The horrible 360 version of Final Fantsy XIII! I should have never got it!

[RuthlessReprise]

I recently traded in 2 PS3 games and a bunch of 360 games to get 32$ credit at bestbuy while having 27$ to spend so I purchased Final Fantasy XIII, Dark Souls and Turok for 360. One of the PS3 games I traded in was Final Fantasy XIII and I regret it big time! My 360 is in my room and PS3 is in the family room which is why I got it on 360 but it is horrible. It only runs at 576p and the cinematics look really bad, if you look close it is all blurry and not encoded well. Then I read this.

http://www.product-reviews.net/2010...x-360-cutscenes-are-576p-ps3-1080p-confirmed/

I play my 360 on a 32" LED TV at 1080p but I don't think that will make a difference for this game, it would look better on PS3 on the 1080i Sharp LCD TV in the family room. So I have played Final Fantasy XIII for 2 hours now and Im thinking about exchanging it for another game. Gonna have to find the time to play Final Fantasy XIII in the family room at least 2 hours a day for 16 days a month so I can finish it most of it in a month.


Those idiots at Square Enix, why would they do something like this? I know the 360 version was on 3 discs but they did not have to make it look like crap, is it the same for Final Fantasy XIII-2?

 

[AuronX]

Not SE's fault; many, many games for the Xbox 360 run in sub-HD resolutions. Microsoft even intended this. They put a chip in the 360 specifically for handling antialiasing so that games could look smoother despite their poor resolution. Even Halo games aren't 720p. The only thing that gives the 360 any graphical edge is that it has more memory for textures, so a game designed for the 360 in particular can have some pretty nice looking textures, but then the DVD format limits things there, so this potential isn't realized most of the time.

Final Fantasy XIII was designed with the PS3 in mind, that is true. But it's not SE's fault that the 360 lacks the same raw processing power of the PS3. And don't even bother asking why they didn't at least make nicer textures for the 360 version...the game struggles with FPS enough as it is. XIII was just fundamentally designed for a different platform; it's fortunate for 360 owners to have the game at all. It would really have to be reconstructed from the ground up to run well on the 360 and lose a lot of content in the process. So no, I would not consider this a developer issue; they tried to get as much performance out of the 360 as they could by running in a lower resolution and they tried to save space as much as they could by shrinking down the cutscenes. More disks = more cost = the 360 version could easily end up more expensive than the PS3 version. It's a tricky, tricky balancing act, and SE did what they had to in order to be able to release the game on the platform at all.

 

[Sheechiibii]

It's not the game's fault it's the platform. 360 is not as powerful as the PS3, hence why it needs more disks and doesn't look as good. Why did you trade in your version of XIII just to buy it again anyway...? Or am I missing something?

 

[Steve-O]

I had FFXIII on xbox for 2 years and I felt that it looked fine...... yes it not in true hd but it still looks pretty dam sexy

but if you have a ps3 and a xbox... I would buy all non xbox excutives on ps3

 

[Linnaete]

but if you have a ps3 and a xbox... I would buy all non xbox excutives on ps3

Oh God, no.

Bayonetta on the 360:

Bayonetta on the PS3:

Then there are the occasional horror stories you hear of Bayonetta's framerates also randomly taking a dip and noticeably and unnecessary long loading times.

Fallout New Vegas super special new edition for PS3:

Buying Skyrim for PS3 is also a gamble, considering the infamous stories of framerate dipping or taking a blatant nosedive after a certain number of hours of saved gameplay. Sure, it doesn't happen to every happen, but it was common enough that Bethesda have practically bowed out of releasing Skyrim DLC packages for the PS3. It's practically why I've not dared to go near a PS3 copy of Skyrim. I was just content to dabble with a friend's 360 version instead. It's like they didn't even bother playtesting the thing for the PS3 version. Open world WRPGs on PS3 ftw!

And there were also stories of The Orange Box PS3 being the buggiest and least-ironed out of the three versions.

To make this somewhat relevant to the thread, the 360 version of FFXIII is one of those rarer times when it's clearly the inferior version. It kind of helped for PS3 gamers that Square had built the game with the PS3's architecture solely in mind to begin with, leaving the 360 port a rather half-arse job. Unfortunately, this also works in the reverse and you hear more cases of the PS3 port of a game being laughably awful. Whether it's to do with legitimate complaints about the PS3's shared memory, the alleged "it's soooooo hard to develop for!" excuse, lazy developers, etc. I'm not going to get into.

Besides, even if the 360 version of the game doesn't look the best and comes with OMG! MULTIPLE DISCS! DO I HAVE TO GET UP OFF MY ARSE TO CHANGE DISCS IN THIS DAY AND AGE?! BASTARDS!, most people didn't really give much of an issue about it. I give Square and FFXIII a lot of crap, but at least the game is polished; it doesn't suffer from bugs, crashes and framerate issues like a lot of other (often western) games I can think of.

 

[Shinra Executive]

The game looks incredible on the 360. I played through it on a 42 inch HDTV and it was amazing in detail. All this trash talk about the 360 version is bloated and ridiculous. Nobody really finds the 360 version horrible, it is just thrashing by popular bias. I'm sorry to say it, but whoever says they 'horribly regret' getting it on the xbox is lying.

The Xbox simply has a different method of scaling HD. The definition on the discs are specially upscaled by the xbox. The reason for doing this is obvious- pop in a standard definition DVD, and it's going to look smoother in a 360 then in a standard dvd player. Play regular xbox games via download, and the definition is going to be a bit smoother. Bill Gates had this in mind when he made it.

In the days of the xbox and the ps2, xbox almost always won out on graphics with games which went to both systems. The reason was because the old xbox had the same definition in the discs that the ps2 had, only it was more powerful.

 

[AuronX]

The Xbox simply has a different method of scaling HD. The definition on the discs are specially upscaled by the xbox. The reason for doing this is obvious- pop in a standard definition DVD, and it's going to look smoother in a 360 then in a standard dvd player. Play regular xbox games via download, and the definition is going to be a bit smoother. Bill Gates had this in mind when he made it.

Umm, sorry, but no. Xbox is not better because it upscales from sub-HD resolutions. If you want to see marginally better looking DVDs on a console, the PS3 can upscale just as well...but then it can also do full 1080p from Bluray. PS2 games that have been released on PSN can run in full 1080p without upscaling, so the Xbox has no advantage here, either.

The 'special upscaling' you referred to is simply antialiasing. The 360 has a coprocessor specifically for handling this, so you won't get as many jaggies, but this is not upscaling. And considering the console isn't powerful enough to display most games in HD natively, this is not a strength over the PS3. Put antialiased 540p up against native 720p and while they may be equally smooth around the edges, the Xbox will still lack definition and come out fuzzy in comparison.

The 360's single advantage over the PS3 is memory. Textures can be higher detail and higher resolution than the PS3, but this gets complicated by things like compression and streaming which further use up processing resources, keeping the overall resolution below HD. Because of the Bluray format, there's no reason to compress textures on the PS3, and so they're easier on the CPU, leaving power open for processing pure resolution.

If you hadn't already noticed, it's not a simple matter of some magic upscaling trick. There are lots of considerations to be made, most of which depend on how much trouble the developer is willing to go through to work around each console's limitations to churn out the best possible graphics. In the case of Final Fantasy XIII, Square Enix's long history with Sony consoles naturally caused them to favor the PS3 in development, which means the game won't perform as well or look as good on the 360. Case in point:

In the days of the xbox and the ps2, xbox almost always won out on graphics with games which went to both systems. The reason was because the old xbox had the same definition in the discs that the ps2 had, only it was more powerful.

Yeah, that was back then. The Xbox 360 and PS3 are based on completely different hardware than their predecessors. Brand loyalty can't change the facts, which are, in short: PS3 - higher resolution (better processing), Xbox 360 - better textures (more memory).

 

[Busta]

The game looks incredible on the 360.

I agree. I played through on my 360 at 1080p on a 32 inch HDTV, and it was amazing even for that small of a TV. The cutscenes and FMV's were all great looking and from what I heard they were about the same graphics-wise. If I could do it all over again, I'd still pick Xbox 360 version. To me the only difference was the 4 discs compared to 1 disc.

 

[Tyler Breeze]

Hmm, I'm gonna be playing this game on 360. I was worried about it after I read bad reviews about the graphics, but Ehh. I'll be playing on a standard TV, so as long as gameplay and audio are good, it'll be fine. I'm sure the graphics will still look amazing.

 

[AuronX]

Hmm, I'm gonna be playing this game on 360. I was worried about it after I read bad reviews about the graphics, but Ehh. I'll be playing on a standard TV, so as long as gameplay and audio are good, it'll be fine. I'm sure the graphics will still look amazing.

Right, it's important to remember here that no matter what platform we're talking about, we're talking about a current-gen console. Sure, when put side-by-side, one may be clearly superior for a certain game...but developers usually ensure that it's fully playable on both 360 and PS3, so really, chances are you'll enjoy the experience on either one.

 

[Ultimaja]

I know this is an old thread, but I just want to set a long lived record straight.

I see no difference in the graphics of FFXIII between the 360 and PS3.
And contrary to what many have come to think, the PS3 is not superior to the 360.

Games intended for the PS3 are going to look good on it, but those such as PC games, like Skyrim, look better on the 360.
And it's very noticeable.

This is because the 360 is designed to take on a wider library of graphics. So where Playstation games might have better resolution, the 360 system is more substantial in dealing with lower resolutions.
People would just do well to dispel the myths that the PS3 is superior. It has been shown time and time again that the 360 frequently wins out graphically.

 

[Razberry Knight]

thats simply not true. PC games look generally better on PC than on 360.

 

[Linnaete]

I see no difference in the graphics of FFXIII between the 360 and PS3.

There's supposedly a marginal difference:

thats simply not true. PC games look generally better on PC than on 360.

He means Skyrim, a game primarily built for machines of PC architecture, looks better on 360 than PS3. I'll take his word for it as I didn't actually know that myself, only that PS3's shared memory makes its version of Skyrim run like hell in some instances.

 

[Ultimaja]

thats simply not true. PC games look generally better on PC than on 360.

When your playing on a 17 inch screen, it's going to look better.

Anyhow, I didn't compare 360 with PC, only that Playstation fails at delivering PC games the way 360 does.
Because *Microsoft*.

 

[Mystical_Gaming]

I've only ever played FFXIII trilogy on xbox 360 and had no gripes with it. Then again I have never been one who cared much for graphics (as long as they are decent). If in the future the FFXIII games go down in a huge price drop or they release a trilogy pack for PS3 I might buy that to see how the games compare on PS3. As far as the disc swapping goes it never bothered me. Maybe I am just more content than other gamers but unless a game was designed horribly or crashes all the time I don't get bothered too much.

 

[Phosphoric Ooze]

You should be lucky that Square Enix even but this game on 360.

Of course there's a difference because it's DVD against Blu Ray but your TV must suck then because i play Final Fantasy XIII on one of the top of the range 50 inch plasmas that have the darkest of blacks and there's only a slight difference between the PS3 and 360 version. Your TV sucks lel.