Fatal Inertia dated, now a 360 exclusive?

by Dustin Burg { Jul 2nd 2007 at 4:00PM }

One of Koei's once PS3 exclusive games now seems to be headed to the 360 exclusively. Today, Koei released some screenshots and announced that their futuristic racer Fatal Inertia will hit retailers September 11th on the Xbox 360 console. But oddly enough developer Koei didn't mention any PS3 release date for the game. Surely it was a PR mistake, how could they forget about the PS3 version to which it was once exclusive to? Well, the Wired Blog crew contacted Koei to get an official response about the status of the PS3 version. Koei responsed by stating that the PS3 version is "delayed indefinitely" due to "progress of the game engine for PS3". Interesting enough, seeing that Fatal Inertia uses the Unreal Engine 3. No matter, September 11th is the street date on the 360 and that's all that matters.

Tags: fatal inertia, FatalInertia, koei

Reader Comments (Page 1 of 1)

Josh @ Jul 2nd 2007 4:15PM

We need a good "blow stuff up" racer on the 360 so hopefully this game fills that void. I really wish that we could get the Twisted Metal franchise over to us. Even though it's not really a racer it's still a great franchise filled with destruction.

Tarl @ Jul 2nd 2007 4:17PM

I'll keep and eye out for this game. This could be rather fun.

alexy @ Jul 2nd 2007 4:27PM

" Well, the Wired Blog crew contacted Koei to get an official response about the status of the PS3 version. Koei responsed by stating that the PS3 version is "delayed indefinitely" due to "progress of the game engine for PS3". Interesting enough, seeing that Fatal Inertia uses the Unreal Engine 3."
Isn't that just pouring salt on Ps3's fresh developing wound :P *cough*..EA......

jimy @ Jul 2nd 2007 4:24PM

Seems to be a growing trend.

airwolf @ Jul 2nd 2007 4:25PM

lol to the PS3!

df_toro @ Jul 2nd 2007 4:34PM

PS3 was doomed once M$ showed interest in gaming for consoles.

Ryan @ Jul 7th 2007 12:39AM

I am seriously starting to feel sorry for sony. They just keep losing their exclusives.

Dadidito @ Jul 2nd 2007 4:49PM

@6
I have to agree with you. Seems that microsofts strategy is working. Even if it doesn't win this console generation, it will inevitably happen. They will wait and be patient. They continue to build their rep.Even in Japan where even that paltry amount is more than the XBOX fared. Creating a mindset is half there strategy.

Triforceowner @ Jul 2nd 2007 5:05PM

This is oddly coincidental for myself. See, this was one of the games I saw a trailer of for the PS3 back in 2005 and though, "I must get a PS3." I than convinced my self that that game was not worth it, and I still think I am right. But now that it is on the 360 I might pick it up for bargain.

ccc @ Jul 2nd 2007 10:43PM

Heh,

Die SONY.

ElTiante @ Jul 3rd 2007 7:20AM

I wonder if it has more to do with Wipeout being announced for the ps3

neutral gamer @ Jul 3rd 2007 2:04AM

i'd like to point out that many, many developers can not program for the PS3. the PS3 is quite capable of great games and great ports (heavenly sword, Ninja gaiden sigma).

it may take time for developers to learn how to develop more efficiently on the PS3, so we gamers can see what games on the PS3 really look like when done correctly.

but in the meantime the 360 is stealing it's thunder with it's easier (last-gen so to speak) way of developing games.

it's the developers who are inferior not the machines they work with, however "difficult" or "red-ringed" they may be.

-neutral gamer

SlyTheBoss @ Jul 3rd 2007 7:31AM

#10, I wonder for how long this excuse will last. I mean, the Cell processor might end up being badly designed for games.

I have an analogy between the Cell processor are race cars. The SPE inside the Cell processor is what gives it its 'power' and in racing, it's analogy would be a dragster. It's fast but that's all it can do, run fast, in a straight line while the game itself is F1 race track. It's easy to see the dragster is out of its place there, even if you put seven of them...

ccc @ Jul 3rd 2007 10:15AM

@10

PS3 sucks. U know what other system was hard to program for? The Sega Saturn and look what happened to it. The fate of ps3 has already been decided. Developers dont have "time" it dosnt matter now.
Even if the ps3 has an advanced this and that, Know what, so did the 3do, dreamcast and jaguar and what happened to them? Hmm. I'll put it another way, The dreamcast failed with about 30 to 40 really sweet games on it. The ps3 has got like 1 game that is worth renting. The only other game on it that is remotly interesting is Ninja Gaiden Sigma which is an old Xbox original game, Talk about "last Gen Developing". LOL!

Bobicus @ Jul 3rd 2007 10:54AM

@10

Hmmm....let's see all the games that were for ps3 are going to be for 360 and it is the dev teams making this decision not the gamers; I wonder if maybe just maybe the ps3 is not going to blow us all away in a year or two...maybe it will just BLOW

neutral gamer @ Jul 3rd 2007 12:30PM

intresting, that seemed to rub people the wrong way. i only said "last gen development" because the same process to program games is being used still for PC and 360 that was used for the last gen systems. it's still a very effective way of producing games.

i'm not the developers and i'm not saying that the PS3 will show it's potential in a few years like many have whipped out before.

i'm simply stating a fact that the 360 is whooping the PS3's ass right now because the developers only want the quick buck.

i just think it's odd that most can't when it's proven that some developers can actually work with the PS3 and produce results. (Ninja Gaiden Sigma is a port, 360 xbox 1 whatever it proves that ports can look GOOD on the PS3)

i'm not defending the PS3 or 360, rather i'm questioning developers and their abilities to produce games for both. my next post is an intresting explanation from a PS3 developer about creating games and porting games to the PS3.

neutral gamer @ Jul 3rd 2007 12:31PM

i did not write this, a PS3 developer wrote this. NOT a fanboy. i just think it's an intresting read. put your fanboy aside and just read and think carefully before flamming.

"I would assume (since I don't know what each studio is doing on their end) it has to do mainly with the graphics card mindset. In today's PCs and the 360, the graphics card handles a lot of the culling and visibility checks. (Graphics cards are good at this kind of thing, as is each individual SPU on the Cell.) In the Cell environment, you are given what is essentially a pre-shader video card in the SPU, except it's running at 3.2GHz. Take what video cards could do (as far as effects) back in the nVidia 5000-ish era and imagine if they had a 3.2GHz clock. Now, your not going to dedicate the entire 6 SPUs to video background processing, but you can borrow some of that processing power to do collision, culling, physics, transformation (camera and object movement), etc and feed the RSX only what it needs. You can now use the RSX to process the pre-calculated scene and add after effects (motion blur, AA and the like.) This is also why the split memory can be a good thing. The Cell memory runs at full clock speed. You can virtually apply transformations (object movement, rotation, deformation) in system memory and pass those objects to the RSX for texturing and processing in it's memory buffer.

Why you get these bad ports (IMHO) is due to this mindset. When a developer passes objects to the graphics buffer and performs the transformations using the graphics library instead of the Cell architecture, they are trying to cram what the 360's graphics card can do into the RSX (which is a bit less powerful to be honest [but not by a whole lot]) This is why you get games that look almost as good as the 360 on ports. The port still relies on the video card for most of it's processing leaving the Cell mostly idle.

It's my opinion that a lot of developers are not willing to change the code enough to handle this change. There's also that fact that most of the big name studios want a product right now(!) and getting the game "good enough" is the norm so these kinds of engine changes are usually passed over, giving games that less than polished look.

Why they state the PS3->360 ports would look as good on the 360 is along the line that the dev will have to change these Cell specific functions to run on the 360 GPU instead of the CPU. But the caveat is that not all these functions need to be run GPU side so they can use the tri-core CPU in the 360 for some of the less demanding tasks. Besides, the 360 CPU isn't designed for vector processing, so it would be just as bad to leave these on the CPU if you were going form the PS3 to 360.

It's also worth noting that the PS3 can handle 2 shared thread and 6 unique "unshared" threads at the same time while the 360 is limited to 6 shared threads. Shared threads are kind of like the hyper-threading in Intel processors today. They can perform two operations at roughly the same time, but it splits the workload of the processor between these two threads. When one thread is idle waiting for memory allocation or a return from system IO, the processor will shift it's attention to the secondary thread without programmer intervention. This makes it "feel" like you have 2 cores instead of one. However, you're splitting the processor into two different tasks which is bad for the stuff I talked about earlier (the culling, transformation, etc.) because this requires heavy processor time. Hyperthreading is good when your dealing with things like general desktop systems where the processor can shift between operations while it waits for you to press the next button on your keyboard or it has to wait for the next packet of data from your network.

Does any of that make sense? I tried to make it as non-technical as I could. :p This is why I said the Cell requires a different mindset. "How much of this scene can I have the Cell pre-calculate and how much needs to be done on the RSX?" Honestly, the Cell is highly under utilized in most of the games out there.

When developers code a game for the 360, they are coding for a tree core processor and a GPU. It's not too dissimilar from programming on a PC today. When they port these games to the PS3, they follow that same mindset and are forced to use the SPU totally as a secondary general processor. This is why some people say that the Cell would not be good for general tasks. They are really tasking the CPU incorrectly treating the SPU as just another core. While it will perform well, the SPU actually has to perform more instructions to perform the same as a full blown core. This isn't entirely bad as long as you don't rely on it.

As far as texture quality difference. My thought on this can be many differnet things, but I think many of the ports are trying to utilize the system memory as texture cache forcing the RSX to read from system memory at half the speed of it's own.

If they performed some of the transformations before sending the objects to the RSX memory, they can literally cut the objects in half since your not seeing the back side of an object, thus needing half the normal storage.

Anyway, those are just a few thoughts on why porting looks so bad, but it could also be from many other reasons. As I said, it just takes a different mindset. As a programmer you have to accept that your job will change. As a game developer, your going to have to learn something new every new cycle of consoles and even sometimes every year. Your skills will have to change. This is part of the reason why I dislike Microsoft as a whole. Programming for Windows has not changed and this is why Windows will very slowly trumble along and not change drastically. Microsoft loves this though. They don't have to adapt and they get complacent programmers that know only how to program on x86 and windows platforms. This creates stubborn programmers that know one way and only one way. Anything outside that way is ridiculous to them. This happened at the dawn of PC computing with the mainframe programmers. They were comfortable with the methodology they had been using all those years and it took a different mindset to work on personal PCs. Some adapted, others didn't. It's the way of things."

Posted at 8:35AM on Jul 2nd 2007 by Andir3.0

SlyTheBoss @ Jul 3rd 2007 1:22PM

#16, the proof is in the pudding. Check this comparison of 'The Darkness'. The PS3 was the primary platform and yet, both looks very similar (comments are about 50-50 on which one looks the best)...

SlyTheBoss @ Jul 3rd 2007 1:50PM

Oops, forgot the link LOL

http://www.gametrailers.com/player/21124.html

RogueStorm @ Jul 3rd 2007 4:18PM

The funny thing is, I still remember when people thought Microsoft would fail because they were a software company getting into the hardware business against the likes of Sony. However, the chink in Sony's armor this time is that Microsoft's software is leaps and bounds better than Sony's for development on their hardware, that's pretty much unanimous at this point.

Hell, IBM created the Cell processor and even they had to redesign their compiler software (octopiler I think it's called) to optimize their code to run on Cell.

Programmer @ Jul 4th 2007 6:18PM

@ #16:

With all due respect, your theories are very incorrect. As #17 said, "the proof is in the pudding," or in other words, "Performance is what counts." And there is no doubt about it, the videogame graphic performance of the Xbox 360 is FAR SUPERIOR to the Playstation 3!

Sony employees often try to make an excuse for the Playstation 3, saying that the PS3 ends up with "ports" from the Xbox 360, which is why the Xbox 360 versions of all the games appearing on both systems are always better on the Xbox 360.

But that is an invalid excuse that simply isn't true! Xbox 360 outperforms the Playstation 3 in all situations, even in the few situations when the PS3 is the primary development platform.

Virtua Fighter 5 is one of the BEST EXAMPLES that shows how a game made with the PS3 as the primary development platform will still end up best on the Xbox 360.

Virtua Fighter 5 was originally designed as a Playstation 3 exclusive game. But now that the Xbox 360 version is close to release, the editors of magazines and websites have confirmed that the Xbox 360 version has significantly better graphics than the Playstation 3 version.

The Xbox 360 version of Virtua Fighter 5 also has has much better Artificial Intelligence. Ubisoft confirmed a long time ago that the Xbox 360 version of Assassins Creed also has superior Artificial Intelligence, because the Playstation 3 doesn't have the type of hardware that is capable of running A.I. with a similar level of performance. Tecmo confirmed this when they said Ninja Gaiden 2 will involve certain Boss fight scenes where an entire Xbox 360 CPU with two threads will be used exclusively for advanced Artificial Intelligence.

If the PS3 were to try and do something similar with that form of advanced A.I., it would be impossible to display any form of advanced graphics on the screen, because both of the PS3 CPU threads would be used for Artificial Intelligence, which means no form of advanced graphics could be displayed on screen at the same time.

The PS3 only has one 3.2Ghz CPU; it has 2 Threads that share information with other processors. In the case of the PS3 the Shared Threads share the instructions with the SPE (Sub-Processors) in the PS3's parallel processing design.

Each of the six SPE sub-processors that you refer does have a Thread, but like you said it is a Non-Shared Thread--it only Receives instructions, rather than being able to Send instructions, like the two PS3 CPU Threads.

This means the PS3 CPU has only has Two Threads to Send instructions with, but it has Six SPE Subprocessors asking to Receive instructions from the CPU.

Obviously that is impossible.

It is very common to hear developers say that developing games for the PS3 is literally like asking someone to juggle six balls (SPEs) using only two arms (CPU Threads).

That is a development environment that programmers don't enjoy working with, because it is very inefficient, and virtually impossible to effectively achieve the goal of consistent high-level performance.

The design of the Xbox 360 is MUCH MORE efficient, and much more effective at achieving the goal of consistent high-level performance.

The Xbox 360 includes THREE 3.2Ghz CPU processors, each with Two Threads--for a total of SIX Threads that can be used Send instructions in ANY WAY developer want to control the dedicated functions of the CPU and GPU! That is a development environment that programmers LOVE!

That is why the Xbox 360 has FAR MORE power than the Playstation 3 in the area referred to as "General Purpose CPU Power."

The Xbox 360 uses the much newer and much more advanced architecture design refered to as a "Multi-Core design." PCs often brag about their new "Dual-Core" design. The Xbox 360 takes that a step further with its "Tri-Core" design, with processors dedicated for use in videogaming! That is FAR SUPERIOR to the outdated "Parallel Processing" architectural design used in systems like the Playstation 3 and Sega Saturn. The PS3 and Sega Saturn are very difficult to work with because of that form of design that isn't optimized for use in videogames.

With the Multi-Core architectural design of the Xbox 360, developers can effortlessly take an Xbox 360 and devote an ENTIRE CPU to the control of Artificial Intelligence if they wanted to! Tecmo has said they plan on doing that with Ninja Gaiden 2 for several parts of the game where you fight very intelligent enemies! With the PS3, if that sort of A.I. was needed, a trade-off would need to be made in the area of graphics. Obviously, the design of the Xbox 360 is FAR SUPERIOR.

The Xbox 360 even has a special form of RAM called eDRAM that backs up the General Purpose Power of the CPU. This 10MB of eDRAM is amazingly efficient when it comes to helping developers do what they want to do while controlling the CPU and GPU.

Developers often say that the Xbox 360 is so easy to develop for that it is like having six arms (CPU Threads) to juggle only two balls (The CPU and GPU), while still having a friend (10MB of eDRAM) saying, "Don't worry, if you start to drop one, I will catch it for you."

There is absolutely no doubt about it that the Xbox 360 is MUCH MORE EFFECTIVE than the Playstation 3 in the area of achieving a consistent level of impressive performance.

The games show this to be true. The level of performance seen in Xbox 360 games outperforms the Playstation 3 by a wide margin, and that margin continues to grow in favor of the Xbox 360.

This year's football games run at 60 frames per second on the Xbox 360 at a resolution that will be upconverted all the way up to 1080p, just like all Xbox 360 games, since the Xbox 360 possessed that ability in the hardware, unlike the Playstation 3 (which is why 720p Playstation 3 games used on a 1080i HDTV set will actually be seen in only 480p).

The Xbox 360 hardware can display 500,000,000 polygons per second, compared to only 275,000,000 polygons per second on the Playstation 3.

Football games are the PERFECT example that show this polygon superiority!

This years Football games literally (not practically, but literally) display TWICE as many polgyons on the Xbox 360! This is the PERFECT example that shows the Xbox 360 displays 500,000,000 polygons per second compared to only 275,000,000 polygons per second on the Playstation 3. Just look at the boxes of the systems for proof of this specification. But it is the PERFORMANCE of the GAMES, the PERFORMANCE of the SOFTWARE, that counts the MOST, and that is where the Xbox 360 OUTPERFORMS the Playstation 3 the most!

Football cannot be considered a "fluke" thing. Look at the way games in so many other genres are so much better on the Xbox 360. Look at games like F.E.A.R. that won Awards on the PC and Xbox 360, but offered very disappointing performance on the Playstation 3. The Playstation 3 was so disappointing that the framerate of F.E.A.R. often dropped below 20 frames per second and caused slowdown in the game. Read this to see for yourself: http://www.1up.com/do/reviewPage?cId=3158930

Compare the versions of Call of Duty 3. The Xbox 360 version runs perfectly smooth, and gives you the ability to talk online while playing with 24 people online. But the Playstation 3 version has a very disappointing framerate that is choppy and inconsistent. The Playstation 3 version of Call of Duty 3 is like F.E.A.R. and so many other PS3 third-party games--it doesn't let you talk to anyone while playing online.

I was writing with capitals to show emphasis on those areas. I was not trying to "scream." Italic isn't an available option on this website, though.

But once again I will say,

There is absolutely no doubt about it that the Xbox 360 is MUCH MORE EFFECTIVE than the Playstation 3 in the area of achieving a consistent level of impressive performance.

The games show this to be true. The level of performance seen in Xbox 360 games outperforms the Playstation 3 by a wide margin, and that margin continues to grow in favor of the Xbox 360.

GL @ Jul 15th 2007 8:51AM

Programmer,

Holy cow! Did you even read the Andir3.0 post? He said it was a mindset from programers that are familiar with it.

All your post said was, "the proof is in the pudding."

Well, guess what? The proof will come as each game tuned for the PS3 gets better and better. Just wait...your post will be put into the dust bin of history. The PS3 games will look better than the 360 as 3rd party games get up to speed with their tool kits and the learning curve goes down.