PS3 1080p’s Not All That? Says Ozymandias

Ozymandias, aka Andre Vrignaud of Microsoft‘s XBox team, recently played down the PS3’s 1080p capability in his blog. “There’s been a lot of interest in the PS3 due to its stated 1080p output for both games and movies (via Blu-ray).” he wrote. “What’s interesting is that a lot of folks don’t realize how meaningless 1080p actually is in this generation.”

Many of his doubts and criticisms of Sony’s next-gen high definition platform will most likely attract the ire of Playstation afficionados. Ozymandias argues that “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 that weren’t the case, he points out that “we live in a multiplatform world,” and game developers wishing to develop multiplatform (360/PS3) games will settle for a common native resolution: “the current sweet spot developers are targeting is 720p due to the extremely similar system specifications… 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…” And later in his blog: “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).”

He’s not the only Microsoft employee to play down the PS3’s 1080p’s capability. Microsoft’s game technology group director Scott Henson, in a video interview with Kiziko earlier this year, also expressed his doubts about 1080p: “I think 1080p, just to address that directly, will be basically impossible. I think if you talk to any developer they will tell you that they will not have a performing game at 1080p.”

We can bet that Sony will not take this challenge lightly. One of their pre-E3 announcements revealed that the next Gran Turismo will definitely be 1080p output, taking advantage of the hard disk to speed up loading times (and the game will still run on the 1080i format). Worries that the PS3’s lack of HDMI output ports will hamper 1080p capability may be dispelled with the possibility that, at least until the Image Constraint Token (ICT) digital flag kicks in around the next decade, the PS3 can transmit a 1080p signal through a traditional cable. One reply to Ozymandias pointedly declares that a few PS3 launch titles will be 1080p: Eye of Judgement, Untold Legends, and Genji 2 (and you can click on the backlinks to check QJ’s screenshots and video coverage of these releases).

If we may make a public service announcement, we’re definitely expecting this news report to inflame a number of readers out there, particularly PlayStation afficionados. We definitely love to hear everyone’s comments and opinions regarding the state of these so-called “next-gen console wars,” and what they feel about Ozymandias’ latest post in his blog, but given the sensitive nature of this topic we ask that comments be kept informative and respectful of everyone concerned. So please, above the belt, and no flaming. We are ultimately one and the same community of gamers – and besides, there are 360 owners who are also interested in seeing what the PS3 can do.

Speak up, everyone.

Ozymandias, aka Andre Vrignaud of Microsoft‘s XBox team, recently played down the PS3’s 1080p capability in his blog. “There’s been a lot of interest in the PS3 due to its stated 1080p output for both games and movies (via Blu-ray).” he wrote. “What’s interesting is that a lot of folks don’t realize how meaningless 1080p actually is in this generation.”

Many of his doubts and criticisms of Sony’s next-gen high definition platform will most likely attract the ire of Playstation afficionados. Ozymandias argues that “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 that weren’t the case, he points out that “we live in a multiplatform world,” and game developers wishing to develop multiplatform (360/PS3) games will settle for a common native resolution: “the current sweet spot developers are targeting is 720p due to the extremely similar system specifications… 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…” And later in his blog: “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).”

He’s not the only Microsoft employee to play down the PS3’s 1080p’s capability. Microsoft’s game technology group director Scott Henson, in a video interview with Kiziko earlier this year, also expressed his doubts about 1080p: “I think 1080p, just to address that directly, will be basically impossible. I think if you talk to any developer they will tell you that they will not have a performing game at 1080p.”

We can bet that Sony will not take this challenge lightly. One of their pre-E3 announcements revealed that the next Gran Turismo will definitely be 1080p output, taking advantage of the hard disk to speed up loading times (and the game will still run on the 1080i format). Worries that the PS3’s lack of HDMI output ports will hamper 1080p capability may be dispelled with the possibility that, at least until the Image Constraint Token (ICT) digital flag kicks in around the next decade, the PS3 can transmit a 1080p signal through a traditional cable. One reply to Ozymandias pointedly declares that a few PS3 launch titles will be 1080p: Eye of Judgement, Untold Legends, and Genji 2 (and you can click on the backlinks to check QJ’s screenshots and video coverage of these releases).

If we may make a public service announcement, we’re definitely expecting this news report to inflame a number of readers out there, particularly PlayStation afficionados. We definitely love to hear everyone’s comments and opinions regarding the state of these so-called “next-gen console wars,” and what they feel about Ozymandias’ latest post in his blog, but given the sensitive nature of this topic we ask that comments be kept informative and respectful of everyone concerned. So please, above the belt, and no flaming. We are ultimately one and the same community of gamers – and besides, there are 360 owners who are also interested in seeing what the PS3 can do.

Speak up, everyone.