Insomniac speaks of riding with the PS3 and the launch window

PS3Blog.net had a chance to hit Insomniac games with a few big questions, particularly around the work they did for Resistance: Fall of Man, and particularly around what could have included in the pack. Let’s see, start with split-screen? Res has offline split co-op, MotorStorm nil. Here’s Senior Engine Programmer Rob Wyatt’s two cents on the matter:

Split screen is a difficult problem from a performance point of view and it is certainly more difficult from an engineering point of view than rendering 1920×1080. Both together, no doubt, requires a serious engineering effort but itÂ’s not impossible… In the limited development time frame of a launch game there were bigger battles to fight but itÂ’s certainly possible and you will see split screen games running at 1080. For Resistance: Fall of Man, split screen with co-op play simply brought more to the table so 1080 support had to wait.

Multiplayer Team lead Eric Ellis mentions that split-screen online play is possible on the PS3, but because Resistance had to make the launch window, they had to pick their battles. You can also have LAN battles with the PS3, but Insomniac sees less demand for this as there’s always broadband – and because Insomniac uses dedicated servers.

Finally, Ted Price himself stepped up to explain the lack of online co-op in Resistance. Again, it’s all a matter of time. “While it would have been very cool to do online co-op, we opted for offline co-op partially because we simply didnÂ’t have the time or manpower to make a game this large and hit launch at the same time. And I donÂ’t think the game is any less great because of it.”

Speaking of manpower, Ted also reveals that, “at times”, the size of the Resistance team would hit 100 – but then, this was trailblazing for them, developing a lot of new and proprietary software for the game. Quite the workload. It’s probably not impossible to imagine these and other features being made available in download sometime in the future (given demand). Of course, Insomniac’s busy with new content for Resistance as well as devving Ratchet & Clank.

Learn more at the Read link (and it’s in two parts, by the way).

PS3Blog.net had a chance to hit Insomniac games with a few big questions, particularly around the work they did for Resistance: Fall of Man, and particularly around what could have included in the pack. Let’s see, start with split-screen? Res has offline split co-op, MotorStorm nil. Here’s Senior Engine Programmer Rob Wyatt’s two cents on the matter:

Split screen is a difficult problem from a performance point of view and it is certainly more difficult from an engineering point of view than rendering 1920×1080. Both together, no doubt, requires a serious engineering effort but itÂ’s not impossible… In the limited development time frame of a launch game there were bigger battles to fight but itÂ’s certainly possible and you will see split screen games running at 1080. For Resistance: Fall of Man, split screen with co-op play simply brought more to the table so 1080 support had to wait.

Multiplayer Team lead Eric Ellis mentions that split-screen online play is possible on the PS3, but because Resistance had to make the launch window, they had to pick their battles. You can also have LAN battles with the PS3, but Insomniac sees less demand for this as there’s always broadband – and because Insomniac uses dedicated servers.

Finally, Ted Price himself stepped up to explain the lack of online co-op in Resistance. Again, it’s all a matter of time. “While it would have been very cool to do online co-op, we opted for offline co-op partially because we simply didnÂ’t have the time or manpower to make a game this large and hit launch at the same time. And I donÂ’t think the game is any less great because of it.”

Speaking of manpower, Ted also reveals that, “at times”, the size of the Resistance team would hit 100 – but then, this was trailblazing for them, developing a lot of new and proprietary software for the game. Quite the workload. It’s probably not impossible to imagine these and other features being made available in download sometime in the future (given demand). Of course, Insomniac’s busy with new content for Resistance as well as devving Ratchet & Clank.

Learn more at the Read link (and it’s in two parts, by the way).