Whoever said that Stranger would be a port on either system?
And Soul Calibur 2 was originally made for Gamecube and then ported to Xbox and PS2, and each version looks just as good. Same thing with Spider-man (PC/PS2/GCN/Xbox), Silent Hill 2 (PC/PS2/Xbox), Silent Hill 3 (PC/PS2), Vice City (PC/PS2/Xbox), and The Thing (PC/PS2/Xbox).
Developers DO often do a good deal of additional engine coding during the porting process in order to get it running smoothly on other systems. They have to, otherwise it wouldn't run at all, since each console has a different operating system. It'd be like trying to run a PC game on a Mac.
Besides, the only real downgrade that occurs when porting a game to PS2 is the lack of bumpmapping support, but from what we've seen of stranger, that doesn't seem to be employed much anyways.
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and it will probably be developped on xbox by OWI themself and then EA will find someone to convert it to PS2
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With the recent problems betwen OWI and Microsoft, I'm surprised they're even making the game for Xbox. Microsoft basically told OWI to fsck themselves. The only reason they're probably still making an Xbox version is because fans that bought one for Munch's Oddysee would be pissed off if they had to buy a PS2 as well in order to play Stranger.