EA VP says the Xbox 360 is "maxed out"
By Nilay Patel 
posted Jun 9th 2009 1:26AM
posted Jun 9th 2009 1:26AM
Microsoft might be busy extending and building on the Xbox 360's capabilities with Project Natal and all manner of NXE and Live updates, but it sounds like some of their third-party devs think they're running out of headroom -- in an interview with the Official Xbox Magazine, EA senior VP Patrick Soderlund said that "we've maxed out the 360 but we haven't maxed out the PS3." That's an interesting parallel to what Miyamoto was just saying about the Wii, of course, but it doesn't seem like the situation is entirely dire: Soderlund also said that he's "truly impressed" with the 360 and that he "would have a headache" if he were running Sony. Still, that doesn't bode well for Microsoft's planned 10-year 360 lifecycle if it's true -- we'll see if Redmond has something new for us before 2015 after all.
Well, it's nice to know that I'm not alone in saying this.
Yeah, looks like you and this guy are totally on the same page.
Did you just start shaving yesterday too, or is it just him?
Xbox 360. Maxed out?
...I think not.
Neither of the consoles are maxed out. But the 360 is closer to being maxed out than the PS3.
Kurian: That's because nobody knows how to max out a PS3
how to max out the ps3
step 1.) divide by zero
step 2.) whooarghhaarrbllblllasdfljasdfklasd
step3.) dear god what have we done
step 4.) profit
andres,
Except that Sony is no where near step 4.
I love my PS3 but based on what I saw at E3 (Spliner Cell, Forza 3) xbox is capable of a lot. You know how they say: "it's not the car, it's the driver", that applies to game design as well.
@EGOvoruhk: Yeah right, and millions of 360 RROD just right now. Let's cut the crap for a moment will ya? It's 2009. Not 2007. The PS3 is too difficult to program or has no game BS is passe. Things evolve, try to evolve a bit yourself for your own sake.
this will not end well.
And the interviewer never thought of asking him to define "maxed out?" Maxed out in what way?
The EA guy did say it was his favorite of the 3 consoles though, so at least he has some sense/taste :P.
It sounded pretty self explanatory.
AND it echoed my biggest fears. Too bad it's meaningless too if devs aren't behind that "maxing out the PS3" quest.
It took EA 4 years to finally push the Xbox to it's limit? What the hell have they been doing this whole time, half-assing it? I would hope game developers would try to push a console to it's limit at launch. Otherwise don't bother.
They've been treating their designers like shit and pushing out BF games way to early leading to a ridiculous amount of patches
They never said WHEN they maxed it out (I think). The Xbox 360 was made of basic PC hardware so it was easy to "max" out. The 360 was maxed out a long time ago, improvements graphically in games are only marginal now.
Saying 'basic pc hardware' is inaccurate. At launch the 360 was very powerful for the price compared to a PC. It's not like their gonna pull a Sega and add a 32x module...
...PC hardware? Wat?!
All consoles have graphics chips from PCs now. All consoles have PC processors. *The OMGIJUSTCELLGASMED! processor is used in servers.* All have some form of storage stright from the PC sector. Please define what "basic PC hardware" means to you. Last time I checked, the CPU in the 360 wasn't being used for anything else, neither is the Wii's. You're being about as vague as this tard.
@lameduck
Woah there..... Actually, before this generation of consoles (excluding Xbox 1), most of them didn't use "basic pc hardware." They used CPU's and GPU's that were built specifically for the console. Even in this generation you couldn't just go in to a best buy and point to a CPU and say "That's the one in the xbox 360" It's made by IBM just for the 360. However, in the case of the Xbox 1, you really almost could go into a store and say "that's the xbox processor" It used a slightly modified pentium 3. So, in short, Lameduck, you're wrong.
The Xbox and Wii use a PPC processor. PC based. *By PC based I mean it has been or is a modded version of something from a PC. G5 macs are a great example here*
The 360 and PS3 GPUs are early versions of GPUs used, now, in computers. These you can point to and say, "Hey! That is the same series as the 360/PS3 GPU!"
I'm not saying they are off the self parts, I'm saying they are of the same family as PC compents. It isn't like it was back in the day when the PS2 had some Frankenstein processor that wasn't kin to anything except for a barrowed instruction set from RISC based CPUs. Anyway, my point still stands. These parts are kin to or used in modern PCs and computing devices. You have Cells running servers. The PS3 and 360 GPUs are now low to mid-ranged GPUs in computers. I'm sure that there are some PowerPC and Power5 chips out there being used that are just like the 360 and Wii CPUs without the gaming tweaks. The tech that made them had to come from somewhere and goto somewhere, it just doesn't stop with the Wii, PS3, or 360.
No Lameduck you are still wrong.
The 360 uses a 3 physical core CPU with hyperthreading so it can function as 6 cores, 3 physical, 3 non physical. So no it's not out of a Mac mate even if it is a PPC chip, and the Wii I have no idea about, the PS3 Cell CPU was developed by Sony, Toshiba, IBM on a joint venture and the PS3 is the first device in the world to use it ever, it's also very different from any 'PC CPU' and totally bespoke, it's only now that supercomputers are using them and so are televisions too.
As for the graphics, again yes and no, the 360 actually featured technology that came out in PC's AFTER it was launched so kudos to them, the PS3 does use a modified top end Nvidia chip. But the memory systems of the consoles are very different to PC's, the PS3 uses XDR for example.
The CBE uses a 3.0GHz dual core PPC chip in addition to the 8 SPEs. It is not actually used in computers in any way that would be meaningful to traditional computing because no OS will natively utilize the SPEs; when you run Linux on a PS3 or a cell blade it's running on PPC chip and the SPEs are only used by C programs using IBM's SDK. And if you would like to buy a computer that uses the Cell processor (e.g., a cell blade) they cost somewhere in the 5 digit range.
@Darthweder
The discussion was not about the original XBOX. LameDuck was responding to tX2, who said "The Xbox 360 was made of basic PC hardware". tX2 was dead wrong, there is no "basic PC hardware" in the 360 other than external connectors and the hard drive. The HDD's will always be "basic PC hardware" as there is no need to reinvent the wheel there.
In all reality, the PS3 is much closer to "basic PC hardware" than the 360. The PS3 uses a CPU that is also being used in a limited fashion on some servers and the GPU is basically a consumer GPU, just soldered onto the PS3 board directly instead of a PCI Express card. Conversely, the 360 CPU is not used in anything other than the console and the GPU also does not have an equal in the consumer graphics card market. A quote from Bob Feldstein, ATI VP of Engineering, "The Xbox GPU had nothing whatsoever to do with the PC products". - http://interviews.teamxbox.com/xbox/1458/The-Power-of-the-Xbox-360-GPU/p1/
Neither console is really much like any PC.
The PS3 has the Sony/Toshiba/IBM Cell Broadband Engine as its CPU and a custom NVIDIA GPU. The NVIDIA GPU is somewhat similar to a 7900-series GPU, but the Cell is like nothing you'll find in a PC. It has 8 total cores (7 SPEs + 1 PPE), and only the PPE could be described as vaguely "PC like" (in that it's a general-purpose CPU with direct access to main memory). The PPE implements a version of the PowerPC instruction set, which was also used in (among other things) Series 1 TiVo boxes and older Macs.
The PS3's memory is split into two banks, with 256M for the GPU and 256M for the CPU. The GPU memory is GDDR3, just like many PC graphics cards. But the CPU's memory is Rambus XDR DRAM, which doesn't really resemble anything in a PC (it's a successor to RDRAM, which appeared briefly in PCs).
The PS3's Cell SPEs are also not like anything in a PC. For one thing, they don't have direct access to main memory. They also are much poorer at handling instructions like branches. Cell-derived CPUs are used in some supercomputers, but I would hardly consider those to be "PCs" (although many of the largest supercomputers are just clusters of PCs).
The 360 uses a unified memory architecture, similar to PCs with integrated graphics. However, instead of DDR/DDR2/DDR3 (as is used in PCs), the 360 uses GDDR3 as main memory (note that GDDR3 and DDR3 are very different). This is more similar to the memory arrangement on a GPU. The 360's GPU is similar to the Radeon 2000/3000/4000 series (which were derived from the 360 GPU) but with a number of differences, notably the inclusion of eDRAM in the 360's GPU (which is DRAM with custom logic and an extremely fast bus, in a multi-chip-module with the 360's GPU).
The 360's CPU is a triple-core PowerPC. Each core is derived from the PPE developed for the Cell processor and has two hardware threads. Note that "two threads" does not mean that there is one "real" core and one "fake" core; there is only one "core" (set of execution units) but it is capable of picking instructions from one of two instruction streams. It's not correct to call this "Hyper Threading" as that's an Intel specific term, but it similar to the technology used in some Intel CPUs (Nehalem, Atom, later P4s).
So, no, neither the 360 nor the PS3 are much like a PC. Both have significant differences in their memory systems, CPUs, and GPUs. They are custom hardware, designed to be game consoles. Yes, there is design heritige. That's to be expected. But they are no more "PCs" than my TiVo or my G1.
Lifecycle != no new product before then. It just means they plan to support it until 2015.
I wouldn't be surprised to see an Xbox 3/Wii HD next E3.
+1 for realizing this. Seriously, what makes it so hard to understand the PS3 and 360's ten-year life cycle?
I know plenty of people who are still pissed all of the good games aren't coming out for the PS2.
Correct. For example...the PS2 was released in 2000, Sony plans to support it until 2010 even though the PS3 is already out.
I don't see microsoft or sony upgrading anytime soon.
There have been jumps in graphics technology but not large enough to justify people spending 4-500 dollars on another console that is just an incremental improvement.
Also the Xbox 360 only reached profitability about a year ago and Sony is still in the red with the PS3. I doubt microsoft or sony is ready to start taking more losses on consoles with newer and more expensive technology in them.
Also Many developers are having a hard enough time staying profitable with the high development costs of creating a game. Sticking with the same platform will let them spend less time learning new hardware and more time bringing us great games that take advantage of what we already have.
I don't think there is too much further to take systems graphical capabilities.
Graphics will always improve but it will be years before you see something that truly wows you the way games went from generation to generation.
The only system I can see getting an upgrade would be the wii and it's money printer hasn't started to run low on ink yet.
"I don't think there is too much further to take systems graphical capabilities."
HAHAHAHA... You can't be serious? Now I will agree with you that current-gen R700/ NVidia GT200 isn't an enormous leap from the ~7800GT in the PS3, but there is a long lead-time on console development. I wouldn't be surprised if Sony and Microsoft are working with Nvidia/ATI behind the scenes looking at GPU designs that are two generations ahead of the market.
I'm sure an ATI R900 / Nvidia GT400 gen GPU can easily fit the bill for an upgrade over the PS3/X360 generation. Even the next DirectX11 cards coming out are advanced enough to make a new console with.
As interesting as GPUs are, It will be just as interesting to see what direction they go with for GPUs. I assume Sony will stay with the Cell family, perhaps just use an upgraded 45nm cell with a higher clock rate or more cores. I'm not sure what Microsoft would do however... Maybe another custom Power job from IBM? Maybe move architectures to Directx11 on x86 and Larrabee? hmmmm
Let the pissing contest begin!
Damn Jimmy Fallon....
When has EA ever created something visually and computationality taxing on any game console or computer? How can something like GOW2 be done and CliffyB has said that there was still room to grow, but the best EA has is Madden - which has not changed in years.
It all comes down to the devs. You can create software that is inefficient and of course you will bump on the upper ceiling of any processor. Optimize, and you free up resources.
Oh, and good job Engadget. Pulling out the one article negative against MS, but ignoring others negative about the comptetition!
For example, here is an article published today where game developers are upset with Sony for not dropping the price at E3.
http://www.gamedaily.com/articles/news/publishers-retailers-clamoring-for-ps3-price-cut/?biz=1
Can this be a news article?
Crysis dude, but that's it, so I can see the confusion...
Damn, I forgot about Crysis. However, it kind of proves that the 360 has not hit the ceiling, being as Crysis 2 will be available on the 360, PS3, and PC. http://e3.gamespot.com/story/6210583/crysis-2-ps3-360-pc-bound
If the 360 is so limited, how can they port the most power hungry game to it?
how are they making crysis 2 for it? because the game is taxing for pcs because in there it has not limits, not for the console version that comes with limited everything.
@Ridgecity:
I am just linking to an article saying they announced it for consoles. I don't know much about it beyond that.
One thing I should clear up, as it was reference down lower in the comments. There once was a report CliffyB (I know he does not like going by that name now, but I am not even going to attempt to spell it correctly) said that GOW2 had pushed the 360 to the limit. A few days later there was another article saying that CliffyB had been misquoted/taken out of context, etc. and that was not true. I am looking for the article, but cannot find either the original nor the retraction.
DeadSpace looks great, so does Burnout Paradise.
I'm gonna go grab some popcorn.
I was just about to go do the same... this fanboy rant is about to get good!
I'll bring some unpopped corn, the heat from the upcoming flamewar will pop it nicely.
Maybe it's just me, but I think E3 was sort of a lot of indirect proof that the 360 is about maxed out graphically. There wasn't a single game shown for 360 that looked any better than anything that's coming out for 360 in the past 2 years and nothing that touched the quality of some of Sony's better crop, namely Uncharted 2. Halo ODST was essentially a smoother looking Halo, but not a new graphics engine, Forza 3 wasn't much different looking than Forza 2 and everything else followed suit. The 360 was not built with a long life cycle in mind and it's definitely beginning to show its age, hence all of the social networking updates the 360 got as opposed to talking about "pushing graphics performance" as Microsoft has been known to brag about in E3's past.
The reason Forza Motorsport 3 didn't look that different than Forza 2 was because Forza 2 had fuckin' amazing graphics.
Yeah, Forza 2 pretty much had the most amazing visuals I had seen at the time, but the cars do look noticeably smoother and more refined in Forza 3, not to mention the tracks look even better.
Yeah, but even Forza 3 doesn't look better than GT5P, which is from late 2007-early 2008. In Forza 3 all they did was add globs of shine to the cars to make them look better.
I've played GT5P and the cars looked blocky as hell around the edges. Polyphony needs to learn how to use AA.
Also, ODST is based off of Halo 3, hence the name "Halo 3: ODST", so why would they change graphics engines? I still think Recon was a better name than ODST, but that's just me.
You're right, it IS you. Are you saying that games like Alan Wake, Splinter Cell Conviction, and DiRT 2 don't look any better than anything that has come out for 360 in the past 2 years? You are nuts. Don't get me wrong, Sony has some beautiful games. Killzone 2 is visually amazing and Uncharted 2 looks great but its not blowing the 360 out of the water.
Microsoft went after the social networking sites because of its strategy to make the 360 the center of your your digital lifestyle, as corny as that sounds. Truthfully, how many times did you check Facebook and/or Twitter while at home today? It makes sense.
Also, I agree with Nohone, the EA VP should have given us an example of an EA studio maxing out the 360.
You gotta love how there are some people who will read this headline and maybe the article, then quote them like facts.
Props to Engadget for starting yet another flame war. MORE HITS MAKES IT EASIER TO SELL THAT AD SPACE!
Forza has never been able to match Gran Turismo ever, anti-aliasly blind or not. Forza 3 is about as close as it will ever come to matching the graphics of Gran Turismo, and that is only because both games right now are maxed at about 200,000 polygons per car (400,000 total for inside and outside views of cars). Historically, Gran Turismo has always used more polygons per car than Forza. Gran Turismo is a hallmark title for the PS console, for it has always demonstrated the very limits of each iteration of the PS console. I am also willing to bet that the only reason it is taking Polyphony so long to release the final GT5 is because they are adding more polygons...
I don't think its fair to compare GT5 to Forza3. Forza is a much younger franchise and it will take it a while before it could reach the graphics quality of GT games. That doesn't mean that Forza isn't a fun, good looking game...but GT has always had the crazier graphics.
ha
What the hell does maxed out mean? Because they can't make the graphics any better? Big deal. Whatever happened to improving game play? The only other thing I can think of that they may be referring to is storage space. But how much space do they really need? The need to get creative. Maybe require a hard drive install if absolutely necessary.
still doesn't explain why MLB 09 was a piece of trash.
I'm guessing he's referring to horsepower--no headroom left for graphics, physics, effects, whatever.
And that's exactly it. Whatever. You work for EA. Most of your titles are half-assed as is; chances are you have a few stand-out developers amongst each team who manage to eek out some magic in Madden, NFS, and the random off-shoot we get yearly.
Maybe if you consolidated your best developers.. well, maybe you'd realize that the 360's still got a lot more to give.
When epic released Gears of War, they said they had maxed out the 360. Gears or War looks horrible compared to GoW 2, and many other games that have come out since then.
And the reason they haven't maxed out the ps3 is because it's a pain to develop for. It would cost too much in development time to do such a thing and with the PS3 not being as popular as the 360 or wii it probably wouldn't be a good investment.
Meh, and I'm sure devs were 'maxing out' the 64 at its release. Now devs will have to actually think up new nifty tricks to get the job like back in the good old days. :)
First let's see if microsoft has a 10-year lifecycle.
im inclined to agree. the 360 is much simpler and a lot more familiar architecture then the ps3, if any system where to be maxed out by now it'd be the xbox360.
Wait, so by it being simpler, it makes it easier to max out? Generally simpler is most efficient and generally the best, and anyways, the PS3's GPU isn't even that great compared to the 360. I'd take my 48-pipeline unified architecture Xenos over the RSX with its 24 pixel pipelines and 8 vertex piplines. Complexity/Familiarity /= Processing power and/or capability.
Actually the Wii seems the most likely to be maxed out since most of the development process is exactly the same as the gamecubes, and because it is the least powerful system this generation.
"Generally simpler is most efficient and generally the best,"
The best for who?
And Simple is NOT most efficient, unless you are talking about development time. Visual Basic and Ruby are very easy languages to make applications in, but I would NOT call them the most efficient.
read: "I'm fucking tired of trying. Lets get a new console to pump out 360 games for 70 bucks!"
Wow! What an impressive Blue Steel interpretation!
LOL Just what I was thinking...
...I think a non-bias third-party developer that has actually developed for both consoles, and is overall extremely positive about the 360 has a much more insightful and well-educated assessment if the 360 is "maxed out" or not. So, no, it's not "bullshit".
Off topic: According to Sony press release, the PSP go has in-game XMB. This is a major (an awesome) improvement. I dunno if it's purely software based or if it depends in some unknown hardware improvement. I'm very surprised this wasn't noticed...
Source: http://www.us.playstation.com/News/PressReleases/518
Whoops, sorry, I didn't see the link at the top labeled as "Tip us on news"
Or why Halo 3 couldn't even run at 720p.
Oh, right, 'cause his company's games always push the graphical limits of the consoles they're made for? Everyone always says this, and then they all disprove themselves the following year.
Thanks for reminding me that EA stands at the forefront of game engines and graphics to be able to make such a comment.
Oh wait, that didn't happen. WTF :P
Seems he's just licking the butts of gamers who hate the ps3's subpar Madden versions.
got it, mr. VP.
the xbox360 was out longer than the PS3, plus sony invested a lot of cash into the ps3 to make it last a while, so I would say I agree with him. It doesnt mean the Ps3 will be far behind, maybe a few years, the ram in it very little as is
Why doesn't EA put their money where their mouth is and actually show us? Go ahead, EA. I'll wait. Show me the superior power of the PS3.
They don't have to its already been shown, look at Uncharted 1 and 2, Killzone 2, GT5P, GOWIII, etc. EA is a crap developer anyways. The PS3 is always held back in multiplatform games, so don't judge it by that. Alan Wait's graphics weren't impressive at all so don't tell me to look there either.
My point is that there is nothing I have seen that has convinced me that PS3's graphics capabilities are SUPERIOR to the 360's. Usually, when a title is released for both platforms, the graphics are identical.
@Dave of course they are identical, what did you expect? They aren't going to take the time to redo all graphics for another console, so they just make them work on both, it's not worth the money.
@tX2 I agree those games have better graphics than most/anything on the 360 but they don't make it the console a must have just because of graphics, IMO the game play/game library is more important with the difference in graphics being that small.
I own a 360.
Mitch, if that were the case, it wouldn't explain those instances where the 360 version displays BETTER graphics (ie GTA IV: http://kotaku.com/385237/gta-iv-runs-at-630p-on-playstation-3-so-whats-that-mean). Why REDUCE the resolution on the superior console?
Most developers agree that the consoles are nearly identical with regard to graphic capability; and I have yet to see any evidence of its superiority.
GTA IV looks better on the 360 because it started development on the 360, simple as that. It's a well-known fact that porting a game from the 360 to the PS3 is very hard, and often results in an inferior version.
My point is that they are equal in graphic ability Nicholas. Where is your evidence to the contrary?
Wasnt there a rumor about a slimmer xbox coming next year?
It will most likely have a faster chip in it if it's true.
They don't add faster chips to consoles. That would be stupid and defeat the purpose of reducing heat to slim it down. If the slim had a faster chip, nobody would use it. They'd still make games for the slower chip. Consoles are a least common denominator game. Whatever the lowest spec console in your lineup is will be the target platform. That way your software doesn't get returned fr running like crap on someone's console. Developers will target the XBox360 arcade and no more. (disregarding niche titles with special controls like Guitar hero, etc.)
This is also why Natal and Sony's motion controls will never be popular. Until they are included in the base system (next gen) they will not be vastly developed for.
bernie lomax ?
Well at least it isn't Jason Bateman as my eyes were tricking me via the rss reader...thought this would have been some lame joke. Oh wait, is it?
Miyamoto also agrees, so we've got two industries agreeing.
The 360 is trash, you fanboys should accept it.
miyamoto said the wii was maxed out. the wii's really the only console that's trash right now.
and it's really one industry... the console gaming industry
Wow Nilay. You know Microsoft can release a new console and still keep selling the 360 just like Sony kept selling the first Playstion when the Playstation 2 came out and they still sell the Playstation 2 even though the Playstation 3 is out. Have you ever owned a console before? Anyways aren't games more about gameplay than the fancy graphics. You don't need to have the best graphics to sell. Just look at the Wii. :p
seriously, i would take a step back in graphics if EA would make a decent NCAA football game. Every single one of them is glitchy as all hell, namely 2009 which i wish i could've taken back. The game had THE worst challenges randomly called, made it impossible to run the ball, the defense literally did nothing unless they were in basically a bump and run cover 1 defense, and the sliders, which make transitioning to the hardest level a little less shocking, literally did nothing in the game. The game also was just football, compared to NCAA 2007 that you would create a coach, see him react to things on the sidelines, see fans int he crowd go nuts for things you did, let you customize signs that fans would hold for different situations in the game, and made the recruiting not impossible and overbearing like in 2009. Please, EA, sacrifice graphics for decent gameplay now that you are the only football producing franchise left!
Nilay, you're an idiot, don't spin articles so that you can talk shit on Microsoft. There will be a new system well before 2015. As for this article, EA is piss poor developer, all their games lag and drop frames like there's no tomorrow. It seems most competent developers are pushing the console and still putting out amazing games.
Who knew Frankenstein was such a console sage!!
http://www.engadget.com/2009/06/07/xbox-360s-games-on-demand-service-gets-demoed-on-video/
http://www.engadget.com/2009/06/04/microsofts-kim-lays-out-ten-year-xbox-360-lifecycle/
http://www.engadget.com/2009/06/02/engadget-and-joystiq-live-from-sonys-e3-2009-keynote/
PS They are already working on a 720, so get those shekels ready. 360 WON'T last another 2 years!
Graphics are nice when done right, but I'm still waiting for something new and innovative in regards to gameplay. I think there's too much focus on how pretty a game looks and not how well it plays or what it brings to the table in regards to story, controls, etc.
What is it with people and the constant race for better looking graphics, Id rather have fun, challenging game play over spiffy graphics any day! If im playing a game I want the game to focus on the game play. If Im watching a movie then I want some good looking video (well alright, I want plot first but I want the movie watchable!) I dont want to play between 200-400$ for a consol and then 50/60$ per game just to play tetris in 720p!
I want solid games, hell im willing to play games with the graphics of System Shock 2 or Half-life 1 or Deus Ex (the first one, not invisible war bullshit) if the games were on par with the gameplay and storyline of those listed.
But I think that era of games has ended. It seems people want something different today.
he's wearing a T-shirt under his dress shirt.
lol.
what is this guy, 17?
Oh wait, its a video game company, they're all kids.
lol
funny i saw this mentioned on engadget, but not on joystiq...probably because joystiq would literally self implode within 3 minutes of this being published over there
I don't understand this whole we have to wait 10 years for the next console to be released.... PS2 is still in it's "10 year plan" and the PS3 has been released for what 3 years now? In other words don't expect it to be the only console MS makes until 2015.
C'mon people you can do better. These fanboy flames are getting excessively boring now.
Oh wait, I got it:
C-C-C-COMBO BREAKER!!
Ouch! Well it's either one way or the other, Xbox 360 has reached the wall, and the PS3 is just too hard.
All it needs to max out any computer (or console) is some inefficient programming. I can write a program that "maxes out" any modern computer in a few minutes, but that does not mean it achieves anything.
EA is probably at a point where they have maxed out the Xbox 360 with unskilled and hurried coding from unmotivated and probably underpaid employees. Other companies have more skilled and motivated employees and are able to use the 360's resources much more efficiently.
Of course this applies to any console, just look at the first games that were released for the original xbox, and how they made it run Black and Half-Life 2.
lol I don't know why everyone is raving mad about this comment...it doesn't even mean that he thinks the 360 is a slower or less powerful console, just that it's about maxed out graphically whereas the insanely hard to program for PS3 hasn't been maxed out because it's insanely hard to program for.
And who cares, I think it probably is about maxed out, not necessarily by EA games but I doubt we're going to see much better than GOW 2. I don't even own a PS3 and don't plan on buying one, but the graphics horsepower of the 360 is a couple generations old compared to what ATI and nVidia are putting out today, so it's not exactly shocking that it's getting maxed out if developers are developing so many games for the newer hardware.
Even on less intense titles it's pretty noticeable that the FPS drops considerably if you try to run the games in 1080P on the 360. Enough with the rampant fanboyism, it isn't exactly shocking that a console that debuted almost 4 years ago is starting to get maxed out. 4 years was how long it took between the SNES and the Playstation to come out!
It shouldn't even be that difficult for MS to engineer a much more powerful console now, the only bad thing would be if they manage to repeat the RROD failure rates with a new hardware release, but they seem to have that sort of thing under control now so I'm all for a new console (and I still own a circa-2006 1st gen 360 which hasn't RROD'ed...although it might only be because I tore the console apart the first day I got it and modded the cooling).
I remember those days when I owned an Xbox 360 and watched the green glow of it's start up screen, kind of greener then the comment box shading when you're adding a comment. But those days are gone when I lost my video and then I was forced to play with my Bluray player, which has actually become a positive thing.
what a useless statement, because as EA, they develop multiplatform, and will always design around the lower spec system anyway.