Sega has just confirmed a 360 version of PHANTASY STAR UNIVERSE for this fall.
I guess we shall see a working version at this year’s E3 event.
In a Word , ACE !,
Now only of they could make VF5 for the 360
Screw VF5 that’s a long way off how about porting some VFs to 360 right now like FINAL TUNED or a VF4 trilogy package for starters. Or even a neat version of VF3 and 3TB. Of course its just a frigging pipe dream…
Makes me wonder if Sony is getting a proper version of PSU…
Yes sony are getting a proper version as the game’s base is the PS2 and even the PC version has no effort in improving the graphics as far as we’ve seen. Unless they don’t care about delaying the 360 release but I think it’d be a better move not to and get a headstart in that market.
I’ve been fairly consternated in recent weeks by suggestions that Sega was lapsing into some form of Shogunate insularity and wagering all of its money on Sony’s Japanese horse, whilst neglecting the American Microsoft’s contribution to the field - happily, though, this article reassures me that Sega will not be closing the door entirely. 
They have other X360 games you know… Chrome Hounds (or is it one word?) looks like a pretty big budget game and quite amazing too. Don’t they also have a Sonic 360 coming along? And more games… Though I guess not from Sega of Japan most of them. Still…
This is a significant addition to the X360 library at this time I’m sure, since FFXI will be the only other option in the genre for a while. If it’s a half assed port again like XBOX PSO I really wont care personally, and I don’t really trust in Sonic Team to be capable of exorcising the (for me) critical flaws that have broken the series so far. I may be a little closer to interested than I was before though…
While its too soon to say for sure at the moment RF fears can be justified. Sega seems to be pooling all its resources into PS3 while leaving the Xbox 360 for its second parties and some key titles. Apart from two titles none of them exclusive to the platform all the specially made 360 titles are not developed by a Sega team.
The recent split with Red seemed to indicate this that they felt the 360 was cheaper to create games for and that sega may have wanted them to soley develop for PS3. While its pretty sure SAKURA TAISEN will be PS3 all the other Red games that Sega may publish would have as well. Maybe TRIGUN
online modes will be better suited for 360 anyway if it ever comes out.
At the moment only FPS, SONIC from Sonic Team now Sega studios and MIYAZATO GOLF are the known games for PS3 while SONIC, PSU,CONDEMNED, FULL AUTO and CHROME HOUNDS are known the 360.
We’ll see the true picture of Sega’s intentions at the run up to E3.
Does it really matter if they are exclusive or not?
YES - no one likes ports of any kind. This wouldn’t be the case if all ports were the same in terms of quality…but this isn’t the case, and still won’t be the case with next-gen technology.
Define “port.”
A port is basically a game that was originally for a certain architecture, but has been ported over to a different architecture. The game, itself, hardly ever changes during a port; the only thing that does most of the time is the underlying code.
A good example of a terrible port would be Resident Evil 4 for the PS2. You can tell immediately when you start the game that it’s nowhere near as good as the Gamecube version.
Well what did you expect from a graphically inferior console?That is what you are talking about right?Graphics.
The underlying gameplay of RE4 remained the same however. The game experience remained intact, unless someone really cared that much about slightly less sharpened textures and minor hiccups in the framerate that they would consider it terrible.
The different incarnations of PSU will all feature identical gameplay, just varying graphical improvements. If the game is good, why care if it is a port or not?
Because, if you don’t, what kind of a fanboy are you?!
The example that you gave is of a game built on code that was targetted at a specific platform then, as you correctly stated, was ported over to another platform.
What do you call a project that is being built simultaneously on multiple platforms using a multi-platform engine?
And what if the two consoles in quesiton (i.e. PS3 and X360) are of extremely comparable specs so that you wouldn’t necessarily see any difference in quality between the two versions (assuming that the developer didn’t suck)?
RE4 wasn’t merely ported to the PS2; it was recreated for it.
The PC version of PSU is supposed to come with refined textures etc (Parn can fill in the blanks for us), so I see no reason to complain.
This is a great move for Sega anyway, both business-wise and for keeping everyone happy. After FFXI producer Hiromichi Tanaka claimed that FFXI would take years to be recreated for the PS3 ("…would require redeveloping the game almost from scratch…"), the 360 was the wisest choice for PSU.
In other words, the PS3’s design is the most needlessly complicated since the Saturn. It’s amazing how Sony went from giving developers what they wanted to telling them how it should be done.
I think he meant it would take years if they were to make all new graphics that take advantage of the hardware to the fullest. A simple port without (m)any graphical enhancements has no reason to take that long really, even considering architecture differences, since the PS3’s hardware is going to be so much more powerful than a PS2.
The difference between the Resident Evil 4 and Phantasy Star Universe examples is, like Abadd mentioned, one was designed first for another platform, while the other is being developed simultaneously across different platforms. While the PS2 is a step backwards from the Gamecube, the Xbox 360 is most certainly a step forward from the PS2, so the game can only get better on that platform, not worse. If anything, at least it will look cleaner with high resolution graphics on PC and 360.
Phantasy Star has always traditionally been a console series, so it’s good to see the latest PS game coming out on a console that will do the series justice as well.
Meaning they had no problem just “porting” it to 360? Hence the significance of the term as vernacular is illustrated…