Hideo Kojima says Metal Gear Solid 4 is the best the PS3 can do

[FP]

Link

Looks like Kojima Jr. isn't the only one disappointed with Metal Gear Solid. The latest issue of the UK's Edge magazine contains an interview with Metal Gear creator Hideo Kojima, who expresses disappointment with the latest game in the series, Metal Gear Solid 4: Guns of the Patriots. It isn't so much the gameplay itself as it is the graphics.

"Game-wise, it's pretty close to the original vision: you sneak into the battlefield and can choose whether to do a stealth game or interfere with the battle more directly. But the graphic, side things like motion-blending and the size of the map, totally was not accomplished to my original vision - to my satisfaction.

Now Kojima is a well-known perfectionist, but it is a bit disturbing to see him voice his dissatisfaction with what is supposed to be the masterpiece of the franchise. So where does he lay the blame for not fully realizing his vision?

"When we first showed the game engine at TGS, the staff were really proud and happy. PS3 was a dream machine, y'know, and we were going to work on this and that - and we had so many ideas. But when we actually started developing the game, we realized there were a lot of restrictions and so it turned out how you see it today. The original vision was to go ten steps further, the reality was just one step, which isn't to say we didn't progress.

So there was certainly progress made, but not enough progress...or more specifically, not enough power for progress. Apparently the team overestimated what the PlayStation 3 was capable of.

I remember saying three years ago that we wanted to create something revolutionary, but in reality we couldn't really do that because of the CPU. We're using the Cell engine to its limit., actually. Please don't get me wrong, I'm not criticizing the PS3 machine, it's just that we weren't really aware of what the full-spec PS3 offered - we were creating something we couldn't entirely see.

Well there you have it, straight from the man himself. Metal Gear Solid 4 is not revolutionary. Personally I think the man is being a bit hard on himself, but that's what great minds do.

He claims the game has already maxed out the PS3's capabilities.

I am really looking forward to this game... or at least the first half. I'm looking at your Sons of Liberty.

 

[Queasy]

Apparently the team overestimated what the PlayStation 3 was capable of.

You're not the only one Kojima, you're not the only one.

That said, MGS4 does look very good IMHO.

 

[FP]

Originally posted by: Queasy

Apparently the team overestimated what the PlayStation 3 was capable of.

You're not the only one Kojima, you're not the only one.

That said, MGS4 does look very good IMHO.

Are there other examples? I mean, I thought it was just an issue of developers not having a great handle on all of its power but eventually they would (like with the PS2).

Is it really that bad?

 

[Queasy]

Originally posted by: binister

Originally posted by: Queasy

Apparently the team overestimated what the PlayStation 3 was capable of.

You're not the only one Kojima, you're not the only one.

That said, MGS4 does look very good IMHO.

Are there other examples? I mean, I thought it was just an issue of developer not having a great handle on all of its power but eventually they would (like with the PS2).

Is it really that bad?

I was pretty much teasing all the hype of the PS3 before it was released and before devs really got their hands on it - (120FPS dual HDMI, pre-rendered CGI video being put up as real-time gameplay, calling the 360 the Xbox 1.5, etc). Devs and fanboys were really going overboard.

Sony has at least changed their attitude somewhat since they've changed their VPs.

 

[DaveSimmons]

It sounds like a PS4 or xbox 720 might not be enough for what he wanted to do if the PS3 is only capable of "one step out of ten."

Or maybe they will. After a 5 year gap the midrange CPU and GPU for those consoles may be 8-16 times as fast given 2-3 full cycles of doubled transistors and a couple of process shrinks.

 

[blurredvision]

Kojima is just the ultimate graphics whore, and I'm sure Sony is very displeased with his comments. One look at games like GT5P, Uncharted, and R&C, and you know the PS3 is every bit capable. If Kojima wants to use the graphics of consoles 10 years into the future, then he should've waited another 10 years to make MGS4.

 

[darkswordsman17]

Originally posted by: Queasy

Originally posted by: binister

Originally posted by: Queasy

Apparently the team overestimated what the PlayStation 3 was capable of.

You're not the only one Kojima, you're not the only one.

That said, MGS4 does look very good IMHO.

Are there other examples? I mean, I thought it was just an issue of developer not having a great handle on all of its power but eventually they would (like with the PS2).

Is it really that bad?

I was pretty much teasing all the hype of the PS3 before it was released and before devs really got their hands on it - (120FPS dual HDMI, pre-rendered CGI video being put up as real-time gameplay, calling the 360 the Xbox 1.5, etc). Devs and fanboys were really going overboard.

Sony has at least changed their attitude somewhat since they've changed their VPs.

Now, I could be wrong, but I was thinking that the 120fps thing was actually about 120hz on the video signal, intended for Blu-Ray. I've seen a bunch of people use that as a point of how full of crap Sony is, but they always act like its dealing with the framerate of games. At the time he said it, most people (including most game journalists) I don't think knew much if anything about it, which I guess is why people tie it to games. As far as I can tell, he only meant that the PS3's HDMI port was capable of sending 120Mhz signals.

As for Kojima, wait until after the game is released and everyone is going crazy for it, then he'll say how they actually only used 50% of its power, and that he's already at work on MGS5, which will use the full power of the system. He's pulled this same crap of saying how much of the system's power they're utilizing, when it doesn't mean anything. You honestly think they can't come up with improvements in graphics technology? Look at how Epic is improving UE3.0 and tell me that you can't get more out of maturing the software. I doubt you could ever say you actually eked every single bit of power out of the hardware. The thing is, you reach a point where the effort to do so yields such small gains that its not worth it and you'd be better off investing the development in newer more powerful hardware. I do not believe they've reached this point yet on the 360 or PS3.

 

[Queasy]

Originally posted by: darkswordsman17
Now, I could be wrong, but I was thinking that the 120fps thing was actually about 120hz on the video signal, intended for Blu-Ray. I've seen a bunch of people use that as a point of how full of crap Sony is, but they always act like its dealing with the framerate of games. At the time he said it, most people (including most game journalists) I don't think knew much if anything about it, which I guess is why people tie it to games. As far as I can tell, he only meant that the PS3's HDMI port was capable of sending 120Mhz signals.

Link

Appearing at the Tokyo International Digital Conference on Thursday to talk about the technological capabilities of the PlayStation 3 and the Cell processor, Sony Computer Entertainment president Ken Kutaragi said he expects the PS3 to be capable of running games at a stunning 120fps, according to a report in The Nikkei BP.

Kutaragi was probably the worse at overstating the abilities of the PS3 and the cell. Like I said, they've gotten much better in this regard with the change in leadership.

 

[Thraxen]

This is just Kojima, he's always saying stuff like this. This is the same guy that was saying that Blu-ray discs didn't have enough space for what he wanted to do with MGS4.

 

[hans030390]

I don't think MGS4 is the best looking PS3 game based on screens/videos that I've seen...I think it's odd he's claiming they've maxed out the PS3.

 

[BladeVenom]

Then maybe he should start making PC games.

 

[purbeast0]

whatever this guys says ... i agree with blurred.

ratchet and clank and uncharted are probably the 2 best looking games of last year IMO, w/uncharted taking it because of the animation and lighting, let alone the cut scenes. r&c had a completely different style which looked close to playing a pixar movie.

 

[mugs]

Originally posted by: Thraxen
This is just Kojima, he's always saying stuff like this. This is the same guy that was saying that Blu-ray discs didn't have enough space for what he wanted to do with MGS4.

Yeah, I think this is just crazy talk.

 

[fatdragondzc]

Originally posted by: Thraxen
This is just Kojima, he's always saying stuff like this. This is the same guy that was saying that Blu-ray discs didn't have enough space for what he wanted to do with MGS4.

I heard that too. It looks awesome already though. But mayb he was just talking about the content.

 

[Ultima200]

You need to take these comments with a grain of salt...When the development team started in the MGS4 project, they did not have the final PS3 hardware to work with...as they devoloped the game and the final specs of the system were available, they realized the system wasn't as earth-shattering as it was hyped to be. No surprise there. The main thing here is that if Kojima feels necessary to release comments like this before the release signals that this game is NOT going to live up to the hype.

 

[EvilComputer92]

If he wants amazing graphics he should go develop for the PC and try to compete with Crysis. The strong point of consoles is never their graphical capability. Remember that the PS3 'RSX' is really just a rebranded nvidia 7800 graphics card.

 

[galperi1]

This coming from the guy who rated his game (MGS4) 1 out of 10 with 10 being the best. Let's be honest, if MGS4 had the greatest graphics known to man, washed dishes, gave BJ's on demand, cooked, cleaned, and did all of your work, Kojima would probably only bump the score up to 3.

 

[destrekor]

I think that maybe they just didn't develop that optimized of a game engine, because judging from the screens, other games rival it pretty easily and released awhile ago. There are a lot of tricks in the optimization of an engine and how the game is presented. Maybe the route he took had he speeding towards fail from the beginning, and he had to set back. Perhaps if he approached development in a way of, not expecting how much can be done but finding out how much can be done, then maybe it would have come out differently.
From the very beginning I think Kojima and Konami approached the development all wrong. And I bet a year after this game releases a game will top it's graphical quality. It takes a company more than one game on a new system to learn the capabilities and work from there. Look at the difference between Metal Gear Solid 2 and 3... 3 blew 2 out of the water... because Kojima and Konami figured out what the PS2 had in it, and how they could milk it for everything it has. No developer ever maxed a system with their first game for that system.
Here's to hoping Kojima's next project is Zone of the Enders 3 for PS3, and graphically it just blows everything out of the water. Quite possible now that he has worked with the PS3 for a long time.

+

 

[destrekor]

Originally posted by: EvilComputer92
If he wants amazing graphics he should go develop for the PC and try to compete with Crysis. The strong point of consoles is never their graphical capability. Remember that the PS3 'RSX' is really just a rebranded nvidia 7800 graphics card.

and yet its delivering better visuals than a 7800
that part doesn't matter so much, as does how the hardware is integrated and performs with the rest of the system. That and there is far less overhead in a console than a PC, and code is never competing with other code for processing. And the multitude of things the Cell can accomplish in a game engine takes some load off the RSX.

+

 

[Eeezee]

I'm not sure that I believe him. Didn't he also suggest that MGS2 was the best the PS2 could do? MGS3 definitely pushed that envelope. God Of War outright destroyed anyone's expectation for what the console should be capable of doing

Edit: This could be some sort of brilliant marketing strategy, actually. Make it seem like MGS4 is only a good game. If it's actually a masterpiece, it will go down as such regardless of what the initial expectations were. If it's only a great game, then bringing down some of the hype will work positively for it.

 

[bearxor]

I never buy these comments. Developers are constantly finding way to squeeze extra performance out of the consoles later in their life.

 

[skace]

All I'm reading is "You know those hype videos we showed you? Yea, that shit was fake son". It's like a preemptive counter-attack to make sure nobody jumps them about how it looks.

 

[tuteja1986]

nah... All you have to look at is PS2 and its games that came out in the last major development cycle where games were coming out that were thought was impossible to like on a terrible hardware that sony had engineered.

 

[EvilComputer92]

Originally posted by: destrekor

Originally posted by: EvilComputer92
If he wants amazing graphics he should go develop for the PC and try to compete with Crysis. The strong point of consoles is never their graphical capability. Remember that the PS3 'RSX' is really just a rebranded nvidia 7800 graphics card.

and yet its delivering better visuals than a 7800
that part doesn't matter so much, as does how the hardware is integrated and performs with the rest of the system. That and there is far less overhead in a console than a PC, and code is never competing with other code for processing. And the multitude of things the Cell can accomplish in a game engine takes some load off the RSX.

+

Yeah, but it only goes so far. If I remember correctly the Cell architecture is really good at mass physics calculations due to it's 8 SPEs which are very good at handling matrix multiplication. It excels at raw floating point power. When it comes to doing more regular tasks like AI code it doesn't do as well, as the cell cannot execute multiple instructions per clock like most desktop processors.

Also anytime the cell takes the load off the RSX it will result in a massive drop in framerate as it will be emulating whatever function that the RSX is too busy to carry out. The cell is a very powerful CPU, but it still can't properly substitute the functions that the GPU is specifically designed to carry out like shader computations.

I would think the biggest problem is the limited memory, since 512mb for both the graphics card and system is going to require cutting corners. Even though there is no OS to load in the backround, 1GB is really what is needed when it is shared across both the CPU and GPU.

 

[Gunslinger08]

This is a function of a shitty estimation at what they could do with it or shitty coding for the implementation.