EIF 2007: Xbox 360 Unreal Tournament III to get fewer maps?
Speaking at this year’s Edinburgh Interactive Festival, VP of Epic Games Mark Rein indicated that Unreal Tournament III for the Xbox 360 might have to get cut down in order to cope with the limitations of the console's hardware. Answering a question from the crowd about whether disc size would be a problem with an Xbox 360 port, he stated that “We’ll compress some things. But you know, we may have fewer maps on the 360 version...Blu-Ray has definitely given us a lot of legroom. And what's really cool is if you think forward and think about what we've done in the past with UT. We had UT 2003 and then we had UT 2004, which was everything in UT 2003 plus a whole bunch of great mod stuff that we went out and purchased from mod makers.”
"If you think down the road, well maybe the next UT beyond this one, on Blu-Ray disc, we might fill the whole damn disc with all the cool stuff the mod makers make."
If the DVD format is already showing its age, it's bad news for Microsoft. Sony's decision to include Blu-Ray has had its detractors, but if multiplatform titles are going to be bigger and better on the PS3, then Sony’s going to be able to start justifying the cost of its more expensive hardware. This will doubly be the case if it's a big franchise like Unreal Tournament from Epic. It's especially worrying given that these are still fairly early days in this console cycle. If it's a problem over the next year, what's it going to be like four or five years down the line?
Related Posts:
Xbox Live causing UTIII delay?
Epic’s bigwigs express doubts about Games for Windows Live
Came straight to this page? Visit www.xboxer.tv for all the latest news.
Comments
Well hddvd dosnt have as much memory as bluray has and bluray has more suporters.
Posted by: mrdx | August 15, 2007 2:51 AM
It's actually 9gb double layer that's what games are using. Keep in mind that they are compressing files like crazy, that they have been able to compress so much info that it would have taken 12gb without it. Another thing who cares give me the game in two discs 3 -4 whatever. Jesus what's so hard about that. They have been doing that for years.
Posted by: Mirsha | August 15, 2007 3:02 AM
Wow, just imagine having 3-4 DVD and you move your 360, you'll have to buy the game again. LOL
Posted by: Unplugged | August 15, 2007 4:07 AM
@MRDX dont worry your wish will be soon granted.the new game rage will have two disc for 360 and pc.while ps3 will only have single disc call blu ray.so u can be 360 dj by swapping all those dvd.
Posted by: pun | August 15, 2007 4:09 AM
Make the game on the disk and give us extra maps via Xbox Live.
Posted by: poundnjeep | August 15, 2007 7:23 AM
Has anyone heard of multi-disc games? Its not like they can't fit the extra maps on a seperate DVD and 2 DVD should be plenty. Seeing the delay of the 360 version and with all the talks going on between Epic and MS, its pretty obvious why they might be doing it this way... and his has more to do with MS ... hint - hint.
Posted by: John | August 15, 2007 1:36 PM
*secretly swaps b's DVD games with floppy versions* see if you like swapping now.
Posted by: c | August 15, 2007 1:51 PM
multidisc works with RPGs NOT FPS games. who the hell wants to have to "insert disc 2" when it comes map change time on an online server. Its just not plausable. I knew this issue would come up, Kudos to Sony on Blu-Ray for thinking ahead. Sure its an expensive system, but its technology is cutting edge, you don't go buy a top of the line PC for 300 dollars, sorry.
Posted by: dan | August 15, 2007 2:01 PM
simple solution: single player, if any at all, and a certain subset of maps on one disc, the rest of the game on the other. that way swapping would happen as early as mode selection, and you could have all the bells and whistles on your crappy locked up system >_>
Posted by: c | August 15, 2007 2:14 PM
Is there some reason they can't do multiple discs like mentioned and it installs the maps onto the hard drive? Isn't that umm basically what any live maps do when you get them? I don't see the issue?
Posted by: Chad | August 15, 2007 6:44 PM
The problem is that the core version of 360 does not have a hard disc. So making installation mandatory will not go down well with customers who have the core version & want to play UTIII but won't be able to at all as they have no hard disc.
Posted by: Jake | August 15, 2007 7:08 PM
What you guys are not understanding is the massive loss in having 2 disks rather than one, it's just not plausible to have 2 game disks, they already finished building the game, rearranging data to be split on 2 cds is a big job, if it happens, there will be delays.
BTW: DVD on the 360 fits NINE gigabytes not 4.5. So it's a 10 gig game that was not able to fit it there.
Posted by: Metallic | August 15, 2007 7:10 PM
On the 360 you can't count on it having a hard drive to install onto.
Also, adding a second disk will also add to the game's cost (extra pressing run, extra weight on shipping, maybe extra space/more intricate case).
Posted by: togo | August 15, 2007 7:13 PM
u could always download the maps on to ur hard drive rather then havein them on the disk
Posted by: amo | August 17, 2007 2:19 PM
I really think xbox needs to step up now. first gta 4 now UT 3 c'mon man. The same xbox fanboys that talk about ps3's cost dont understand that if u have a core and u need to upgrade its goin to cost the same as a ps3. same goes for the premium 120gb upgrade is like 200 and then the disks yall run the games on are not big enough. So that poses a problem im not downing 360 but for MS to be the all powerfull GI juggarnaut(sorry if i spelled it wrong i dont us it often) of the USA then it should have seen this coming. dont even get me started on the wii
Posted by: Anubis | August 19, 2007 11:18 PM
Hello,
I represent a company that specializes in a new form of Internet advertising that guarantees that you will get a 100% conversion rate on 100% of your website traffic.
Starting In February a revolutionary style of advertising will be launching. As the webmaster, you will be paid for each visitor that comes to your site and your visitors will not have to click on anything! All they have to do is arrive as they do now and you will be paid.
If you would like to know more about how this new system will work, contact me and I can provide you with more details.
Regards,
Gareth
Posted by: Gareth Hough | January 23, 2008 9:06 PM
this is makin me angry. all they have to do is give you extra discs from which you download maps to your hard-drive. And if someone says "Well, what about people without a harddrive?" then they just wont get the extra maps. simple as that. either that or start making 360 games that have a label saying that you need a harddreive to play the game. Or maybe a label saying that to get the full experience you need a harddrive.
Posted by: drewsoph | February 23, 2008 8:33 PM
The comments to this entry are closed.
I hope nobody is surprised by this. Did anyone think 4.7 gigs would be enough forever? If only 360 were capable of playing HDDVD format games.....
Posted by: Mike | August 15, 2007 2:30 AM