Exactly.  I honestly don't see how anyone could bash MS over this.

They are adding a whole 1GB that wasn't even there in the first place which is gonna make things easier on developers and they are doing it in a simple firmware update.  Thats freaking awesome and considering its an improvement on something that was a potential problem its great news.  I mean honestly some people use anything as an excuse to claim "fail" on what they consider the rival system. 

The examples you used can of course be applied to games made by developers who aren't so good at maximizing their game to the hardware's limitations.  Or are just trying to do too much with what they have in their hands.

Sure, CGI and pre-rendered look better.  But I'm always more amazed at games like Uncharted 2, Batman Arkham Asylum, Heavy Rain, God of War 3 or Metal Gear Solid 4, during their real-time in-engine content, than at games like Final Fantasy XIII.  

Now, pre-rendered is all nice, it fools many into believing it's actually real-time, but even if it looks better than real-time cut-scenes, I still prefer when they get the job done nicely in real-time.  It impresses me more when I see a dev putting the effort to come to outstanding results in real-time with its engine, than when they go the "easy" way with pre-rendered and CGI.  

Now, I can understand that some scenes they have in mind are just too damn epic or something, but back then, it wasn't holding them back.  They achieved the best with what they had, and they had to think outside the box to achieve the results they wished for...

Don't misunderstand me though, I'm still an eye candy junky.  So I take what they shoot at me.  I just have my preferences.

I thought Uncharted 2 has some scenes pre-rendered so the game can load in the next level while playing the engine rendered cutscene as a movie file. Killzone 3 does that too but not so subtle and with visible compression artifacts.

If you're using pre-rendered stuff, why not spruce it up a bit like ratchet and clank a crack in time's cutscenes or ff13. Although I'm a software programmer myself I'm more interested in the artist's vision then the programmer's effort to make it work in real-time. There's the whole gameplay part for that.

You can do so much more with video editing that you almost never see in video games. Quick cuts, smooth fades, picture in picture, large overviews and that's just the simple stuff. Show me stuff like Oliver Stone's editting and I won't be inclined so much to skip the next 'some people talking in a static location' cutscene.

That's what video games really need, good writers and a director. Enough of the slow pans / zooms with a few people spouting cheesy lines. Ufortunately rendering it in real-time pretty much excludes any artistic editting. Hats of though for Heavy rain for getting picture in picture to work pretty well.

There is a reason they want beta testers and all they are sending them is a game in the new disc format. I'm not going to spoil it for you, but just think about it a little and if all else fails reread the OP.

I just saw thew SKU and freaked thinking it was upgraded hardware :P

the thing is though i dont know how reach would be a test as it already works with 1 less gb... it doesnt make sense, they need something bigger to test it properly imo

lol yea your right i was just expecting more space is all but yea another gig can be a big help i suppose.

well considering it only has 6gb now, it is an almost 17percent disc space upgrade... it is pretty big

Percentages make anything better! Well, mostly.

but even still, in this case the percentage works, as it is a small numberr to begin with 1gb is huge. if it was 20tb then 15pc wouldnt mean a lot but in the smaller number than it does