Bungie: "We are definitely bending the Xbox as far as it'll bend,"

[Twistedpixel]

Reasonable said:

Twistedpixel said:

Actually I suspect their design didn't take advantage of their technology. They had a great lighting engine but too few places where it really shone. They had a lot of flat surfaces and great textures but no anisotropic filtering to speak of. I suspect that this new engine is less technically excellent than the previous in certain areas like lighting and better in others but the game design will make better use of the technology they have available.

Halo is the reason why I own an Xbox 360 as well. Four player split screen + system link is still an amazing experience and its something that Sony has not really deigned to give me which makes me suspicious of their online efforts. Online seem to take precedence over offline play, which doesn't make sense as you'd suspect it would be the other way around given Microsofts incentives to emphasise Live.

That's down to the devs.  If you push any engine really far you're going to struggle to do split screen.  Halo 3 looked good for what it was (in resolution) and made sacrifices to have split screen.  Reach looks like they're going to take it as far as they can, but I guarantee that they'll still have to balance stuff to have 4 way split screen.

Some engines just go the other way.  Killzone 2 engine, for example, simply isn't designed that way.  That's not Sony's fault, that's GG's decision - they made the engine and levels, etc. such that it apparently couldn't support split screen in any form.  On the other hand CoD4 and other titles on PS3 support split screen fine because they're designed for it.

The PS3 and 360, despite all the internet rumblings, are fairly similar with regard to capability to standard engines, and each can can easily support split screen / online provided the developers design the game appropriately.

In the end if you're going to pursue really high end graphics (as many titles on PS3 have) then something's got to give.  I'd like more split screen too, but it's down to the developer to deliver it, not Sony.

Its just very disapointing to finally have the screen realestate to truely implement split screen gameplay well and have fewer games which support it! I've gone from a 29" CRT to a 55" LCD TV which means I have four times the screen real-estate but not too many games! I can't stand online play, so the only shooters I play in multiplayer tend to be Gears of War, Halo, Army of Two and Resistance 1 along with Call of Duty.

In any case the developers are calling the shots of Sony, which is why it peturbs me that they don't give much in the way of local play for these titles. I believe in the case of first party titles they are reflecting Sony's priorities on the issue of split screen.