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question for artists working on xbox360

malcolm
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malcolm polycount sponsor
Just wondering who is working on xbox360 and if so is the 360 the primary development environment or do you run a pc or ps3 sku and port down to the xbox360. Basically what platform do you target as the highest quality.
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  • Joshua Stubbles
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    Joshua Stubbles polycounter lvl 19
    I would assume PC would be. With XNA though, there should be absolutely no effort in it's transition to 360. We're going to be working with 360 soon, but we're still in the R&D phase right now.
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  • KMan
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    KMan polycounter lvl 18
    At least from what we've been looking at, everything is at the same res, so far, but the UI's definitly change for ease of use on a television screen.
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  • malcolm
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    malcolm polycount sponsor
    So you guys are not planning on ps3 and scaling down for xbox360, or do you work super high res on pc and scale down for console titles?
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  • headengine
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    headengine polycounter lvl 18
    It's fair to assume that PC is a good dev platform to target both, with no change in assets (apart from hud etc). Thats what most devs seem to be doing that I know.
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  • PolyMonkey
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    PolyMonkey polycounter lvl 17
    Hey malcom,

    PC's will always be the highest platform, just by the nature that the time the new consoles role out NVIDIA or ATI is already announcing the next rock'n video cards to come. These next-gen machines are powerful and I really can only speak for the 360 now until we get more time with the PS3, but everything points to that being as powerful if not more as well. One of the great things right off the bat that makes a huge difference is the 360 running in HD, but for those out there who can't drop that kind of cash on a HDTV rejoice in knowing you can hook the 360 up to your pc monitor for higher resolutions than your standard TV. =) You can see the VGA cables up on any video game retailer’s site. Running in 1360x768 just looks as good as 720p or 1080i. The only problem as a PC developer I notice is like Kman said...interface. UI for a console project is completely different than PC even with the new support for higher resolutions. Because still at the end of the day someone is going to be hooking up their 360 to a coaxial converter to a 13 inch TV and we have to plan for that.
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  • malcolm
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    malcolm polycount sponsor
    Anyone else out there working on a game that is not coming out on pc, just consoles, are you developing for ps3 and porting to xbox360 or the other way around.
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  • doc rob
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    doc rob polycounter lvl 19
    Most announced titles exclusively for consoles right now are being snapped up as PS3 or 360 exclusives since there's the big launch battle. But, looking at the current gen, most cross platform titles targeted the PS2 primarily (the lesser platform). I would guess that any title coming out on multiple platforms on the same day could not be said to have been 'developed for one and ported to the other,' there would have to be simultaneous development. What's 'ported' would probably be the engine - targeted for PS2 and enhanced for Xbox.
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  • scanning_factor
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    scanning_factor polycounter lvl 18
    [ QUOTE ]
    Anyone else out there working on a game that is not coming out on pc, just consoles, are you developing for ps3 and porting to xbox360 or the other way around.

    [/ QUOTE ]

    We're actually in an interesting position as we're doing a launch title, so right now all of our effort is focused towards 360, but then we have a bit of a window to go back and do stuff for ps3. Not really sure how we're going to approach building content for both platforms, but truth be told hopefully we'll be changing our approach to next-gen dev as we didnt really get to do much research into it, it was pretty much, ok we just shipped xbox and ps2, now we have a month or so to have our content up to 360 par.
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  • SouL
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    SouL polycounter lvl 18
    Down the road, what's going to dictate your base platform will be which console will sell more copies of your game.

    In general, if you're creating a cross platform game, you're going to target the platform that has the larger share of your user base. Larger user base equates to larger potential sales. Right? Currently, it's the PS2. So cross platform games are usually geared towards the PS2. The Xbox/GC version might get special treatments... but not usually.

    Also, the PS2 works doubly as well because it's the weakest of the 3 current consoles. The lowest denominator. It's easier and less time consuming to create low-spec assets and import them to other consoles, than it is to create high-spec assets and res them down.

    I don't see this kind of practice changing anytime soon with the next wave of consoles.
    Sometimes you'll get a few games that come with extra features on certain console releases.
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