God of War III only uses 50% of PlayStation 3’s power

In an interview with UGDB, Stig Asmussen, Game Director of God of War III, discussed many topics surrounding the final addition to the God of War Trilogy. One of the statements that made the most impact on us was how Stig clarified that God of War III is only utilizing 50% of the PlayStation 3’s potential power. Now, this was odd to us mainly because of how well the game plays and how crazy good it looks.

When asked if the development team could have gotten more out of the PlayStation 3 for GOWIII, Stig replied with, “Absolutely, we can do much more with it. I don’t know if we are even close to 50% of PlayStation 3’s power at this point.”

When you look back at past titles that claim they’ve used all of the PS3’s power such as Uncharted 2, it makes you wonder what more could have been achieved had the GOW team decided to push the console even further.

Regardless of how much power is being consumer, it’s easy to see that God of War III is going to be an epic game for PlayStation 3 owners to enjoy. Just think, there are only a few days left until release.

Readers Comments (23)

  1. Sounds interesting, but what if it used 75%, at the end of this generation do you think games will start using the PS3 at 100%.

  2. VofEscaflowne March 12, 2010 @ 12:07

    I’m not sure if I always believe claims like this. Or maybe I just don’t know enough about (okay, nothing :p) programming but if they know they still have 50% of a system’s power to use, what’s stopping them from taking advantage of it? It seems to me that games advance when developers learn how to cleverly manage the system’s resources.

    But yes, only a few days. I can’t believe I’ve held off on pretty much all media since the E3 demo! This is gonna be an amazing experience once it releases and I’ll be sure to be at EB Tuesday morning to pick up the Ultimate Edition 😉

  3. Well, it’s not just how much power you’ve got; it’s about how you are using that power. So Naughty Dog says they used 100 % of the PS3 to make Uncharted 2?, does that mean Uncharted 3 won’t be superior?. . . . Of course not xD.

    At the end of the day, you can use less power BUT be more efficent to “compensate”.

  4. A console will never be used at 100%. Even if it is, there’s back doors for optimizing everything to make games look even better.

  5. i agree with thorzilla, a console will never be optimized 100%, as there will always be more room for workarounds, and optimize the existing engine, but i wished GoW3 should have been at levels of UC2, never the less god of war 3 looks better than anything on 360

  6. i wonder what games would look like utilizing the systems full potential, then again how do we know that it hasn’t already been achieved, how exactly is determined? guess work?

  7. Some of Gow’s graphics are the best on any console to date, beating out KZ2 and even UC2. But Gow3’s graphics are inconsistent as some areas are just really good(but not awsome compared to UC2 or KZ2), while some npc are just good(barely passing). This is based on the IGN review. UC2 is more consistent with their graphics and overall has a better look.

  8. I think a lot of developers are stretching the truth about how much power they’ve used.

  9. PS4 has got to be something completely insane to make me want to upgrade. The games, accessories, and price of the PS3 are getting better and better and still have so far to go.

  10. i knew uncharted2 was using somewere 60 to 70 % of the full ps3s potencial, because with the curent ps3 setup about 30% of the ps3 is unused
    but i newer imagined that a game like god of war 3 would be using only 50% of the ps3s power
    if this is what games on the ps3 look like right now
    than i cant wait to see what ill be playing on my ps3 5 years from now

  11. Patrick Steen March 12, 2010 @ 18:27

    Anyone who says they’re using 50% of the PS3’s power is simplifying things. Each and every game uses 100% of the PS3’s power – where the arbitary percentage comes in is with what the developer’s think they could further get out of the console. God of War III is utilising 100% of the PS3’s power now, but the developers may believe that they could improve their coding and get more out of the PS3 in the future. That prediction of extra potential power is a complete guess…and in reality Sony Santa Monica are using 100% of the PS3 right now.

  12. @Patrick Steen: You are absolutley right. It all comes down to how efficient your are with the power you have, not just how much power you can use.

  13. Wow so quicklly Nughty dog was outdone
    I wish they wouldn;t say things like this. It makes me feel like the game is less than it can be, no dought GOWIII will satify.

  14. i think it depends on the engine some r good some r bad like CRY ENGINE 3 looks better than GOW engine

  15. this reminds me of when a dev of killzone stated that KZ2 used only 60% of the PS3’s GRAPHICAL power…..and i think GoW3 is about the same…i think he’s making the sound better than it is (using only 50%) whereas it may be using 60-75%

    the PS3 is still a damn beast tho!

  16. I don’t give a crap how much power any game uses, so long as it’s fun to play. GTAIV looks like ass now compared to games that have come out over the past year, but it’s still in my top-5 for this gen.

  17. Moocows111111 March 13, 2010 @ 23:04

    “I don’t give a crap how much power any game uses, so long as it’s fun to play. GTAIV looks like ass now compared to games that have come out over the past year, but it’s still in my top-5 for this gen.”

    Yeah XD As long as the game is either …. Fun, Emotionally evoking, or just epic, then its a good game. If God of War is using only 50% of the ps3’s power then it could have been twice as awesome?
    Besides, we still need a game that uses 100% of BluRay (Metal Gear Solid 4) and 100% of the Ps3’s Power (Uncharted 2 used 100% of the Cell’s Graphical Power XD) then we would have One beastly amazing game XD

  18. Well this is gd news as we can expect even greater games in the future which use the entire power of the ps3. God of war looks awesome with only 50% so i cant imagine what they will be able to do in the future.

  19. winne the pooh March 14, 2010 @ 10:34

    sorry this is random but i was wondering if god of war 3 has a gore filter as my mum dosent want my ittle bro seeing alll the gore. please answer

  20. Remember. GOW3 uses almost a full Blu-Ray disk. I think like 40%…and that’s uncompressed data. Right? So if they did add more to this game. wouldn’t that mean compressing and denying the game of some amazing Feats?

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