DLC All But Confirmed For FF XIII, 360 - 720p FMV's, PS3 - 1080p - News

by VGChartz Staff , posted on 07 February 2010 / 8,275 Views

Well, tell me: if you had a game that was 6-7 years in development, with lots of excess content and extremely high development costs, would you exploit your strengths and whatever you have for more money? I bet you would. And Square Enix would as well.

Well, apparently, two months ago, DLC was what Motomu Toriyama, game director meant by saying: "For the Final Fantasy XIII world, this is the true start. Perhaps if you keep it nearby forever, there will be some additional good things.". We know that thanks to Gamestop uploading the back of the 360 FF XIII boxart - which notes, in a small banner, that the game will support "game content download" - meaning, that it'll have some of it to support... unless SE was doing it just to cover all ends, on which they may have DLC and may not. But logic says that it will come, as hinted by Toriyama in December and Yoshinori Kitase, game producer, prior to that on GamesCom 2009.

More of these will soon be waiting for you and your money on PSN and XBL... or so it seems, at least.

That boxart has more to say than pretty much confirming DLC, though - the 360 will have its' FMV cutscenes done in Bink Video, which has, among others, a set of special video tools designed for the 360 that was used in games like Borderlands, Mass Effect, The Last Remnant, and others. The PS3 version doesn't use it and bink's webpage displays that it can compress video for the 360 up to 720p (1280x720), so, the clear derivative of that is 720p compressed native video. That is compared to the PS3's 1080p native, fairly less compressed (but not uncompressed) cutscenes.

Sources: Unofficial Final Fantasy Site - 1, 2.

40 Comments

IvorEvilen (on 08 February 2010)

I wonder if that flan wants a kiss from his princess o_o....

Nah, Lightning's too cool for him.

richardhutnik (on 08 February 2010)

The PS3, based on what I saw, is a 2X Blu-Ray player. This according to the chart is only slightly faster than the 360s at its SLOWEST speed. PS3 titles use mandatory installs to get around the drive speed issue for a lot of games.

Reason why I ask here is when someone in a fanboy wars starts spouting how system X is better than system Y in EVERY possible way, and I don't believe that is true, I will call them on it.

I do see next gen BluRay would be useful for next generation consoles. However, we may end up having something else come out of the blue that is so fast, the point about what disk format to use will be moot. Imagine carts again get cheap and are lightning fast so we don't even have load times and they store a terabyte. I am thinking something like flash memory set up.

Ajescent (on 08 February 2010)

So...what happened to there will be no DLC for ff13, it'll be the full game crap SE was harping about last year?

Icyedge (on 08 February 2010)

kowenicki, this system war is sad... the speed of the drive even if its lower has proves many times that its not an issue when a game is build on PS3. Even if 360 would have 200 X the speed of PS3 drive, its a non issue if the PS3 drive is fast enough. The only records of problems with drive speed is with old multiplatform titles like oblivion...

thismeintiel (on 08 February 2010)

@ kowenicki

Well, the 360 has a 12x DVD player, while the PS3 has a 2x Blu-ray Player. Now DVD's have a min and max, while Blu-rays read at a constant. So, it depends on where the info is at on the disc when comparing a Blu-ray to a DVD, as some places the DVD will only read at its min speed. Also it should be noted that a DVD's max speed is almost never realized. But when comparing the 2, a 2x Blu-ray will read slightly above a 12x DVD's min read speed. As Blu-ray gets faster (I would imagine the PS4 will at least have a 4x player), it will always be faster than a DVD player, even at 12x. Here's a link with the info.

http://www.gamespot.com/pages/profile/show_blog_entry.php?topic_id=23916169&user=skektek

Looking at that graph, I can't even imagine the speeds if we get a 8x player for the PS4. Might be saying good bye to load times all together.

@ catfangs806

Actually, the 360 is incapable of outputing a true 1-to-1 1080 signal all together. It's highest true native res is 720p. The rest is upscaled.

AugustusBot (on 08 February 2010)

Is BINK good?
Is BINK the reason my cutscenes near the end of Mass Effect, which look like the in game engine, stutter and are choppy like a youtube video?

richardhutnik (on 08 February 2010)

rexwongw, post evidence that the PS3 Blu Ray player is faster than the 360 DVD. I have yet to find any evidence that this is true. I have found evidence that the PS3 Blu-Ray player is slower than the 360 DVD player.

CatFangs806 (on 08 February 2010)

So the 360 is incapable of 1080p cutscenes.

NNN2004 (on 08 February 2010)

hmm i guess i will pick the ps3 version.

Xoj (on 07 February 2010)

oh bink video, like FF8 1999 PC version

rexwongwh (on 07 February 2010)

I am Playstation 3 owner with "Final Fantasy 13 Lighting" version!
ONCE AGAIN, Playstation3 Final Fantasy 13 have NO INSTALLATION!
The loading time is VERY QUICK, NO LOADING between walking and battle.

Playstation 3 is a MUST if you want to fully enjoy Final Fantasy13.
1.) Bluray is much faster than the fastest DVD.
2.) No need to Chance Disc
3.) FULL HD, 1080P uncompressed Video.
4.) The Save data may linked with Final Fantasy Verse 13

You may say XBOX multi-platform game is better than the PS3 one.
BUT THIS ONE IS DIFFERENT.

GO BUY PS3 version if you have both console.
GO BUY PS3 and FF13 if you are TRUE Final Fantasy FANS. (FFV13 is very close to FF7). and FFV13 is PS3 exclusive.

Rawnchie14 (on 07 February 2010)

Nice, looks like we have a significant difference I needed for choosing =P

hikaruchan (on 07 February 2010)

here is only load times if you are loading up a chapter from a save and it is like 15secounds and when you go to a new area it is like 5secounds to load.

BTW there is no Install on the PS3 Version of FFXIII.

a12331 (on 07 February 2010)

wait there are load times in FF13? i have played the game fully and i didnt experience any load times.

solidpumar (on 07 February 2010)

@Naraku_Diabolos
Ps3 longer load times reason are only because of the lower reading blu-ray speed compared to the 360 dvd and the fact that most multiplat are made with the dvd read speed in mind.Microsoft DVD reads at one of the fastest speed possible for dvd, reason why loud noise and dvd scratches are common.
So the only way to even out the speed is the installs, something commonly done on multiplat games on ps3 or to use better techniques to maximize stream of necessary content on the ps3 lower speed.(something games like killzone2, uncharted 2,LBP and other exclusives uses)

Naraku_Diabolos (on 07 February 2010)

I suppose everyone knows if a system has to output a higher resolution, it consumes more energy and time to produce the image. It's like someone who is trying to convert or stream a video on a computer; the bigger the output, the longer the wait, etc. You can convert and output a 1280x720 video in less time than a 1920x1080, and the quality is hardly noticeable.

I know that the PS3 has A LOT of power under its hood to process those resolutions, however everyone should know that Sony was infamously known for its load times on the PlayStation consoles; yet due to the long load times, it's worth the wait (and this is fixed by installing the game on the PS3 to save loading times).

However, I think that both versions will output the same eye candy, but in order for a consumer/gamer to enjoy that, you have to spend money on the TV that can do it :-P

ctalkeb (on 07 February 2010)

@solidpumar

""fairly less compressed (but not uncompressed) cutscenes."
They maintained the UNCOMPRESSED rendered scene, the scene was RENDERED in 1080p, there would be no reason to render the scene in any output higher than 1080p since they new that was the max output accepted by the PS3."

What are you trying to say here? Resolution and compression are unrelated (more or less).

PS3 has compressed 1080p cutscenes, 360 has compressed 720p cutscenes. It's that simple.

Staude (on 07 February 2010)

Bink video tools were not created for the 360. Command & Conquer renegade from 2001 uses bink videos along with generals and other cnc games.

While I haven't modded a lot of other series you'll most likely find other games having used the tools aswell around the same time period.

on topic. Well.. I think it all depends on the dlc. Atleast for me. I'd like expansion packs.. proper expansionpacks instead of small useless overpriced crap.

superbeast1370 (on 07 February 2010)

this is ridiculous, why should people pay additional money for an RPG???!

ctalkeb (on 07 February 2010)

@ph4nt

So, since you know the difference between compressed and uncompressed digital video, you must work in a post-processing studio, right?

richardhutnik (on 07 February 2010)

nathantay, with the economy the way it is, you can't expect character to stick to just one job. They need to keep working. This reality will result in an epidemic of Nolan North speaking with the same voice in likely a third of all games released this year.

nathantay (on 07 February 2010)

Why is Bob from Monsters vs Aliens in FFXIII.

MarshmallowMan (on 07 February 2010)

Another reason I'll be playing it on ps3 rather than 360.

Griffin (on 07 February 2010)

I agree with KillerMan, the difference on a 1080p Tv is clearly visible. The same can be said for native 1080p games, they just look so much better.

KillerMan (on 07 February 2010)

@ph4nt: But difference between 1080p and 720p is clearly visible if you own 1080p capable tv.

ph4nt (on 07 February 2010)

I guess i'm the only who thinks the difference between compressed and uncompressed is negligible.

solidpumar (on 07 February 2010)

@Constantine Mishin-Lutzky
"the 360 will have its' FMV cutscenes done in Bink Video"
"done"= Constantine most likely meant COMPRESSED in this segment, since BINK is only a compressing/codec tool made for each specific hardware, and not a rendering tool.

"of special video tools designed for the 360"
BINK was not designed for only the xbox, the BINK was also designed to work with PS3, ps2, wii, psp...

"fairly less compressed (but not uncompressed) cutscenes."
They maintained the UNCOMPRESSED rendered scene, the scene was RENDERED in 1080p, there would be no reason to render the scene in any output higher than 1080p since they new that was the max output accepted by the PS3.

"compressed native"
This doesn't make sense, because if is compressed it means is not native. Even if the 360 will output in the 720p the video in itself will not be native since was pre-compressed, even if used a Utopian perfect compressing technique the term native video would be wrong by definition alone.
This news in fact only means that SE is not going to render the 720p scenes separately for the 360, as will just cut corner using a compressing tool, which is to save time and costs. Would be preferable that the scene were rendered native in 720p also, but since the compression techniques are really good today is understandable.

source:http://www.radgametools.com/binkhcwb.htm

Sholities (on 07 February 2010)

@dunno001

You should see Dragon Age's 17 MB save files :P

dunno001 (on 07 February 2010)

Hmm... personally, I'm against the idea of DLC being announced even before the game is released, but that box brings up a different question for me- 4 MB to save?? I can't imagine the inefficiencies in the system to make a save file that big.