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Xbox 360 Not Hi-Def Enough?
News for nerds writes "One of the features touted for Xbox 360 is its requirement for games to be 720p and 1080i HDTV resolutions, dubbed The HD Era by Microsoft. Today it's revealed and discussed in the official forum of Bizarre Creations, the Project Gotham Racing 3 developer, that in the final review build for PGR3 the in-game races are actually rendered in 1024x600 to get constant 30fps/2xAA. The game is stretched to 720p (1280x720) in the upscaler, which is faking HD at best." As always with late-night forum mutterings, imbibe with a grain of salt.
So you're saying Bizarre are bad coders? Have you ever actually played one of their games? Specifically any of the games in this series, going back to the original Metropolis Street Racer on Dreamcast.
What, you mean the same Metropolis Street Racer that had to be recalled in the UK because the developer left a bug in there that meant that you lost half your accumulated Kudos points every time you completed a certain type of race - making game completion impossible? The same Metropolis Street Racer that was due for release with the console on 9th September, 1999, but didn't actually see a release until 3rd November, 2000?
You're right. They aren't bad coders. Just sloppy. And yet I still love 'em.
My Mind Is Rewired. Is Yours?
I mean, if the stupid game will barely fit on a DVD... or even worse, require Blu-Ray... where is all the talk about super-high speed memory busses and uber-fast drives with ginormous buffers?
This is engineering, folks, and there's always a tradeoff in engineering. All that HD ain't free. And most people won't even care if it's 480p or 720i.