As posted in the System Wars: Hey everyone. For those who actually know me a lil' here, well, you all know that I have some friends who work at Ubisoft here in Montreal, Canada and well, from time to time we meet, we talk games and I end up getting some juicy info that you guys like to hear. Well, I haven't come here in a while, I was in Italy for a few weeks (awesome!) and well, when I came back I went to this big BBQ and one of my friends from Ubi was there. Again, don't ask for his name, don't ask for what he does, all I can say is he's told me some nice stuff. Obviously, it would be a crime not to share, right ??? So here it is... First off, for the sheep: Be happy. be very happy. It's no secret now that Ubisoft is a big supporter of Wii, but let's put it this way. They will support all 3 systems, they're working on something for everyone, but internaly the developpers are having the most fun with Wii. It's what they enjoy the most. Everyone in there had a blast playing the demos, I heard a lot of talk about a tenis game -- I don't know if it's that Nintendo demo from E3 or something from Ubisoft, but I was told it's insanely addictive and very well done. "You don't just swing the controller to hit the ball -- you don't just play with your arms. How you move your wrists is very important, too." In other words, it's not just a swing up an down crap of a game. The angle and speed (etc..) of your movement as you hit the ball is very important and is reflected in a very realistic way in the game. While it's been announced lately (he was actually surprised that I knew, ehe!), PoP and Far Cry for Wii were under dev. for quite a few weeks. It wasn't anything new to him. Speaking of Far Cry, sorry sheep -- but for those who were hoping that the game would be proof that Wii had enough power -- NO, IT DOES NOT LOOK AS GOOD AS THE PC VERSION. Sorry. Other than that on the Nintendo side -- hmm, game-wise I have no clue if there's more coming, but my friend had a freakin' frustrating grin in his face when I asked him if anything other than games were in the works. He reaaaally loves the controller and he said that thing has huge potential. "The Internet is ignorant" he said -- we don't know sh!t about what Nintendo is going to sell us. Lemmings, your turn: Be happy, too. I was told that working for Xbox 360 is doing real good, the console was a fun challenge, as with every system change, but they're really having a fun time working on the games. No inside information on what game is coming around -- I just didn't ask, really -- but one thing is very interesting for you guys: Microsoft is very, very, very, very, VERY nice with developpers. They listen a lot, they care alot, they respond very fast. When a developper asks for a tool, they get it. One very interesting example I was given is and I hope this actually does help prove that I'm not BSing (there's always doubters out there): 3rd party companies had a hard time with the Xbox 360's load times. The dev kits are all on HD's, so it was hard to figure out how to do those loading peices of code (keeping it easy for non-techies, OK?) so what did Microsoft do as a response? I was told that only a few DAYS later, they came up with a dvd-drive simulator, basically slowing down the streaming of data from the HD to the "game" as if the info was loaded from the drive. Well, if you asked me before, I would have tought such things existed already, but hey, it seems that Microsoft was the 1st smartest about it. Nothing new, but I was also told that XNA helps a lot, and Microsoft is very serious about bringing gaming to Vista. Once the new DirectX hits, both the PC and Xbox 360 will gain in popularity, he expects. And now, for the cows: Well, you should somehow be happy too, but I'm afraid the bulk of bad news is for 'ya (you should be used to it by now, anyway. ;) !) The PS3 dev kit is NOT final. It's still insanely buggy. It's slow, but worse than that: "It always freezes". Working for PS3 is not only expensive, it's very ressource consuming, because... it just doesn't work well yet. Cell is a ***** to work with and there's some very unbalanced stuff in the architecture. One very interesting peice that I'm sure I will get heat on -- but I'll say it anyway : I don't recall exactly what kind exactly, but some of the memory on the PlayStation 3 [dev kit], compared to Microsoft's which runs a 3.2GB/sec, runs at an amazingly crappy rate of... *4MB/sec*. I don't know what the heck he was talking about, but he knows his numbers, and he told me like 3 times in a row with big eyes like he would have shot someone at SONY for doing something so stupid. Take it for what it's worth. He didn't get to old any official PS3 controller, yet. They all know about the motion sensing too, but he's seen people still using Logitech and PS2 controllers. He wasn't sure of this though -- so take it for what it's worth. and now, though, some good stuff for you guys: Assassin's Creed is AMAZING, he said. He's played it and -- it's beautiful. It looks amazing, but that's not all. It's just a GREAT game. It doens't just look good -- it plays very, very well. That one will surely be an AAA title, don't expect anything less, according to him. So despite the bad news about the PS3, they're still managing to pull a crazy-*** AAA title out of it, so it can't be all that bad, right ? So that's about it for now. There was some DS >>> PSP talk here and there, but nothing new or juicy. BTW: I AM *NOT* writing everything he told me. Yep, there's some other stuff, but I'm just not telling you all, because I'm sure most of you will not even believe what I wrote... but as you can see, I hope, there's really some for everyone, this isn't a biased or fanboy post, though I do admit it's darker on the SONY side of things... which is NOT really surprising, really (let's be real, people.) Oh, I asked him if Nintendo every aproached Ubisoft for some Smash Bros Characters (why not Rayman? Sam Fisher?) and I just got a "no comment". Judging from his face though, I wouldn't bet on it... Enjoy and 'til next time...
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