Team Ninja Loving 360 Development

Since the pomp and grandeur of the Microsoft and Sony next-gen unveilings at E3, there has been much heated debate on Interweb forums over what the announced machine specs will be capable of, by how much they will exceed the capabilities of today’s consoles, and whether the specs will still be the same come launch day.

It’s no secret that many posters on forums also have jobs as games developers, journalists, and hardware designers in real life, but even so you’d be wise to take anyone’s views with a pinch of hypothesis. It’s nice, then, that with the Xbox 360 launch looming ever larger, reports and comments are starting to trickle down from developers about what is actually being achieved. As reported on SPOnG last week, the developers of Project Gotham Racing published more pictures and wireframe models after an incredibly photorealistic picture of an in-game New York apartment block became the subject of an Internet furore. Yes, they confirmed, these images are so high res that you’ll have to upgrade your telly to see them properly.

Microsoft acolytes’ fears will be further allayed by more testimonials today – this time from the well-respected lips of Tomonobu Itagaki, the boss of Team Ninja. Speaking to the Xbox branch of Famitsu magazine, he confirmed that the 360 is a powerful machine indeed. The console has three processing cores. Using of only one of these, Team Ninja would be able to achieve a performance that outstripped the contemporary machine by several times. And he promised that for his current brief, Dead Or Alive 4, he would be making use of all three cores and showcasing the brute muscle power of the Xbox 360. How much of this available power would be dedicated to realistic breast jiggle animation, he didn't say.

The DoA series doesn’t always push the highly precise sequence of buttons necessary to excite ‘hardcore’ fighting game fans, but Itagaki has already promised that the game will be more challenging than its predecessors with the hope of attracting the attentions of the growing and discerning Xbox Live! community. In the Famitsu article, he also refers to Microsoft’s decision to use standard DVDs with a capacity of 9GB. Pointing out that the E3 DoA video alone would take up 2GB on such a disc, he said that he would have much preferred a high density DVD format. Sony have made much of the fact that the PS3 will use brand new Blu-Ray discs, but this is one of the main reasons that the new PlayStation’s release will be well into next year.

Itagaki-san also made reference to the large 360 showcase taking place in Japan this month, organised with the clear intention of stealing Sony's thunder, saying that they were considering whether to put a fresh demo forward or not. And he was quick to reiterate his fruitful allegiance to the Xbox, saying that while he is impressed with what the Xbox 360 hardware is delivering, the Sony claims made at E3 had yet to be substantiated.

Naturally, we’ll be keeping a keen eye out for any more news from developers working with the forthcoming generation of consoles. Check back at SPOnG for more info as it breaks.