According to various Japanese publications, the new Resident Evil 4 team is encountering a few problems porting Resident Evil 4 to the PS2. Why do you ask? Hardware, Hardware, Hardware.
One of the big issues the team over at Capcom is facing is the fact that the PS2's texture memory capacity is far smaller than the Gamecube's. In the Gamecube version of Resident Evil 4, players were treated to 24 bit textures. However, in the PS2 version, expect 8 and 4 bit textures. That is quite the downgrade.
But no sir, it doesn't end there.
Leon's polygon count, in order to run on the inferior PS2 hardware, will have to drop from the original 10,000 polygons to a mere 5,000, slightly more than Snake from Metal Gear Solid 3.
The PS2, does however, have a large Direct Memory Access bandwidth, which will allow the developers to provide a high amount of textures into the game. But, if they choose to do this, the game's framerate will drop substantially, this is due to the PS2's, as stated before, limited texture memory capacity. And, of course, any extra lighting or texture layers will slow down the framerate more. It is expected, that if all the Gamecube features are included, the PS2 version will run at 30 frames per second. Compare that to the Gamecube version's smooth 60.
In conclusion, Resident Evil 4 is the perfect hardware comparison between the PS2 and Gamecube. But PS2 owners, do not fear! Extras are to be included into the PS2 version, such as a gallery and making of featurette!
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