They should scrap the PS3 version.

[Zenaku]

Understood but he likely just means improved assets for the PC version, higher quality shaders, more detailed, larger textures.

This doesn't mean they are going to be able to add assets though. They can add zones no problem (big reason why the seamless design was scrapped so that they can get this running on the PS3) but they are going to be able to add very many more common assets (eg player weapons and armor) because they would need to be added to both version and there simply isn't enough memory on the PS3 to do so. They -might- be able to do some creative texture swapping with some LOD tricks like UE3 does but more model variation is going to be out of the question.

Now they might be budgeting memory on the current version for another expansion maybe two so they can add a handful of new item looks, but it is without question already impacting design decisions in ARR. No variation of animations across races for example and the relatively small zones are already an example.

When you talking about memory are you talking about the RAM on the ps3 or the HDD?

[Ladon]

When you talking about memory are you talking about the RAM on the ps3 or the HDD?

RAM. The M is for memory.

For those not aware how this works I'll try a simple explanation. When a zone 'loads' it is moving all needed graphic assets (models, textures, lighting info etc) to RAM. Basically there are two types of assets, local assets and common assets. Local assets are pretty much the environment and NPCs that are present in the current zone. These can change as you zone as Limsa is going to have a different local asset set as Gridania. Adding a bunch of zones isn't a problem since you just have to make sure the current zone fits into memory and you don't need the assets from another zone loaded.

The second type of assets are common assets. These are the assets that are going to cause problems with the PS3 version. Common assets are assets that must always be loaded along with the local assets. These assets are things such as player models, armor textures, weapon textures, animations, etc. You have to load ALL of these along with every zone into memory because there is a possibility of any combination of them being needed to display since players can have any number of gear configurations on the various races. Common assets are only going to be able to get so big before they no longer can fit in the PS3 memory along with the local assets. So they are going to have to limit these as it is expected all items in the PC version are present in the PS3 version.

EDIT : By the way, everybody remembers the "Sorry, no new animation on FFXI because of PS2 limitations"
Guess what...we've been treated new weapon skills with totally different animations...and the PS2 can display it, what a shock !
Without even considering all the new designs for armors and monster that we had throughout the years and still have with the next expansion.

FFXI used a simple animation system in comparison to what ARR is using. ARR animation data is magnitudes larger than FFXI animation data so adding one in ARR requires a LOT more resources than in did in FFXI. Added FFXI armor design was also mostly just texture recolors and again the assets were MUCH smaller. The problem here is that assist RAM requirements for ARR have grown MUCH larger in comparison to the increase in available RAM on the PS3 compared to asset sizes on the PS2 and its available RAM.