PS3 and Xbox 360 "look even", says Silicon Knights boss

Silicon Knights president Denis Dyack has said he believes the PlayStation 3 and Xbox 360 are on the same level when it comes to performance.

Speaking to Dean Takahashi of the Mercury News, Dyack said, "Maybe the PS3 has more processing power. The 360 has more available memory. It's pretty much a net, net.

"The public perception of the PS3 was that it was much more powerful. To developers, they look even."

Dyack did go on to say that their could potentially be more power in the PlayStation 3 - but that it's harder to harness. "You have to get the timing right," he said, referring to the challenge of keeping all the Cell's sub-processors running.

Dyack is also less than sold on the platform holders' favourite resolution, 1080p, arguing that the difference between it and 720p is "questionable".

"All of our games are likely to be 720p because of the faster refresh rates," he told Takahashi. "There are all kinds of trade-offs. It takes a lot more RAM to do 1080p. You'll reserve RAM for the textures. 720p is just less pixels. [But] There is definitely a huge difference from 720p and analog."

Silicon Knights is currently at work on the first game in the Too Human trilogy for Xbox 360, which is being built using Unreal Engine 3. The studio has yet to consider making games for the Nintendo Wii, with Dyack stating that it remains to be seen whether the "controller stands the test of time".

On the question of who will win the next-gen console battle he said, "It's a tough one. Microsoft is looking really good. Everyone is looking pretty good. At the beginning, everyone thought Sony would walk away with it. We won't know for sure for two years."