According to GameStop’s online pricing, the much discussed PlayStation 3 port of Bayonetta will apparently be available to consumers at a discounted price of five dollars ($54.99) over its Xbox 360 counterpart ($59.99).

If you are late in joining the conversation, Sega’s Bayonetta title was developed for the Xbox 360 and then ported over to the PlayStation 3. The pixel crunching scrutiny then began, and arguments as to which version was “better” ensued.

A slightly discounted price (if true) may help those who are on the fence about purchasing a ported title, however it may also reaffirm their notion that the port is inferior.

I’m personally not a big fan of ports knowing first-hand that there are many companies out there that take the time to develop a title individually with dedicated teams. That said, I am a big fan of Bayonetta and look forward to picking it up when it hits stores on January 5th (January 8th in Europe).

What do you think? Would discounted prices on ported titles make you happy in the end or is a better solution needed?

Source: Siliconera

Good news, everyone! Well, at least to the people who haven’t yet played the God of War games on the PS2. Sony today announced that they will be releasing anti-aliased and 720p-resolution updated versions of both God of War I and God of War II. Also included is a set of trophies for those who care about their e-peen.

I’m going with this being a good thing, despite the fact that it’s milking a franchise, simply because I was told about how good these games are just after I put my PS2 away, and I am quite lazy. This saves me the trouble of not only getting out the PS2, but buying two discs to put in it. Laziness wins in the end.

Some PS3 Final Fantasy players (like myself) were shocked the day that the latest title was announced for the 360, in fact I almost ran up to the stage and started screaming at the conference, but once the shock faded, concerns started to come into play.

The biggest concern most PS3 owners had surrounded the potential “middle ground” that may have to be reached in order to have the game port successfully onto the 360 console. Namingly, the lack of disc space when comparing a Blu-ray discs to the traditional format.

Well, in one statement, FFXIII Producer, Yoshinori Kitase, put that fear to bed. 

“The team is targeting to create an equal experience on both the 360 and the PS3 … right now we’re working on the PS3 version first, and once we’ve completed that we’ll really know how much game there will be to fit onto the Xbox 360 discs.

So we don’t know how many discs it’ll be housed on for 360, but there won’t be a chance that we’ll compromise anything because, oh it didn’t fit in the 360 discs so we’ll have to take it out of the PS3 version, or vice versa.”

Seems pretty clear and straight forward to me. While the end result may mean a multiple of discs for 360 owners, which has already been the case with other 360 MMOs, it appears that the integrity and creative vision of the game will not be tweaked in any way to accommodate lesser disc space. Hooray!

Source: VideoGamer

One of the greatest arcade games of all time (at least in my mind) is being ported to the PSP.  For some reason, I don’t think it’s going to be quite the same game.

That’s right, the arcade Gundam game that costs about five dollars a play but really gives a great immersion factor is being made portable for the PSP in Japan on March 26th.  With really no way to redo the cockpit design or control scheme for a portable device, the game takes a big hit. Halving team play from 8v8 to 4v4 probably won’t be a deal breaker for probably anyone, though.

Last time I checked, you can’t sit inside a PSP.

I used to play this game a bit too much.  Every Friday I would spend about 20 or 30 bucks just hopping in the cockpit for around 10 to 15 minutes a go and really just getting my tail handed to me by much, much better pilots.  The crazy part is that I wasn’t alone.  There was a line at my arcade to even play it — it was a real classy setup of put your card down behind everyone else and wait for their cards to disappear.  The reason I really got into this game probably has something to do with my love of MMORPG’s.  Your pilot grows the more you play the game and is allowed access to better gundam’s and parts, your stats are also stored so you can compare with people all over Japan.  That in itself kept me coming back.

The friend I played with on those Friday nights when I should have been out socializing loved the feeling of really flying a gundam.  There are two foot pedals and two joysticks that you have to use to pilot the gundam.  The seat isn’t made for an adult really but those are the only people I ever saw playing.  It didn’t matter how tight the fit is, having that giant screen display like I’m inside the Gundam is an experience in itself.  Sitting in a room with a PSP is nowhere near the same thing.

Who knows — the game may still sell like hot cakes because it’s Gundam, but it just won’t be the same in my eyes.

Source:  Famitsu

We have gotten a hold of several images depicting Crystal Tools in-game renders from Final Fantasy XIII, and may have visual proof that the Xbox 360 version of the game is already being developed.

Several Final Fantasy XIII in game renders utilizing the Crystal Tools engine surfaced online after apparently first appearing on the Japanese television channel TV Tokyo.

While this great news for Final Fantasy junkies like myself looking to drool over anything remotely associated to the game, the even bigger news is that a 360 controller was spotted on the desk of what appears to be one of the games developers.

Could the 360 version of Final Fantasy XIII already be underway despite Square Enix stating otherwise? Have a look at the images after the jump.

The image shown above clearly has Final Fantasy XIII content displayed on-screen while a 360 controller lays visible on the desk. It’s possible that this guy is draws inspiration from the 360 controller’s mere presence, however it is also possible that the 360 version is already being tinkered with. What do you think?

Source: ffworld.com

The Official Playstation Magazine reports that Valve’s Left 4 Dead survival-horror game will be making its way to the PS3 console as a port courtesy of Electronic Arts. This is the second time in recent history that Valve is partnering with EA to port one of their titles to the PS3 — the first being Orange Box.

Will this port be any better than the last, and will Valve once again shun responsibility if it isn’t. Those are the million dollar questions. Stay tuned for the sixty dollar answers.

Update: Valve’s Doug Lombardi was recently asked about the PS3 port of Left 4 Dead and stated the following “There is no PS3 version of Left 4 Dead currently in production.” Read the entire update here.

Source: N4G

It’s quite funny what rumors can start in gaming forums, all from the poor comprehension of the few. So now, here’s a good one. Uncharted: Drake’s Fortune, developed by Naugthy Dog for the Playstation 3, could be ported to the Xbox360. We like this. Just as moronic as PS3 fanboys screaming about Bioshock coming over to their little baby.

So it all starts in an innocent interview with Evan Wells, Naughty Dog’s co-president, at Eurogamer. The question in question is this one, “How hard would it be to port Uncharted to the Xbox 360?” I will cut down Evan’s response into manageable chunks, and we’ll see what we can discern from it.

Firstly, he says “I won’t say that it would be impossible, but it would be very difficult and we most certainly would have to make enough concessions that it would start to feel like a different game”. Naturally, of course it isn’t impossible, or at least it would be hard to say it’s impossible without actually attempting to port the game. And since Naughty Dog developed the game exclusively for the PS3, it would indeed be very difficult.

We’ve already seen how third party developers are struggling with porting to the PS3 from the Xbox360. Quite simply, porting is a bitch. However, it’d be even more difficult in this case. Naughty Dog have used the SPU’s (mini processors on the PS3’s Cell) in their animation system, calculating physics and more. They have perfected this so much, that at this moment, much of the game relies on the specific nature of Cell. For example, Christophe Balestra (Naughty Dog’s co-Vice President) states; “We developed a brand new animation system that took full advantage of the SPU’s. Nathan Drake’s final animation is made of different layers like running, breathing, reloading weapons, shooting, facial expression, etc; we end up decompressing and blending up to 30 animations every frame on the SPU’s.”

Whether this animation system will translate over to the Xbox360 is hard to say. It’s certainly not impossible, but since the game was made with Cell in mind, some concessions would need to be made. Furthermore, since Uncharted is the best looking PS3 game, Naughty Dog have had to work very close to the PS3’s hardware to get the visuals they have achieved, and would need to work just as hard to achieve them on the 360 – meaning a port might take over a year.

Evan then gives an example of what might be conceded in the port: “One thing that would be particularly difficult would be keeping the game load-free. The HDD really came in handy and allowed us to have pretty big open levels with lots of detail.” Yes Uncharted is one of the very few games that has zero loading throughout the whole game. The game is completely streamed, and this is only possible with the PS3’s Hard Drive, which not every Xbox360 has. Not game breaking perhaps, but it would make it a very different game, making it less of the movie experience that it is trying to achieve.

Furthermore, the game takes up 22GB of a Blu-ray disc, whereas an Xbox360 DVD is only 9GB. Lets not get into a fanboy war about the advantage of Blu-ray, since the Xbox has Mass Effect, a huge game, in fact far longer than Uncharted in game length. But that somewhat misses the point, could Naughty Dog have compressed the game to fit into 9gb? Perhaps. However, once again they would need to make a lot of concessions, and spend money doing so, removing resources from making the visuals and gameplay as good as they are. The high quality surround sound, the hundreds of minutes of HD cutscenes, and the high-res textures all take up space. As Christophe says, “To get such high-resolution textures and movies, a Blu-ray was indispensable to achieve the graphic quality of Uncharted. We fill the disc at 91 percent and it’s optimized, meaning we don’t duplicate any data. That includes all our game data, sounds, 7 spoken languages and 102 minutes of movie.”

Some how Evan’s reply drew this response from a particular gaming blog: “In order to have those huge levels, it has to be installed on the hard drive, because the Blu-Ray drive is far too slow to load quickly (which is why in many PlayStation 3 games have repeated content on the discs.)” No the game doesn’t have to be installed on to the hard drive because the Blu-ray drive is too slow. There is no loading in Uncharted, none, and the hard drive helps with this yes, but the game isn’t actually installed onto the PS3: “We’re only using the hard drive as a cache, the game doesn’t need to be installed, but the fact the hard drive is on every PlayStation 3 helped our streaming technology dramatically.”

Moreover, the PS3’s blu-ray drive is not slower than the Xbox360’s drive when the 360 is reading a double-layer DVD, and let’s face it, most if not all games are on a double-layer DVD. Read speeds are approximately equal. And no, many PS3 games do not have repeated content on the discs. Oblivion is said to do this, for unknown reasons, but I can assure you that the 22GB’s of Uncharted does not include any duplicated data, though of course much of it will be extras and HD cutscene movies.

And so, does Evan’s comment mean Uncharted could be ported to the Xbox360? I don’t bloody know! Both consoles have not hit the roof of their capabilities yet, they both have a long way to go with developers squeezing more and more out of them each year. What I do know, is that they are very different beasts, and if you develop exclusively for the PS3 you have to think very differently about your game engine. Using the SPU’s means you have to program to the specificity of the PS3 hardware and this can result in very specific things, like Nariko’s hair (Heavenly Sword) or Naughty Dog’s animation system. Porting this over to the Xbox360 might just be more trouble than its worth. Let alone Naughty Dog is owned by Sony and anything they make will only be on a Sony console…

So in celebration of this gloriously absurd rumor I present to you Nathan Drake dancing in this hilarious little video: