffrey Morrison discussing the topic. To quote:

“Movies and almost all TV shows are shot at 24 frames-per-second (either on film or on 24fps HD cameras). All TVs have a refresh rate of 60Hz. What this means is that the screen refreshes 60 times a second. In order to display something that is 24fps on something that is essentially 60fps, you need to make up, or create new frames. This is done using a method called 3:2 pulldown (or more accurately 2:3 pulldown). The first frame of film is doubled, the second frame of film is tripled, the third frame of film is doubled and so on, creating a 2,3,2,3,2,3,2 sequence. It basically looks like this: 1a,1b,2a,2b,2c,3a,3b,4a… Each number is the original film frame. This lovely piece of math allows the 24fps film to be converted to be displayed on 60Hz products (nearly every TV in the US, ever).
This can be done in a number of places. With DVDs, it was all done in the player. With HD DVD, it is done in the player to output 1080i. With Blu-ray, there are a few options. The first player, the Samsung, added the 3:2 to the signal, interlaced it, and then output that (1080i) or de-interlaced the same signal and output that (1080p). In this case, the only difference between 1080i and 1080p is where the de-interlacing is done. If you send 1080i, the TV de-interlaces it to 1080p. If you send your TV the 1080p signal, the player is de-interlacing the signal. As long as your TV is de-interlacing the 1080i correctly, then there is no difference. Check out this article for more info on that.”

Most modern HD displays (Plasmas, LCD, DLP, etc.) display content progressively, even if they first received an interlaced signal. Let me restate that: when you’re watching a 1080″x” signal on a modern HD display, you’re almost always watching a 1080p signal. The only difference is where the de-interlacing happens – but the displayed output is always 1080p. (Minor caveat is that there are rare TVs that don’t de-interlace correctly, as described in the link above. But this is very rare today.)

This is why I get hung up on the image encoding quality of HD-DVD vs. Blu-ray. That’s where you’re going to see a perceivable difference. As to games, 99% of PS3 titles will natively render at 720p; the few that come out with 1080″x” support are either going to be simple classic arcade ports that don’t need to render complex scenes (think the original Battlezone), or will give up a lot of in-game visual effects and simply won’t look very good (hence the poor showing of Gran Turismo “HD” at this past E3).

To sum up, don’t get sucked into all the 1080p hype. Just make sure you have a recent HDTV that de-interlaces 1080i signals correctly and you’ll be just fine.

http://n/a Chris

Very nice article. I’d love to see where 1080p is at in the following months.
Matt

Thanks a lot for the article, although I have one minor issue. While you say that a small batch of televisions don’t deinterlace properly, you really meant "more than 48 percent," which is hardly a small number. Granted, the tests only were on 54 tvs, but that is still a very large percentage.
Steve

Keep it coming! I can’t get enough.
Anonymous

Well, if Sony internal studios can make some decent 1080p games, that will make a nice distinguishing feature between the platforms. Nintendo has proven that decent first-party content is enough to sell a platform. So who knows? 1080p games definitely look better than 720p.
http://www.scee.net Withheld

One of my mates works for SCEE in the UK. He has been around the PS3 for a while now devloping testing software environments. He can not tell that much about what he deos but he says he will not be getting one. Seems he has not been wowed at all.
Anon

I agree that 1080p games will be few and far between, but – Resolution isn’t strictly tied to "pixel pushing power". Whether you could push a multiplatform game up to 1080p on PS3 depends on where the game is bound. If you were heavily CPU bound, for example, you could perhaps push up the resolution without affecting performance.

PS3′s 1080p support also has the nice side effect of also being able to scale and/or render your old PS2/PS1 games at resolutions up to that (PS1 games might natively render at that res if its a software emulator, like you could on the PC), and of course, it’s nice for Blu-ray movies.
disc

I think you might see games such as Singstar or Guitar Hero PS3 in 1080p

But those doesn’t count?
Piranacon

The difference is that Nintendo is well known for excellent first party titles (Example think when was the last Zelda game got a really poor review even Celda scored well considering everyones taken on the cell shading)where as (Going to get flamed for this by the PS fanboys) Sony FP titles are a bit more hit or miss. That is to say they really stand out or they blend with the crowd, whilst Sony FP have some really good titles for me and the PS brand its always been about the 3rd party.

Now to me the 1080p is a waste, last generation (And in fact every generation since the NES days) multiplatform developers (3rd party) have always coded to the lowest spec in that generation. last gen it was the PS2, the gen before that it was the N64. Then doing the bare min work to get it on to the other platforms, sorry to all developers there .

Thanks for bring the Gran Turismo "HD" issue up. When we watched the Sony keynote at work (I’m a developer). I couldn’t get over how poor the game looked. Now my co workers where saying that its how it was video of the Keynote was encoded or that its only been it development x about of time. But to me this looked really poor. The best way I could think to describe it: Its a cross between "Who framed Rodger Rabbit" (look at the bit in the desert where old car is racing and look at the tires) The old “Lord of the rings” film where they mixed film and cartoons (But did a better job).

But with saying that until I play it on 1080p my opinions can be taken with a pinch of salt.

Does anyone know if the display units (The ones set up in Best Buy etc) will be running on 1080p screens??
imaginedbug

Over here in the Netherlands I have hardly seen any advertisements for 1080p HDTVs at all. Most are 720p and a very few are 1080i, but those are far more expensive than the 720p’s.

My current 32" CRT TV is still working fine, and hopefully won’t need replacement for at least another 5 years. By then the whole HD-DVD vs. BR-DVD and 720p vs. 1080i vs. 1080p wars will have been settled and choosing a new TV will have gotten mucho easier.
ronbo

Remember that the original Xbox also did 720p and 1080i, however just because you "could" create a game in those modes didn’t mean that you "should". There were very few games that were written in those modes, and they were either very demanding on system (Steel Batallion LoC at 720p) or they were very simple games (Atari Anthology at 1080i). The Xbox 360 is designed to handle these modes, the original just didn’t have the horsepower to do complex games with fast motion, hence the reason most games were 480i or 480p. Sure a few games worked out (please don’t start a flame war listing your favorite original Xbox game that was 720p), but it can be difficult to develop for, very costly, and not very practical.

It’s already been stated many times that the cell processor is a good floating point chip that will work out well in HDTV televisions, however it is not a good gaming processor. Sony planned all along to build a general purpose chip that can be used in their various products, including televisions and Playstations. It may be able to handle a 1080p video signal, but for games the PS3 suffers from the same problems that the original Xbox had with HDTV, simple games only, anything more will tax the system. I may not be a game developer, but it seems that we keep hearing from developers that "you don’t want to develop for anything over than 720p on the PS3, it just can’t handle it".

We will know in a few months what the real truth is.
DC

lol so everything Microsoft doesnt have with the 360 is meaningless, JAAAA GUY YOU IS TEH SMART.
wearedoomed

<Sigh> this post is so wrong on so many different levels that I don’t even know where to begin. First off, the difference between 1080i and 1080p is readily apparent – anybody who has actually done a proper A/B with good source material can tell you that. Second, you most certainly are NOT "…almost alwyas watching a 1080p signal…" when you look at a "modern HD display". While I do not know what Ozymandias’ educational background is, it is clearly not a tehcnical one, because he (she?) grossly distorts and twists a tremendously complex issue. Finally, does anybody really believe anything that an MS flunkie is going to say about Sony? Similiar to when the Sony corporate shills start flapping their gums about "4D gaming", I would suggest to readers of this blog to take what is written here with a HUGE grain of salt – it is biased, disingenuous garbage designed for propaganda purposes.
Olav

I agree with what Geoffrey Morrison explained when you’re watching 24fps movies in 1080i/p, but that won’t happen when you’re watching a 60hz game. With 1080i you’ll get half a frame (odd/even lines) every refresh of the render (I repeat, of the render), so if your TV is plasma/LCD 1080p and you connect it to a 1080i60 console-game, the screen will need two frames to render a full image, so it will be either be "converted" to 1080p30 or shown at 1080i60 if the TV can process interlaced images.

So, the only difference you’ll appreciate when watching a great 1080i60 game (shown at 1080p30) with a 1080p60 game will be that the game could be a little bit smoother. Not much more because the eye can’t appreciate refresh rate bigger than 42-44hz (I did some lab tests in college with some friends).

I’m not MS fanboy, PS fanboy or Nintendo fanboy. I’m a technology fanboy, and I think in 5 years most TVs you can buy will be 1080p. But when I can buy a 1080p TV, we’ll have "Xbox 3" and it will surely be 1080p.

But the real thing here is that graphics is not the most important thing in a game. I love my 360 with my 720p TV, and I’m sure I’ll love my Wii with its 480p or whatever. And I won’t love the PS3 not because I dislike Sony or I’m a Wii60 fanboy, but because I never liked the PSX and PS2. I simply don’t like it the same way I don’t like the iPod. It’s just not done for me.
Au Gold

Great article, I agree with mostly everything you have said with relevance to the comments above about the S PS3.
Ozymandias

Re: "Thanks a lot for the article, although I have one minor issue. While you say that a small batch of televisions don’t deinterlace properly, you really meant "more than 48 percent," which is hardly a small number. Granted, the tests only were on 54 tvs, but that is still a very large percentage."

I’ve seen other reports that lead me to believe most modern HDTVs de-interlace correctly, but I agree that the percentage of the TVs is high. I’m going to go and try to chat with some of the Home Theater Mag guys and see if there’s any more information available. Hopefully we can get some more data points.
Ozymandias

Question:

Do any of you know of *unambiguously confirmed* 1080x titles for either the PS3 or Xbox 360? Not looking for "aiming for" or "targeting" 1080x quotes or statements. Looking for (at least) solid commitments, preferably recent (ie, not two E3s ago).

I haven’t seen anything, which is why I don’t believe developers are generally targeting 1080x titles on any platform. Would love strong evidence to the contrary if anyone has it!
saeba

i don’t believe this bullshit.

PS3 will rules the earth.

Nyahahahhah.

Call me a fan boy.
Bryant H

Most modern HD sets are still displaying 720p, not 1080p. And most of the sets that *do* display 1080p do not accept 1080p signals (that’s changing, of course, with the new HDMI specs). Saying 1080p and 1080i are essentially the same is like saying 480p and 480i are the same, and I suspect that if anyone does an A/B comparison on a 480p/i image, the difference is going to be quite noticeable.
Truth

damage control
Mark C

Ha yea this 1080p stuff means nothing. Two words refresh rate. How fast is a 37" LCD TV? At 60hz a moving image wont look any differnt than at 30hz. Screens are too slow to really show it. Unless you get a CRT or maybe DLP? I dont know how fast DLP’s are but a LCD you wont tell.
Joni

The PS3 1080p resolution wasn’t made to make a debut this year, but to make sure the console remains competitive for at least 5-6 years. Something that Microsoft doesn’t count on, seeing how the original Xbox was replaced a mere 4 years after its launch.
MHolmesIV

No, see, you need to consider the frames/second.

1080i60 == 1080p30, which are the only two 1080 broadcast standards. The differences you normally see with 480i and 480p is that your display actually has twice the resolution, whereas for 1080 on a digital display will have the same number of lines (1080). On a CRT, you might see a difference.

1080p60 would have theoretically better performance than 1080i or 1080p30, but for 24f movies, it would not be noticeable. The problem there is that there are almost no TV’s that can accept a 1080p60 signal.
Joseph

Well in short no 1080p will make a differnce.

The argument about pixel pushing power will have to wait until the PS3 comes out.

As far as a launch title supporting 1080x who cares if one comes out in the first 3 months before Christmas. The point will be that it can get better than 720p. People said the same crap about the xbox360 not really being able to support 720p. A year later a new number(1080) and a different system.

Most games will be made to SDTV 525 line tv. 3D rendered games will be made mostly resolution independent just like PC 3d games SDTV, 720p and 1080p will all be supported. No one ever complains that because a game optimised to an ATI card won’t play at higher resolution on a Nvidia one.

Someone else here carried the argument about how with video games 1080i/1080p will make a difference due to the adaptave nature of computer graphics to output a proper 1080p signal.

Interlaced vs Non Interlaced.

You have confused 2 topics 3:2 pull down and progressive vs interlaced signals.

If properly done the 3:2 pull down will leave the progressive scenes with full detail and no interlace artifacts when shown on a 1080p display, except on the 3,2 boundries.

Interlacing a signal will have certain motion blur artifacts. So for instance if a you see a baseball in progressive mode the ball will appear to be full and spherical, while in motion. An interlaced baseball will have an even then odd line fringe around the edge, while in motion. The background will be rendered into the baseball at the edge every other line. When an signal is sent in an interlaced format that error will never be factored out. This effects has nothing to do with a 3:2 pulldown. It is an problem with an interlaced signal. This kind of error is not fixable you can only spend a lot of $$ on signal processing equipment to try and get back what you wish you never had thrown out in terms of detail.

Televisions shows shot in full HD 1080p will be crisper and have approximatly 2x as much detail as those shown in 1080i. Since tv shows on dvd are just as important as movies at this point people will care and there will be lots of content available in full 1080p for viewing.

The 3:2 pull down cadence and decoding problems.

You are making the assumption that the PS3 will use the same 3:2 pulldown method as the Samsung player, interlacing then deinterlacing the signal. The method of the 3:2 pulldown is a black magic that makes or breaks current dvd players. Each big manfacturer makes dedicated chips that handle the conversion in different ways. You can be sure that with the PS3 using different chips than the Samsung standalone that it will have a different behavior. It may be better, it may be worse. But it will make a difference.
Jay

I agree with ozy mainly because 1. sony is always overhyping their bullsh!t a$$ products and 2. 360 games look better than ps3 games. Also if blu-ray movies are in 1080p and hd-dvd movies are in 1080i why do hd-dvd movies look better? hmm. Exactly. Also if you have watched two of the same movies in both formats (1080i and 1080p) you will see that there really is little to no difference.
jnz

1080p for movies is the only way.. there are no way I’m buying anything less in movies or TV sets.

as for games.. depends on the game.

and death to interlace! 720i+1080i die!
WiiPS360

I can’t find the article now, but I seem to remember some big-wig at nvidia stating that the PS3 will not be capable of rendering 1080x at a descent framerate…I’ll look some more when I get home…

I’m sure it can handle Pac-Man at 1080p, but I think it would choke on the unreal 4 engine at that resolution, not the the 360 wouldn’t as well. Seems like it’s gonna be 720p upcoverted at best…
J.Goodwin

1080p60 does not exist in consumer electronics.

Therefore, you are talking about 1080i60 and 1080p30, which are for all intents and purposes the same in terms of pixel-pushing.

In the case of games and sports content, viewers typically indicate a preference for 720p60 over 1080i60 because there is greater temporal vertical resolution (720 lines vs 540 lines per 1/60th of a second). The difference in horizontal resolution between 720p and 1080i is not typically detectable by viewers.
Jamie

I disagree with the article. Yes it holds valid technological points. With specs and how the HD signals work but the title (1080P meaningless this generation) is just not true. Sure the console world wont see true 1080P/60 games for awhile but what about those hardcore PC Gamers that love a high resolution game on a 46" LCD ? They can take full advantage of a 1080P/60 television right now and support is only growing stronger!

This generation of console gamers maybe stuck at 720p or at best 1080i (720p personally looks better then 1080 interlaced in my opinion). If your about to buy a HDTV though why the hell would you not purchase a 1080p set? it makes all perfect sense. Your HDTV is now future proof and you wont be sinking in thousands of dollars later for a upgrade. Instead you pay a few hundred dollars more today. If your in the market to buy a HDTV buy 1080p your only future proofing yourself for everything! HD PC Gaming, HD Console Gaming, eventually 1080p HDTV broadcasts, and HD Movies.
cavvac

Olav, 100% agree with you.
Brent

First off Gran Tourismo 4(before we forget this gen) will run in 1080i without problems, I do it all the time on my 27in CRT HDTV that I got for $500 3 years ago! So why is it a stretch to assume that games wont run in 1080P in a couple years or sooner. I don’t know if they said definitely, but Gran Tourismo HD is planned to have a 1080 progressive mode. And for that E3 footage, PD has already said Sony asked them 3 weeks before the show to make a video for a new GT game, EVEN THOUGH THEY WERENT MAKING IT YET and had no graphics engine ready! Not a sermon, just a thought for you flameboys out there
Metalmurphy

Sorry Ozymandias but you are wrong. There are already 3 launch titles that are running at 1080p

Genji 2, Eye of Judment and Untold Legends. And they’re LAUNCH titles… There will be many many more games running in 1080p as developers can get more power from the PS3 over time.
Seventy5

Unless I’m missing something, you’re pointing out that multiplatform games will be set to the lowest common denominator, being the 360. Do you want to brag about that? I’m guessing that’s the opposite of what you were attempting with this blog. I’m a proud 360 owner, but I’m about tired of these "MS employee strokes 360 in blog, not impressed with PS3!!1!" stories popping up weekly. We aren’t stupid. The highest quality picture we are going to see out of our 360 is 720p. Period. It would take someone quite blind to not tell the difference between a 1080i and a 1080p picture, and you’re alluding to them being 1 in the same, "technically". They are not, and you are insulting your customers by trying to tell them it doesn’t matter. Launch 360 games ran on one core, and now that multiple cores are being used, we’re seeing the benefits in games. Who are you to say that we won’t see some games in 1080p a year after PS3 launch, if not before?

Worry about 360 and making sure it’s a force to be reckoned with when PS3 launches, instead of saying "we don’t have X, so X is meaningless".
jamima

lmao-anyone willing to spend $600 on an untested console (read,not many games available) at launch is pretty damn silly in my opinon.

add to that,the apparent inferior display quality of blu-ray as compared to hd-dvd,and i think i’ll let the early adopters take the lead on this one.
D

Dont forget GT HD was already running at 1080P at E3 2006.
Ozymandias

Re: "Sorry Ozymandias but you are wrong. There are already 3 launch titles that are running at 1080p

Genji 2, Eye of Judment and Untold Legends. And they’re LAUNCH titles… There will be many many more games running in 1080p as developers can get more power from the PS3 over time."

Do you have any links to recent comments from the developers stating this? Would love to see them.

No offense, I’m sure you’re stating your honest belief, but I just don’t think this will happen. I guess we’ll see come November.
Bruce

Back in the dark ages, the Intel based PC had a standard VGA graphics card that supported a number of different graphics modes.

As a hobbyst game programmer I was surprised to learn that the most popular mode for games was a low-resolution one that featured a bigger colour palete.

The main reason this graphics mode (and some derived custom/cheat variations that were a little harder to program with) was the preferred choice for games was because when it came to resolution vs colour, it was colour that mattered more.

The reason I’m raising this point is that 720p is good enough to produce amazing visuals when a full/deep colour saturation is utilized.

Beyond this, what will really matter is the quality of the animation, and the real-time/physics while you are actually "in-game" that will define the true quality of the "gaming" experience.

For example, I’m expecting big things from Halo 3, and to be honest, the fact that it will be played in 720p/108i will not be the deciding factor as to whether it turns out to be a brilliant experience or not. There will be far more important factors than that.

Add to that the fact that very few people have the money to invest in a true 1080p capable TV then it’s not hard to realise that this is more about perception and marketing hype than reality.

Having said that, it seems pretty obvious that the PS3 is a superior piece of hardware to the 360, but the whole 1080p argument is not really the deal-breaker.

The quality of the games is where the real battles will be won and lost, and along those lines, I think the fact that a Blu-ray drive comes standard on the PS3 is what is going to make the biggest difference. I can imagine games coming out with huge data-storage requirements (because of all the pre-rendered hi-def content) on the PS3 that the XBox will have no answer for, because it simply lacks the hardware.

And purchasing a HD-DVD player as an add-on extra is no good, because the game developers can’t assume you will own one, so their games can’t support it.
farhan

not every one gets a chance to play on the latest consoles and get the latest TVs.developers keep in mind such a ratio of people ,especially early adaptors are even fewre(Although they are the ones guiding the rest).therefore if i was developer for both 360 and ps3, i would make a game that would have better gameplay and graphics good enough forthe lesser console and a slight tweaking for the better console.this way i could get more sales on the less powerful console and polish it a bit to shine on new console. this wud cost me less and get more profits.so in pratice, any developer would make great looking games for 360 1st and later port them to wii(easier) and if they get profits, polish it a little for ps3, put 1080 label and sell. this wud go on and on till demand for 1080 ps3 rises (followng other consoles) may a year or 2.the real winner wud be the ones who stuck with 720p now and till HD and BR-DVD, and broadcastturns comletely into 1080p, allowing people to eget the latest TVs best picture and all minor bugs worked out in all technology.enjoy today and get the best 2morow.

this is not meant for early adaptors( iam one myself and respect them alot) but theory and practical are 2 opposite extremes.
DA360

Well, on this discussion, I highly agree with Ozy, with one reason with games. Hardware performance. I seriously doubt any console (both 360 and PS3) could do an intense Unreal 3 at 1920X1080, especially the PS3 that does not have a separate die that deals with the antialiasing and anthropic filtering. To get an idea of what a detailed game will run at on 1080p on the PS3, get the strongest Nvidia video card out there (or to be more fair, a NV47 based video card, since the PS3 will be using the NV47), and launch Oblivion, then set it to 1920X1080 and set it to 4X AA (what these consoles are using). Even on the strongest card out there, it will run at like 2-6FPS at those settings, which is very unacceptable. But if you set the resolution to 1280X720 (720(x)), it will be much more playable, more than likely around 25-30fps, which is why everyone is saying 720p is what most developers what to use (its also similar to the popular PC gaming resolution on 4:3 monitors, 1280X1024). So to get a game to run well on 1080p, you have to almost dub down the graphics of the game to the equivalent of something you would see on a last generation console.

The reason the 360 does 1080i without these problems is that, like 99% of most 1080i devices, it uses a resolution upscale trick to get to 1080i. These devices do this because there would be extremely little to no difference if the device was actually doing 1920X1080 and being displayed at 1080i.

Also, when it comes to movies, the difference between 1080p and 1080i will NOT be noticeable because as Ozy has said, the movies on the NTSC/ATSC standard go at 24FPS, which makes 1080p60 very pointless with movies, and it won’t be too greatly noticeable on movies.
Piranacon

@Brent. Then why did they make a big deal out if it? GT HD stuff lasted about 10mins. If it wasn’t up code don’t show it, rule one of developers presenting their code to customers. If all sony wanted was a video why bother to go through all the joy of upscaling the models from GT4 and doing a recompile on the code? To be honest I’d rather have had 10 minutes of seeing Killzone in action after the "ingame" footage from E3 05, so once again I ask where was Killzone?
Phil

Ozymandias – given the graphical intensity of some of those listed titles, it would not be that hard to imagine them running at 1080p.

A 7800 GT can easily handle Half-Life 2 at 1080p with 4xAA and 16xAF with Transparency AA, so it might be one other good 1080p candidate on PS3 when it hits. Same card can also handle FEAR at 1600×1200 (roughly the same res as 1080p) at High Quality settings. Though a port may aim for higher quality still, I guess.

By the by, IGN Wii’s editor has reported in his blog that as he hears it, Factor5′s Lair will render natively at 1080p. Just a rumour, but Matt and IGN have always had very close ties with Factor5 from the Gamecube days. If it’s true, I expect that it alone would redefine what people think is or isn’t possible with 1080p on the console.

On another note, about the usefulness of rendering at that resolution compared to 720p etc – there is still benefit to passing a real 1080p signal to lower resolution TVs, as you’ll effectively get the benefits of supersampling. There’d definitely be an IQ difference between a game rendered at 1080p, downsampled to 720p, and one rendered natively at 720p (particularly if there’s no AA in each case).
http://www.google.com mailock4

No offence but because of your current employment status your comments (of things from a company competing with the one your work for) won’t be taken seriously by hardly anyone outside of the "Microsoft/Xbox click.

Like the post above me mentioned about PC games being able to pump out such reso with quality cards like the 7800GT, I believe that it is completely reasonable and a reachable target for developers to hit (1080p on the PS3).

You also touched on the world being a multiplatform one where developers would aim for a native 720p reso to be able to port the game to either system. However if you took a different look at the situation, you could theorise that developers are merely compromising the 1080p and going with a 720p JUST because of the 360′s inability to match that spec.

I still believe that the PS3 will be using Movies as the main source of the 1080p output however, Sony is PUSHING this (1080p for games) and I wouldn’t doubt that within a year or maybe 2 that all games will be encouraged to output 1080p.
Me

How is it meaningless? Your article is pure BS.

What’s next? You gonna say that built in Blu-ray is meaningless? That free online is meaningless? That built in wi-fi is meaningless cause it’s useless? Or maybe that HDMI 1.3 is not needed?

You M$ folks are well too biased.

If 1080p is meaningless, then why is M$ working on it for the HD-DVD add on? It’s meaningless right? So why do they need it? Hypocrites.
Metalmurphy

No i don’t have direct links becouse i dont recall them, i just watched all the E3 movies from several websites and they said it in more then one ocasion that those games are running in 1080p. Also if you check most of the screenshots of the games i said you will see screenshots in 1080p, and no they’re not renders or upscales as they look exactly like the gameplay movies. I know this might prove little to you but i have no problems in believing it.

Btw i just found this one out:

http://soe.lithium.com/swg/board/message?board.id=Announcements&message.id=3050

"Other next-gen features include support for high definition formats up to 1080p, highly detailed graphics, digital surround sound, high resolution textures and detailed character models."

As for Eye of Judgement, that one was already running at 1080p in E3.

Not sure on Genji 2 though.
http://grangerfx.com GrangerFX

Still no explanation for how we are going to watch movies at even 1080i if there is no HDMI/DVI with HDCP. The movie studios are promising that they WILL require HDCP in the future and at that time all non-HDCP protected video (including analog) will be reduced in quality to little better than standard DVD. Microsoft needs to openly address this pressing issue immediately.
http://www.antiwarposters.com Propagandist

Your arguments remind me of another American industry which refuses to innovate: the automobile makers. I remember reading an article in WIRED a year or so again where Detroit was claiming that Toyota loses $2000 on every prius sold and no one wanted cars that got good gas mileage, anyway, "Americans just wanna drive SUVs, dammit!"

Now, after 3 million Prius sales, a long war in the Middle East, and $3/gas, that song seems to have changed. Dodge suddenly announces last week that they’re going to make Hybrid engines in 2008(!) and that they’re going to be "better" than Japan’s. Oh, and they’ll be putting them in SUVs only. And they wonder why they’re losing $7 Billion/year.

So now we see Microsoft heading down the same road as General Motors.

Clapping your hands over your ears and yelling "nyah nyah nyah, I can’t hear you" doesn’t make your argument true.

Anyone who thought that interlacing wasn’t a big deal in the last generation of game systems never played Shadow of the Colossus in progressive scan mode.

There is a dramatic difference between 720i and 720p… why would there not be one for 1080i and 1080p? Interlacing is interlacing and always creates visual noise. And if Sony’s machine can truly output to 1080p, why would I settle for upscaled 1080i?

Additionally, the PS3 has a built-in Blu-Ray DVD player, while the X-Box 360 expects consumers to purchase an additional bulky, ugly-ass, add-on HD-DVD player… for that reason alone, the PS3 is a better buy for the consumer. Plus it’s supposedly backwards compatible to the PS1. I can’t even play games from my X-Box on the X-Box 360! And when will MS be announcing the X-Box 720 with built-in HD-DVD? A year? 2 years?

Put aside the 1080i/p issue for a moment, though, and face the fact that most games being released today completely suck. Adding fancy visual bells and whistles to them isn’t going to save these boring titles.

Which is why the winner of this generation of console wars is going to be the Wii.
DA360

HDCP will not really be an issue until late or the end of the Xbox 360′s life span. As from what Wikipedia says, movie creators for both formats (HD-DVD and Blu-Ray) will not implement HDCP into their movies until 2010 or 2012. I believe this is because not everyone has a HDTV with HDMI support, and these people probably don’t want to rush out and get a new $1,000-5,000 HDTV just so they can have HDMI.

But what surprises me is that both companies are jumping onto a format so early. It took like 5-6 years for DVD to really catch on as a mainstream format and I am sure it will be the same with both HD-DVD and Blu-Ray, majority of the common consumers probably won’t care about either format, and most common people probably don’t even have any kind of HD display yet. At least MS is giving you the choice, while Sony makes it a required, and cost adding, part of the PS3.

But it seems that vast majority of people I see only seem to care about HDMI for one reason: HDCP, that’s about it. Some people think that just because its digital, its instantly better. Yes, digital can be better at some things but the same or worse on others (such as game control, analog sticks are obviously better than D-Pads). From what I heard from several people, it offers only a small or even unnoticeable video quality upgrade compared to three-cable component or VGA, though this also can depend on devices and TVs (also, most TVs don’t actually do native 1080p yet), so its kind of like the S-Video vs. Single-Video Component difference. To me, its just a different kind of way to connect the device to your TV, about it. Its kind of more like a miniature digital version of SCART (which only existed in Europe).
The Lord

Propagandist – are you an idiot or just a pathological liar? (I apologize to all you 7 year olds for using 5 syllable words). As of June 7, 2006 the Toyota Prius has sold 500,000 units worldwide, not 3mm. That is the cumulative sales since introduction (1997 in Japan and 2001 worldwide). Cumulative sales in the US have totaled 266,212. In 2005 the Prius sold 107,897 in the US and 180,000 worldwide. By comparison 7.7mm cars and 9.3mm trucks were sold in the US in 2005. The Prius doesn’t even qualify as a top 10 seller.

Vehicle 2005 Sales

Ford F-Series 901k

Silverado 706k

Camry 434k

Ram 400k

Accord 369k

Civic 308k

Altima 255k

Impala 247k

Malibu 246k

Trailblazer 244k

But you are right Ford and GM should drop all those unprofitable trucks and SUVs that outsell your “Prius” by more than 20:1. GMs problem is not its ability to sell cars, its the commie unions that won’t let them lay people off and force them to pay uncompetitive wages and benefits (Ever heard of the job bank? It costs GM $2bbn a year. Basically when they lay someone off they have to pay them wages and benefits until the person finds another job).

In 2005 GM sold a total of 4.4mm vehicles in the US compared to Ford 3.0mm, DC 2.3mm, Toyota 2.3mm, Honda 1.5mm, Nissan 1.1mm, Hyundai 455k, BMW 307k, Kia 276k, Mazda 258k, VW 224k, Mercedes 224k, Subaru 196k, Mitsubishi 124k, Volvo 124k.

Oh and btw Toyota’s gas mileage claims for the Prius are mainly fabricated and the company is the target of a massive class action lawsuit because of it. Toyota claims the car gets 50/60mph but real world testing is 35mph. Oops!

http://www.consumeraffairs.com/news04/2005/hybridwatch01.html

Now for your BS analogy to the PS3/XBOX 360. Do you even know how many 1080p TV models are currently available? A. Less than 10. Do you know how many accept 1080P inputs? A. 3 (with 3 more out by Christmas). Do you even have a clue as to how many 1080p sets are expected to be sold over the life of the PS3? Remember Xbox 3/1080 (whatever) will probably come out Christmas of 2010. A 1080p set currently costs 2-3x the average selling price of an HDTV ($1,500 in 2005). I will bet you that this Christmas they will have less than 10% penetration of HDTV sales. Japanese customers have already expressed an overwhelming preference for the Wii (something like 85%/15%) and Europe has 1/5th the HDTV penetration as the US. Simply put the % of people who can see the difference between 1080i and 1080p will be minimal over the next few years.

Think of it this way, the DVD came out in Japan in 1996 and the US in 1997. The quality upgrade from VHS to DVD was far greater than 1080i to 1080p, and more importantly everyone already had a TV that could benefit (which they do not have for 1080p). However, VHS sales were greater than DVD sales until June 15th 2003 and the first 1mm unit DVD was “The Matrix” in 1999. Face it, even if BluRay follows the extremely successful penetration path of DVD by the time it becomes mainstream, Microsoft will be on Xbox 3/1080 (360*3). I personally think BluRay will follow the path of BetaMax or SACD.

If you happen to have a 1080p TV and can get your mommy to spring for a PS3, go enjoy your 5 launch titles (MSFT had the same problem btw…). I personally am going to wait and see. If in 3 years the PS3 has a bunch of titles I can’t get on the 360 I will buy one for $200 instead of $600.

Btw the
Bruce

DA360, I agree. A certain amount of propaganda surrounds HDMI. The real reason for it’s push by the industry is not the fact that it gives videophiles the perfect picture that they hunger for, but the standardised copy-protection (HDCP) it will offer the industry "once" it becomes the defacto standard in the house-hold.

This is still several years away from becoming a reality. My Plasma TV is a G8 Viera HD with HDMI (but it does not support HDCP standard) and I’ll tell you now I spent well beyond my budget to get this TV and I’m not going to be upgrading again any-time soon!

What it’s really all about is planning for the future (from the movie/broadcasting industries perspective). I would hate to imagine what the estimated numbers are on lost revenue through piracy but it must surely be a huge talking point for industry strategists looking at the future economics of the market place.

Here’s another example of copy-protection creeping into the market-place: The latest Set Top Box for Sky TV (here in New Zealand) has amazing new features such as twin tuners and a built in hard-drive, allowing for booking, recording and watching programs. But it also stops you from "copying" any per-per-view movie to DVD. For this reason, I’ve decided to avoid upgrading my STB, but the writing is on the wall.

Lastly, let’s face the facts. The Sony Plastation is a superior piece of hardware to the 360, and quite significantly so. The question is, will it be the next king of the video game consoles? Specs alone will not decide that.

The PS2 kicked the XBox and the XBox was a superior piece of technology. This time the roles are reversed..
Bruce

Lord,

I agree with a lot that you are saying, but not regarding your thoughts on Blu-ray (as it pertains to the PS3).

If the PS3 succeeds as a "games machine" then whether or not Blu-Ray becomes the next media standard for movies does not change the fact that a game stored on a Blu-Ray disk has a massive capacity advantage over a a game stored on a DVD.

I think Microsoft made a big mistake putting only a standard DVD player on their next-gen machine. In my opinion the XBox 360 is not true "next-gen", and mainly for this reason.

Also, about gas-guzzling cars, I can only hope that one day the oil industry looses its strangle hold on the world economy. Imagine if the fact that the Middle East had so much Oil didn’t matter anymore. I’ll bet you there would be a sharp decline in interest (by the west) to liberate those countries from tyrany and root out terrorists etc.
The Lord

We are still a long way from filling up 1 DVD without a bunch of garbage cut scenes or “extras”. A dual layer DVD-5 holds 9.4 gigs. The biggest Xbox title was 6.2 gigs and the Xbox 360 launch titles were all under 4.5 gigs. Remember compression algorithms improve over time, so as games get better they don’t necessarily get bigger. Check out:

http://www.gamesfirst.com/index.php?id=1132

http://fileforums.com/showthread.php?t=43604

With regards to “Extras” I really don’t mind if my “Making Of” content is on a separate DVD.

However, it’s probably fair to assume that at some point their will be at least 1 game that needs substantially more than 9.4 gigs of space (and cannot simply install the information on the hard drive without taking up more than 10% of free space). In that case we might see a game that uses 2 DVDs (I doubt we are going to exceed 20gigs this generation and if we do you might have to swap your BluRay too).

Is it really the end of the world to swap a disk? We are not talking about changing it every 15 min, but more likely swapping once every few hours. Do you really think the average person is so lazy that they will spend $200 more for the console and $10-$20 more per game (BluRay disks are more expensive than DVDs just like N64 cartridges were more expensive than CDs) to avoid switching disks once every 2-3 hours? I’m not talking about the spoiled 10% of hard core gamers that spend $1,000/year on video games (myself included), I’m talking about that person that buys unit #20mm and is probably on a tight budget. If people are this lazy, why do most PC games still come on multiple-CDs instead of 1 DVD?

As I said, I don’t mind if Sony succeeds. If 3 years from now the platform has a bunch of great exclusive games and BluRay performs like DVD instead of SACD I will buy one for $200. However, I think Sony is going to be facing some tough sledding. Everyone knows the 1st Christmas shipment will sellout (so their price tag is pretty smart if they don’t mind screwing early adopters with a $200 price cut in 2007). What really matters is how things look going into the 2007 Christmas season. I don’t think Sony can sell a massive # of units at $600 in 2007 if MSFT has a much larger library, 3rd gen titles including Halo 3/GoW/GTA and at least a $100 price cut (actually its rumored they will cut the price $100 this Christmas or throw in a free game – in hindsight I should have waited to buy but I really wanted Oblivion).

This is assuming we aren’t in the midst of a deep, housing related economic slowdown (ie. falling home prices and rising interest rates/mortgage payments prevent parents from using home equity loans to buy consumer electronics and declining residential construction leads to large layoffs in construction/real estate/mortgage lending). If this happens a lot of kiddies may have to make their PS2 or Xbox 1 last another year.

1080p Meaningless this Generation

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