Eggebrecht: PS3's power is "pretty limitless"

PS3 News | Factor 5 boss praises PS3, discusses Lair some more.

Factor 5 chief Julian Eggebrecht has been singing the praises of the PlayStation 3, and in particular what he calls the "pretty limitless" power of the console's Cell processor.

Chatting to The San Jose Mercury News, Eggebrecht was asked about when developers would finally see the full technical potential of Sony's console. "The interesting question is, 'Oh boy, we could go on forever optimising for the PlayStation 3,'" he replied. "The PS3 has more of the situation where you could go another six months easily and forever. You can get so much more power. Cell is pretty limitless at this point."

Of course, it's not surprising that Eggebrecht should be so effusive in his praise for Sony's new console; after all, Factor 5 is behind the PS3 exclusive Lair, in which players ride dragons trained for combat. And on the subject of the eagerly awaited game, Eggebrecht revealed that Factor 5's technical ambitions were to make a game which portrayed, "flight and fight on the graphical level of Jurassic Park."

"Lair basically is the only game out there which gives you a 20,000 feet view as well as the one metre level view at pretty much the same detail level. Lair is also the only game which does all of its light in real time, and the atmospheric calculations. That gives us the day and nights cycle, the fluid dynamic simulations in the water."

He also compared Lair's technical achievements to Gears of War, stating that, "In Gears, there is no way you could actually go above the city and then basically go seamlessly from air to ground. Our engine is always designed in a huge world bubble and that can be 32 kilometres by 32 kilometres. You can go anywhere at extreme speeds. Unreal Engine [the technology used by Epic for Gears of War] is dependent on the fact that you go relatively slowly through your world."

Lair is scheduled for a September 2007 release.

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18 Comments

matrix-cat

5 years ago

Then what's with the sucky graphics in Lair?

BluntNate

5 years ago

"pretty limitless"?

News just to hand, Eggebrecht's wife "kinda pregnant" and his parents "somewhat dead".

Marka

5 years ago

No such thing as limititless hardware. Im sure PC game developers working with more powerfull hardware like Core duos allready know the cells limit.

These guys have dribbled some crap in the past. A gamecube game pushed more poloygons than any other last gen console game. As if it pushed more polygons than the best looking Xbox 1 games. (and how would he really know, did he work on every lastgen console game)

And that statement about he unreal engine leads me to belive that Gears is the only unreal engine game he has played (if he has even played it). He is pretty clueless about the flexablity of the engine and the games that it has powered in the past.

arbok

5 years ago

Just saw the IGN Weekly video where they said it was a July release

cheers.

ugh the boot

5 years ago

Its funny when Factor 5 were developing for the Gamecube all I was hearing was 'Oh the graphics on Rogue Squadron were one of the best last gen' or 'Factor 5 are awesome blah blah'....and now that they're developing for the Ps3 i'm hearing 'Factor 5 don't know anything' or 'The graphics on Rogue Squadron were actually crap'. Sounds to me like a whole bunch of bitterness.

Lair looks awesome and it shaping up to be a good game from the looks of it. Lot of PS3 owners are anticipating it whereas a lot of people who don't have Ps3's are ridiculing it.

I actually like it when developers speak....not publishers, not analysts....just the devs...you know the people who actually program and design the games?!

This guy may be exaggerating but he's just trying to say there is a lot of power to be had in the Ps3 especially if you take your time learning the ins and outs of the hardware.

Personally i'm glad Factor 5 are now in the Sony camp as I thought Rogue Squadron was very impressive graphically (especially for a launch game) and they really wouldnt've been able to impress me on the Wii hardware. I would also prefer if they took their time with Lair as I want the game to be polished to a sheen....especially seeing as he's mentioned that it takes a bit of time learning some tricks with the Ps3.

DrTim

5 years ago

^ Lol, I thought I was only one who was thinking this.

renegadesx

5 years ago

^ ^ ^ ^

Rouge squadren was pretty cool for a launch title. Lair is a game I would try before I buy, see if I get into it. If this does work well, I think Sega should consider bringing back Panzer Dragoon (some of the vids on GameTrailers reminded me of it)

admeister

5 years ago

ugh the boot wrote

QFT. You pretty much summed up what I was thinking, Lair looks amazing, you can't deny that. As for the PS3 being limitless however, that's obviously a bit hard to swallow. Sure, it has a lot of potential, but I wouldn't go that far!

Factor 5 have a good history, with Rgoue Squadron being an impressive piece of software. Wait and see for the end result, Lair may just be the same.

Nev

5 years ago

Marka wrote

No such thing as limititless hardware.

Dude... Have you not seen Super Rub-a-Dub?

ittekimasu

5 years ago

I'm deffinately looking forward to this game, for the whole limitless power which was mentioned, I think in terms of them being able to produce such games and havent been hit by a wall yet is what he means, if that makes sense of course >.>

Souless

5 years ago

ugh the boot wrote

You read my mind. Summed it up beautifully Ugh.

Crestfallen

5 years ago

ugh the boot wrote

The internet is a troubling place, Ugh *pats back*

Quote

Im sure PC game developers working with more powerfull hardware like Core duos allready know the cells limit.

So you've experienced the ins and outs of both the C2D and the Cell??
All i read over and over in technology pieces is that Cell is unknown territory with untapped potential thus far.

renegadesx

5 years ago

crestfallen wrote

So you've experienced the ins and outs of both the C2D and the Cell??
All i read over and over in technology pieces is that Cell is unknown territory with untapped potential thus far.

There is a difference between untapped potential and limitless, no piece of technology is limitless, you should know that.

Crestfallen

5 years ago

renegadesx wrote

crestfallen wrote

So you've experienced the ins and outs of both the C2D and the Cell??
All i read over and over in technology pieces is that Cell is unknown territory with untapped potential thus far.

There is a difference between untapped potential and limitless, no piece of technology is limitless, you should know that.

Duh, I never said its unlimited, just that its limit is very high.

Souless

5 years ago

i think waht he means is that untill the next piece of tech is out for next gen console (ps4 and the like) this technology can take them very far, limitless possiblities. Well thats what i gathered.

Frozencry

5 years ago

It's a figure of speech. Obviously everything has their limits. If things were limitless, I'd have an unlimited amount of Tim Tams right now, but I don't, and that pisses me off.

But yeah I trust Factor 5's tech talk, as knowing them, they tend to push alot of awesome out of a machine when they dev for it.

Sin Ogaris

5 years ago

So far I'm not seeing the "awesome" in Lair graphically, however it's also an alpha and I highly doubt that Factor 5 would make something that wasn't exceptional. My only real issue is that I hope Factor 5 don't ruin things for the rest of the PS3 developers and bust out the greatest graphical acheivement on the PS3 within months of its release. It won't really leave a whole lot to look forward to.

Jaws

5 years ago

Then lets hope Factor 5 can back up his words with something truly excellent. Talk is one thing.. action is completely something else.

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Lair

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Australian Release Date:
  15/11/2007 (Confirmed)
Standard Retail Price:
  $99.95 AU
Publisher:
  Sony Computer Entertainment
Genre:
  Action Adventure
Year Made:
  2007
Players:
  1

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