Dude...I would literally die of laughter.

I wish...

all cutscenes are compressed one ps3 too, uncompressed HD video data is insane data amount (each 1080p picture takes 4-5mb in uncompressed hd, 60 uncompressed pics per second would mean 200-300 mb data per second).

There is lossless compression too, but that doesn't reduce data amounts enough. so all video codecs have losses, it just depends on the quality of the codec how good it detects which parts of the picture are more important and where it can sacrifice quality better.

actually div x isn't such a great codec yes its has better compression rates than mpeg2 thats used on dvds but if you move up from sd resolutions to 1080p you are getting about 8 times the data. There are a lot more improved codecs around now like the MPEG4 AVC (H.264) thats one of the possible codecs for video on a blu ray disk which actually needs substantially less data than divx for same quality.

Also Sound takes a noticable amount of space on the disks if you want to keep it in full 7.1.

My guess is that SE is allready compressing with a good codec for the PS3 so they will have to look at even higher compression or lowering quality unless they want to use same amount on data on both hd consoles (and 4-5 disks on xbox).

If i would be in the situation of SE i would probably reduce resolution in which the prerendered cutscenes are stored down to 720p and upscale them for display. That should reduce the space needed for these sequences by the factor 2-3 and i guess the visual differences should  only be noticable in direct comparisson.

So...let's see. Not sure on the plot. Not sure on battles. not sure on materia system. not sure which platform it is going to be written on.  Did they JUST START making this game last month? Like they were so busy with Chocobo games they haven't gotten around to FFXIII yet?  This doesn't sound like an 09 release. It sounds like 2010!

I'd certainly love to know what this magical codec is.

Best I've seen is 2.14gigs for a 1 hour 45 minute 720p video. Thats with 24fps. So the game video I imagine will run at 25 or 30. So that's more information. Lossless it is not. It's good, but there is visible quality loss.

They've been so busy making screenshots and (CG)trailers each year.. That's hard you know.... :P

Lots of butthurt posts in here.

Kinda funny, actually.

My my, how Square has fallen from that high thrown they were placed on by many a fanboy.

No in IGN article they said they are starting to cast voice actors, it means that work is almost done CGI wise. In japanese animation voiceover starts when scenes are almost completed, not like american animation where the dialogues are taped first and the animation is done on this base. And the battle system seems to be a crossover between X and XII.

My guess is the game will be ready by march next year and we can expect a US/EU release before Christmas 2009 (that means 6 months to localise the PS3 version) which gives SE a total of 14 months to port the 360 version supposing they already started the work.

all i want is a release date. i don't know how the hell they are going to fit that game on the final fantasy.