So I played around 10-12 hours of the Final Fantasy XIII on the Xbox 360 before putting it down... the video compression was just unforgivable. I get it's a big game, but other developers have managed to not make 360 games look like ass, why can't Square Enix. I guess you could put it down to the conversion of a once PS3 exclusive game to a technically inferior console, but I'm hoping with XIII-2 they got it right and it won't suck.

So I did a Google search for info, but to no avail. So can anyone tell me, has there been an indications that the Xbox 360 version will be as good as the PS3 one? I heard it's on one DVD this time ... that just sounds like a step backwards to me.

Huh? I played the 360 version of FF13, and it was awesome.

I played the 360 version of XIII and it was fine, the compression wasn't that bad.

Supposedly it being able to fit on one DVD implies that everything is rendered in real time. Don't take it as fact, I just remember hearing it somewhere before. 
 
BTW, the 360 is hardly technically inferior to the PS3, but I really don't want to go there.

I played what I did of that game on the 360 and I don't remember the videos looking bad at all. That game was nothing if not a looker.

Of course, the only thing I really remember about that game was the rage I felt as I watched my party mill about the battlefield aimlessly, sometimes bunching up together just in time for a Firaga.

360 version looked FINE

DAT BINK VIDEO

I'm sure there will still be compression used if there are any videos in the 360 version.

They said alot of the blueray quaility cutscenes were taken out and replaced by in game cutscenes. 360 only owners you're welcome. Your complaining has helped make an inferior version of the product standard.

@ShadowSkill11 said:

They said alot of the blueray quaility cutscenes were taken out and replaced by in game cutscenes. 360 only owners you're welcome. Your complaining has helped make an inferior version of the product standard.

Welcome to 2005. 360 is the base in where new games are made..

@Dany. Lol, it's fun to live in a fantasy world where we take things that are sometimes true and apply them to everything!

@Animasta. Yes it did look fine. In much the same way my grandpa who's worn glasses for 40 years says his sdtv looks fine and can't understand why people by 1080p LED hdtv's.

Looks like we have a couple of kiddies that broke free.

I think you kids meant to go on gametrailers.com

No need to thank me. Just don't come back.

@ShadowSkill11 said:

@Dany. Lol, it's fun to live in a fantasy world where we take things that are sometimes true and apply them to everything!

When making a multiplatform game developers start on the 360 because it is easier/cheaper to make them on the 360 and because it demands less of games, porting up to the PS3 is whats usually done.

Have they confirmed how many discs it is yet for the 360? I'm curious.

It will probably be the less polished of the two versions like the previous release, not unless square made some radical changes to their development process.

@ShadowSkill11: Can't say I really understand why people buy 1080 HDTV's either.

My housemate at the time was playing the PS3 version at the same time, literally in the room next to mine ... it really did look a lot better when I'd watch her play it. I mean I love my 360, but seeing the two side-by-side it was obvious which was the better version... I don't want to sound antagonistic.

In game cutscenes is a bit of a downer though... The awesome video were a good 'carrot on a stick' for me. Oh well, I'll give XIII-2 a shot... even without finishing XIII. But seriously, can I have an Xbox 720 now?? This generation has gone on too long.

@msavo said:

Have they confirmed how many discs it is yet for the 360? I'm curious.

http://au.xbox360.ign.com/articles/121/1212282p1.html

At the end of that story it's confirmed. I'm hesitant to say 100% ... but it seems pretty definite.

@Dany. Once again. SOme developers do that. This is Square-Enix, a japanese company. Try again

The only thing wrong with the 360 was bad video compression. Other than that, the parts where you actually PLAYED (This is a video game, not a movie) looked identical across both platforms.

C'mon guys, all of the FMV looked like dogshit on the 360 version, sometimes there were so many compression artifacts on screen that it was nigh-impossible to even tell what was happening.(I remember this being the case with the 'summons attack shit' cutscene near the end) I put the blame entirely on Square, though.(Other games, including FMV-loaded JRPGs have had great looking video on the 360.)

C'mon guys, all of the FMV looked like dogshit on the 360 version, sometimes there were so many compression artifacts on screen that it was nigh-impossible to even tell what was happening.(I remember this being the case with the 'summons attack shit' cutscene near the end) I put the blame entirely on Square, though.(Other games, including FMV-loaded JRPGs have had great looking video on the 360.)

@xyzygy said:

@Dallas_Raines said:

C'mon guys, all of the FMV looked like dogshit on the 360 version, sometimes there were so many compression artifacts on screen that it was nigh-impossible to even tell what was happening.(I remember this being the case with the 'summons attack shit' cutscene near the end) I put the blame entirely on Square, though.(Other games, including FMV-loaded JRPGs have had great looking video on the 360.)

Saying that you couldn't see what was going on is a massive over exaggeration.

If one were to add up everything that happened in the cutscenes prior to that one, it still wouldn't be able to surpass the craziness from the various summons. Like some other folks said, the cutscenes were few and far in between, and even when they did show up, there weren't anything special. All that really matters is how the in-game stuff looks (graphics-wise, anyway).

@ShadowSkill11 said:

@Dany. Lol, it's fun to live in a fantasy world where we take things that are sometimes true and apply them to everything!

When making a multiplatform game developers start on the 360 because it is easier/cheaper to make them on the 360 and because it demands less of games, porting up to the PS3 is whats usually done.

I'd rather be safe and get the PS3 version if you're planning on playing this game. I never even got halfway through FF XIII.

Isn't the 360 version of FFXIII-2 going to be FFXIII-2? If so, then that's your problem right there.

I remmeber seeing coverage at E3 with the title being shown on the 360, so even if it does look poor they are pushing that as the standard to sell it (which if it was a massive difference they woudl probably be doing the opposite) so ultimately there isn't any perfect information right now but that alone makes me think they have at least made it better - especially since they are also doing that 360 only DLC (which is stupid by the way, but I digress...) so they pumping forward that version pretty heavily this time. I am still getting it on the PS3 though.

When I played a demo version of XIII-2 a few weeks ago, a Square rep said they were putting more work into achieving parity between the two versions this time, but who knows if that will actually pan out. I can tell you the (debug) PS3 version I was playing had some ugly frame rate problems at the time.

@Brad: Bradley! You say you played a demo, huh? I know you can't talk specifics, but did they fix...everything?

I've put 25 hours into the Japanese version on the PS3 since it came out.  I haven't seen any frame rate problems in it. I haven't played through the entire game yet, but everything I have felt just as smooth as FF13 in terms of graphical polish on the PS3. It's going to be hard to get an idea of what the 360 version is like because so few copies were sold. It was like a 10:1 difference in sales between versions.
 
I should post a blog with a condensed write-up of my experiences in it. I wrote a bunch of stuff for another forum, and so I just kind of need to assemble it. If anyone wants to read something like that then just give me a shout saying pretty please, and if like one person asks me then I'll probably do it.

Oh hey, a doin' it quick and dirty didn't take up too much time.

http://www.giantbomb.com/final-fantasy-xiii-2/61-33883/ffxiii-2-impressions/35-530668/#1

I'm playing through XIII now on the 360 and I gotta say some of the videos don't look all that great. It's not BAD but it's not really good either is the best way I'd describe it. When theres a lot of action it gets uncomfortably noticeable and you can barely tell during the slow story moments. My biggest annoyance is that this doesn't seem like a really hard fix. Like others have mentioned the 360 has plenty of really great looking games, most of which fit on one disc. These are all movies and it just looks like a rush job on downscaling the video. Honestly it almost looks like they took these 1080p blu ray quality clips and re-rendered them in 480p because at 720p resolution there wouldn't be that much artifacting.

Thankfully the gameplay itself looks great so the movies are just a minor annoyance once in a while. I actually own a PS3 so it's irksome for me because I keep thinking "man could have been playing this on the PS3 and had smooth baby butt videos and gameplay and wouldn't be shuffling discs around" but I'm too used to the 360 so I'm willing to pay the price.

360 version of FFXIII did the following in comparison to the PS3 version: 

•   - Ran at a lower native resolution (576p for gameplay/FMV cutscenes v. 720p for gameplay/1080p for FMV cutscenes)
• - Worse FMV encoding/compression
• - Worse audio compression
• - Lower framerate later on in the game

For FFXIII-2, they've basically gimped the PS3 version a tiny bit (both run at 719p throughout, the video/audio codecs are still better on PS3 [360 version still uses Bink], the game has a lot less FMV's, and both have shitty framerates) to compensate for the fact that the PS3 version is going to sell a lot more copies than the 360 version.  I don't get it, either.

For anyone curious about an amazing comparison for the original FF13, these dudes have the best I've seen on the net. As someone who owns both versions of the games and fully completed it on both platforms I can tell you that it is entirely accurate. I will also say as a bonus that I started on the 360 version and thought the game looked amazing but when my PS3 copy arrived in the mail later that day I was absolutely blown away and thought the 360 version looked crummy in comparison (which it does). It isn't something you notice until you see both games back to back on your own personal tv, until then it's hard to really say the 360 version is bad in comparison. 
 
Also as a bonus, they have a similar thing going for FF13-2 and it's clear SE put in a lot of effort (or if you want to be cynical, any effort at all finally) into making the 360 version not look as terrible this time around.

The stuff I liked about FFXIII was the battle system. I coudn't care less about the quality of the cutscenes when I didn't really like the characters and didn't find the story compelling.

On my 32 inch Samsung the 360 version cutscenes looked pretty awful compared to the PS3 version. On my 42 inch 1080p Samsung, oddly enough, the compression seemed much less noticeable, almost not even detectable. Oh and the 360 version of 13-2 looks great, in and out of cutscenes.

Been playing the 360 version for about 6 hours now and it looks good to me, the only thing that has really bothered me is that the "Previously on Final Fantasy XIII-2" that is shown every time you load up your save looks really bad. That video segment is like really really low res and looks nothing like it looked the first time they showed those cutscenes.

XIII looked great, no reason to believe XIII-2 won't look as good, if not better.