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Re:Can we expect universal custom soundtracks with FW 3.10>>?
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Friday, October 30, 2009 12:00 PM
STEVE 09
thor
No
Custom soundtracks are already supported. Implementing universal custom soundtracks would introduce various problems:
- Conflicts with the existing custom soundtrack system
- Conflicts with existing games' music (2 tracks playing at the same time)
- Necessary performance issues (hard drive access, memory, processing power)
A universal custom soundtrack would not interfere with the existing custom soundtrack system, simply because... THERE ISN'T ONE!
There is. Warhawk supports this - you can change the music via the XMB. What happens to this system when a new system is implemented? It can't really replace it, so do you have both systems working in parallel? How does that work? Wipeout HD supports custom soundtracks in a different way. The music makes the track pulsate to the beat, and audio effects are added as you go through tunnels and such. What happens to this system? Is it removed? I would hate that! What happens to the in-game custom soundtrack menus? Sony can't adjust them, so do they just remain there and do nothing?
It also wouldn't interfere with existing games because the in-game soundtrack on the Xbox 360 fades out when dashboard music is played, so a universal custom soundtrack feature on PS3 would probably work in a similiar way.
The PS3's OS sees each game as a "black box". It provides, via APIs, certain inputs (like controller input, PSN services etc.) and gets out certain outputs (sound, video, PSN service requests etc.) Note that, since the PS3 has not been designed for custom soundtracks, the sound it recieves to play is just an audio stream. It has no way of telling whether that's dialogue, SFX or music! So how can it fade out the music? Each game handles music differently. What about little snippets of music that are often played during a climactic battle sequence?
On the 360, devs would be able to decide whether this would play when there are custom soundtracks on, because the 360's OS sees each game as a black box with inputs (controller input, requests to join game, dashboard music status on/off, XBL services) and outputs (sound FX, music, video, achievements, current XBL game). Note that the outputs can't be changed, because that's up to the game.
It's the same exact reason why you can't magically add trophy support for every older game, though that might seem more obvious to you. It's the same reason you can't just add game invites - there is no output from any game telling the OS which game you are even playing! How can you invite someone to your game when you don't know which game it is?
I find it extremely hard to believe that the PS3 couldn't handle a universal custom soundtracks system, when the inferior Xbox 360 system can do it by the simple click of a button on it's brick of a joypad. I'm yet to be proven wrong, but I'm 99.9% sure the PS3 is more than capable of handling universal custom soundtracks, it is definately NOT a system problem.
Again, the same issue crops up, that it wasn't there to start with! The 360 doesn't have to deal with playing 2 music tracks at once, whereas the PS3 would. It might even be that as part of the inputs that the OS gives each game, it gives it some music to play. That means that the game's audio system handles the custom soundtracks. Can't do that with the PS3, because each game is already written and doesn't support this. Even if not, you can't deny that adding this feature would take up more RAM, and the PS3's OS takes up more RAM than the 360's as it is (probably due to inefficient coding). Then when they reduce the RAM used they would surely want to use this for other features.
The current method of giving custom soundtracks to developers to include into their games IS NOT the way forward and Sony knows it. Most game developers are not including this feature, mainly because they don't have to include this feature for Xbox 360 games, so they probably can't be bothered including this in the PS3 version of the same games.
Sony could make it mandatory. Even if the devs have to do very little work to get the custom soundtracks to work with their game, it's still extra QA that they need to do. Likely the 360 itself does at least the audio decoding for the game which is not possible for the PS3 because of the aforementioned performance issues. Could these be resolved? Yes, but not easily. Plus, there are the other issues with interference with in-game music and existing custom soundtrack systems.
I admitt some developers are including custom soundtracks, but these are mainly for the PSN games or the occasional retail PS3 exclusive. I think the only multi format games to support custom soundtracks so far are Skate 2, Burnout Paradise, Sega Mega Drive Collection and Midnight Club LA!
This isn't good enough. We simply need all PS3 games to support this feature and the easiest most efficent way to do this is if Sony can provide universal custom soundtracks which would *override* the game's own soundtrack. Of course, people aren't forced to use custom music, they could stick to the games original soundtrack if they preffered, but the option to listen to you own music in any game is entirely up to the individual, it would just be nice to have the option.
Can't be done, if you really want it to override the game's own soundtrack. With great difficulty, it could be done where the soundtrack plays on top of the existing soundtrack, but I'm sure you can appreciate that playing 2 music tracks at once takes more processing than playing just one. It would interrupt during cutscenes, it would play during menus, whilst the game is paused, and would require a great deal of development effort to get working without any performance hit.
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