SEGA-AM2 president Hiroshi Kataoka and SEGA R&D 4 Section Chief Noriyuki Shimoda talk all things Virtua Fighter 5.

VF5 is looking real pretty
VF5 is looking real prettyVF5 is looking real pretty

Speaking in the latest issue of Ge-Maga, translated by IGN, the pair have been sharing some information on Virtua Fighter 5, which is currently in development for the arcade and PlayStation 3.

Kataoka revealed that although the game only appeared at E3 in arcade form, the PlayStation 3 version is in an advanced state and 'home specific' features are now being added. We're also told not to worry about television types, as the game will play just fine on widescreen and 4:3 displays.

Asked about his thoughts of the PS3, Kataoka said that the console is "not expensive," given the advanced technology inside the next-gen system. He also said that all this technology would be seen as a bargain if it was released under the Vaio brand, but for a console the price is pretty daring.

Shimoda feels it was a wise move by Sony to include a hard disk as standard. "I'm very thankful that it has a hard disk. It's not the case that Blu-ray's transfer speed is fast compared to DVD, and with the increase in the data amount, we were worried about just how long load times would take. If we cache data to the hard disk, the loading time drops dramatically."

Speaking as to why the game was coming to PlayStation 3 and not Xbox 360, Kataoka said a "big reason is that the Lindbergh and PS3 GPUs are both from NVIDIA, so the technical barriers are low. Also, VF5 is tuned to the limits of the Lindbergh's capabilities, so multiplatform development would have been difficult."

That's not to say the pair were down on the Xbox 360. "I believe that if development is done with multiplatform in mind, there probably won't be a difference in the abilities of the PS3 and Xbox 360," said Kataoka.

Expect to see much more of Virtua Fighter 5 at the Tokyo Game Show in September.