@ Mitsurugi

> What about custom soundtracks, do any of the upcoming PS3 titles support it? I know it's still done at the developers discretion, but I'd love to see it in Uncharted 3 and Killzone 3.

Technically there is no problem but this is more suited for some games than others. For example for games such Super Stardust HD and Grand Turismo 5, games which include support, this makes sense. They sport normal soundtracks which eventually repeat over and over again.

For very advanced games such as the Uncharted series this probably makes far less sense. The game sports dynamic tunes, the music intensifies for example when a hectic or thrilling scene takes place to enhance the shock or surprise factor. It's a more movie-like approach and a custom soundtrack instead of this will degrade the intended design experience. So it may make more sense to put on a CD like I did with the Amiga in the 80s (outputting both in-game audio and CD music through the same speakers, optionally turning off only the in-game music).

" The game sports dynamic tunes, the music intensifies for example when a hectic or thrilling scene takes place to enhance the shock or surprise factor. It's a more movie-like approach and a custom soundtrack instead of this will degrade the intended design experience."  - Mike B

I understand all that and it would be a shame to ignore all the effort composers/musicians put into making music for games like Uncharted. But I'd like to at least have the option to use my own epic classical music for parts of games. Also, what about second play throughs (after I've given their music a try) and online multiplayer segments? Plus sometimes custom soundtracks ad replay value and humor to a game.

" So it may make more sense to put on a CD like I did with the Amiga in the 80s "

How does it make sense in this day in age (20 yrs later) to still have to use my mp3 player and headphones to listen to the music I wanna hear while playing games when theres a perfectly capable,  multitasking console in front of me? For 371 USD my 360 does it in every game, but for 532 USD, my PS3 only does it in a handful of games (most of which I don't care for)??? I really hope Sony makes it mandatory for devs to include it in every game, or at least comes up with some kind of built in audio sourcing solution for ps4.

@ Mitsurugi

> How does it make sense in this day in age (20 yrs later) to still have to use my mp3 player and headphones to listen to the music I wanna hear while playing games

But then you can't hear the sound effects. Doesn't outputting through the same speakers make more sense?

> I really hope Sony makes it mandatory for devs to include it in every game

Sony has given developers an amazing amount of freedom (much much more so than Microsoft does), I doubt they will change this. They have given developers the option to include custom playlists, but they themselves have to decide if it makes sense for their game.

For games such as Killzone and Uncharted with dynamic music I doubt they will make use of this approach in the future.

Maybe you can find an interview asking for their perspectives, here's one with regard to the audio in Killzone 2 (but I can't listen to it right now):

http://www.gametrailers.com/video/art-killzone-2/43392

@ Mitsurugi

It appears Killzone 2 does feature support for custom music when playing online, just not for the campaign. There are currently far over 100 PS3 games which support custom music playlists.

It's a nice feature on the 360 and I think the difference is that like chat and parties, MS made this music player tied in with the OS' libraries, rather than leaving it up to developers. There seems to be some developer control over it; some MS published titles in particular will pause the mp3 player during the intro vids. MW2 doesn't mute its soundtrack at all when the music player is running, so there is definitely developer control over the function.

Having just returned from my holiday I see Naughty Dog provided some clarifications to Edge Magazine:

"We have to be uncomfortable. Three weeks before shipping Uncharted 2, we couldn't even fit the game in memory. The day we have no solution to that, that's going to be a real problem."

Balestra uses the analogy that of PS3's "six-lane freeway" of SPUs, Uncharted: Drake's Fortune used two. Uncharted 2 used all six, but at 'street cars' level of performance. Uncharted 3? Guess what... That's 'more like Formula One'.

"We're at full speed, optimising code specifically for the SPUs," explained Balestra. "It's a great resource because [SPUs] are extremely fast, and if you optimise they get faster than you ever thought they could be. That's where the quality of our images comes from."

Sony is heading towards making the Amiga dream a reality. 3D headset prototype showcased at CES 2011, reportably already working with Gran Turismo 5:

A comment posted by me three and a half years ago (but you can find many earlier references):

(Amiga headset): "hopefully some day we'll see something like this for the Playstation 3:

A history lesson here on VGChartz:

"At the time there was an Amiga based system using virtual realtiy together with head tracking and handtracking (you could duck, lean your hand out around a pillar to shoot, jump, etc). Albeit the 3D graphics at the time were horrible for today's standards a lot of neat ideas were introduced back then.

One of the games was called Dactyl Nightmare, a 3D FPS from before ID Software became famous for its not as advanced Wolfenstein3D game. The game allowed for 4 players to play deathmatch and co-op 'capture the flag' matches over a network. Players could communicate through the built-in microphone. The headset allowed for a stereoscopic 3D view of the environment using shutter technology (unlike Wolfenstein3D actually with different hight levels).

In another game you could for instance sword fight with other people.

Some quotes and more info:

"Looking at the joy-stick through the visor it appears as a gun. Extending one's arm shows a virtual arm rendered in bright pink polygons."

 "http://www.hitl.washington.edu/scivw/scivw-ftp/commercial/WIndustries/W.descrip

http://gamrconnect.vgchartz.com/thread.php?id=103674

NOOOICE...!!

Is that like basically on the way to Virtual Reality?

Wow.

Sony with games such as LittleBigPlanet 2 (extensive user created content) and Gran Turismo 5 (soon with virtual reality support) are doing exactly what I hoped they would do and see potential for:

Another comment made by me a few years ago:

"Back in the 80s operating system bootup times were near instant or at most it took only a few seconds to load a full blown mouse controlled desktop environment from the harddrive. With all the technology advancements I envisioned I imagined computing to have become near instant just like turning on a TV, actually I thought turning on the computer would allow you to instantly continue your work at the point you turned off the system. So if you would be painting a picture, turn off the system, then turn it on again you should just be able to continue where you left off.

Instead what we got today isn't much different than was already possible in the 80s. One of the most profound user experience advancements for PC users is probably multi-tasking, but copy & pasting between word processor, spreadsheet, database, paint program was already possible on my Amiga from the 80s. Internet advancements so far were also unsurprising and underwhelming, in the early 90s I read a lot of message boards and downloaded lots of Amiga games from the internet), playing games online today isn't that different from playing 80s Amiga games like Stunt Car Racer (a game at its core pretty similar to for example Motorstorm) or Battle Chess over nullmodem cable.

I would have envisioned games like Gran Turismo to become much more than glorified version of Testdrive with hyper realistic graphics (a '3D' driving game from incar perspective from the 80s). I would have imagined small high resolution virtual reality glasses with stereo sound and microphone by now, being able to play a game like Motorstorm of GT5 and watch besides you to watch out of a virtual car window, similar for watching movies from within a virtual cinema with friends, etc. After all there were already Amiga based game systems supporting virtual reality headset and hand tracking, being able to play 4 player 3D first-person shooters in Deatch Match and Capture the flag modes well before Wolfenstein3D or years before Doom got released for the PC."

http://www.neogaf.com/forum/showthread.php?t=184843&page=18