Game technology is constantly evolving. Graphics have gone from simple 2D sprites to full-on 3D 1080p universes that look immaculate. Perhaps just as important is audio, and in the console war the PlayStation 3 is king.
In an interview with Develop-Online, audio head at SCEE Dan Bardino compared what could be done with the PlayStation 2:
Of the 2 meg of RAM we had for sound in the PS2, for The Getaway we used that to recreate the sounds of the whole of London; all the car effects, all the gun sounds, some of the dialogue, music. That was a really, really proud moment. We came away from that delighted with what we had achieved. On a standard audio CD, 2 meg accounts for twelve seconds…
Bardino then mentioned that the PS3 is “benchmarking at 25 meg” and that they “are now able to do things we were just dreaming of on previous platforms.”
Of course, the PS3 is 7.1-native, so we’re doing interactive 5.1 music on a lot of our games. Killzone 2 and Wipeout HD were both 5.1 and interactive, there’s nothing else out there that’s doing that. That’s pushing music further than anything else.
The PlayStation 3 is the only console that supports 7.1 HD audio (such as DTS HD Master Audio), and though only a handful of games output in 7.1, it means that the console is ready for the future of home audio.
How much do you care about audio in your games? What kind of audio system do you have set up at home? Let us know in the comments below.
